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Scammers Threatening YouTube Content Creators with Channel Suspension

Scammers are now using the threat of channel suspension to coerce YouTube content creators into meeting their demands and sending over money. These digital attackers are specifically targeting YouTube's policy infringement system through which users can report a video that they feel violates the video-sharing website's policies for acceptable...
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Introducing Zombie POODLE and GOLDENDOODLE

I’m excited to announce that I will be presenting at this year’s Black Hat Asia about my research into detecting and exploiting CBC padding oracles! Zombie POODLE and GOLDENDOODLE are the names I’ve given to the vulnerabilities I’ll be discussing. Similar to ROBOT, DROWN and many other vulnerabilities affecting HTTPS, these issues stem from...
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Houzz Says Security Incident Might Have Exposed User Data

Home design website and community Houzz revealed that a security incident might have exposed some users' personal and account data. On 1 February, Houzz published a security update explaining that it detected the security event in late December 2018. The company didn't provide exact details about how...
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#TripwireBookClub – Pentesting Azure Applications

For the final book purchase of 2018, members of VERT decided to read "Pentesting Azure Applications: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Securing Deployments," written by Matt Burrough and published by No Starch Press. Matt has spent nearly four years with Microsoft’s Digital Security & Risk Engineering (DSRE) Red Team as a Senior Penetration Tester...
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Tripwire Patch Priority Index for January 2019

Tripwire's January 2019 Patch Priority Index (PPI) brings together the top vulnerabilities from Microsoft, Adobe and Oracle. First on the patch priority list this month are patches for Microsoft's Browser and Scripting Engine. These patches resolve six vulnerabilities, including fixes for Memory Corruption, Elevation of Privilege and Remote Code...
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Airbus Reveals It Suffered a Digital Security Incident

European aerospace corporation Airbus SE has revealed that a digital security incident recently affected some of its computer systems. In a press release published on 30 January, Airbus confirmed that its “Commercial Aircraft business” information systems suffered a security incident. The corporation said that the event did not affect Airbus'...
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Malware: Three Industry Problems and How to Solve Them

In the last few years, organizations have been subject to extortion through ransomware. Now, hackers are bypassing the nasty business of trying to get people to give them cryptocurrency to simply hijacking your processor to mine for cryptocurrency. As a result, the methods employed are growing in sophistication and creativity, including using...
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Web Hosting Security Best Practices

If you’ve been online recently, you may have read the news about hackers demanding a ransom from Dublin’s tram system. Visitors to the Luas website were greeted by the hackers’ message threatening to publish the stolen information unless they were paid one Bitcoin (approximately 3,300 Euros or US $3,800). While the message itself appeared to be...
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Malvertising Campaign Used Steganography to Distribute Shlayer Trojan

A short-lived malvertising campaign leveraged a steganography-based payload to target Mac users with the Shlayer trojan. Named for its use of veryield-malyst[dot]com as one of its ad-serving domains, the "VeryMal" threat actor conducted its malvertising campaign between 11 January 2019 and 13 January 2019. That's not a long time period to remain...
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Passwords at risk for users who fall for voicemail phishing emails

Security researchers are warning of a new wave of phishing emails which are using an unusual disguise in their attempt to both bypass scanners at email gateways and dupe unsuspecting users. The attack arrives in users' inboxes in the form of an email purporting to be a notification about a voice message using subject lines such as "PBX Message," ...
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Securing Government Data with NIST 800-53

If you have ever heard of the Federal Information Security Management Act, then you are aware of the work done by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The goal of the Act, not to mention the subsequent documents that resulted from strategies designed around implementing it, led NIST to create works designed to bolster security on the...
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Adware Installers Disguised as Cracks Installing STOP Ransomware

STOP ransomware is using adware installers disguised as cracks as a new method of distributing itself to unsuspecting users. According to Bleeping Computer creator and owner Lawrence Abrams, websites known for distributing software cracks, or software which has been modified to remove or disable certain features, commonly use adware bundles to...
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New Phobos Ransomware Using Same Ransom Note as Dharma

A new strain of ransomware known as "Phobos" is using the same ransom note employed by Dharma to demand payment from its victims. Ransomware incident response provider Coveware found that Phobos' ransom message differs from Dharma's only in the branding used for its header and footer. Otherwise, the notes are exactly the same. ...
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IVR – A Response to Automated Calling

The FCC and most consumers are getting annoyed of “illegitimate” automated calling systems from calling. Most automated calling systems are hiding behind a spoofed caller ID, and blocking the number is not possible. Consumers that are really annoyed are looking for practical solutions. Furthermore, the FCC is pushing for caller authentication in 2019 to remove the “illegitimate” uses of caller ID...