The US Government has underlined once again that it continues to strongly discourage organisations hit by ransomware from giving in to extortion demands. In an updated advisory, the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has called upon businesses not to pay ransoms, and to focus on cybersecurity measures that can prevent...

Knowing who has credentials, how those credentials are granted, and how they are being used is the foundation of any secure environment. It begins with user accounts and the credentials they use. Maintaining a thorough inventory of all accounts and verifying any changes to those accounts as authorized and intentional vs unintended is paramount to...

Data breaches have reached a fever pitch over the last few years. The rapid frequency of successful attacks coupled with the rising costs to businesses has raised attention at the highest levels of global governments. In the past, breaches were relatively “localized,” that is, they affected the targeted company only. However, the newer attacks have...

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Act is a broad set of data privacy rules that define how an organization must handle and protect the personal data of citizens of the European Union (EU). The Regulation also outlines the way that organizations can report a data breach. Articles 33 and 34 outline the requirements for breach notification...

Cybersecurity has become a critical concern in every business sector nowadays due to organizations’ growing dependency on technologies. Research by Immersive Lab reported that in 2019 there were more than 20,000 new vulnerabilities. Not only that, TechRepublic reported that global companies experienced a 148% spike in ransomware attacks after COVID...

Tripwire Enterprise (TE) is at its heart a baselining engine. It’s been built to take information, create a baseline of it, and show when that baseline has changed. (It’s called a “version” in TE terms.) TE starts with a baseline version designated by an organization’s security teams. At some point, a change version with new information (file,...

Key Takeaways for Control 4 Most fresh installs of operating systems or applications come with pre-configured settings that are usually insecure or not properly configured with security in mind. Use the leverage provided by multiple frameworks such as CIS Benchmarks or NIST NCP to find out if your organization needs to augment or adjust any...

As part of our upcoming attendance at the International Cyber Expo & International Security Expo, we were lucky enough to sponsor The Cyber Security Webinar Series with Nineteen Group and Grey Hare Media. Both Philip Ingram MBE and Emanuel Ghebreyesus, strategic account director for Tripwire, spoke about several topics including: The increasing...

Today’s VERT Alert addresses Microsoft’s September 2021 Security Updates. VERT is actively working on coverage for these vulnerabilities and expects to ship ASPL-964 on Wednesday, September 15th. In-The-Wild & Disclosed CVEs CVE-2021-40444 This CVE describes a publicly exploited vulnerability in MSHTML that provides user level access upon...

In this episode, Tripwire's Brent Holder and Raymond Kirk discuss what cloud security means today. Breaking down the different aspects of cloud security controls, they cover the technology, security implications and risks with cloud use. https://open.spotify.com/episode/4yvvrk2lWICFAN4DpLtCHS Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show...

What are the limits of online privacy and law enforcement? Can we clearly define them, or is this a vague and blurred area of debate? The fact is that as technology advances, the real and the virtual worlds are increasingly converging. Actions (or inactions) in the cyberspace introduce risks and threats for people, especially the most vulnerable...

Talk to cybersecurity experts about cybercrime on their network, and they will mention malicious activity like scans, attacks, events, and incidents. Probably at some point, they will slip into geek-speak with a vast array of confusing acronyms and jargon while explaining tactics and techniques by referencing infamous attacks, Internal protocols,...

In a security advisory, Microsoft has warned that malicious hackers are exploiting an unpatched vulnerability in Windows to launch targeted attacks against organisations. The security hole, dubbed CVE-2021-40444, is a previously unknown remote code execution vulnerability in MSHTML, a core component of Windows which helps render web-based content. ...

For many years, there was a wide misunderstanding that encrypting some data is equivalent to protecting that data. If it’s encrypted, so the thinking goes, nobody else could access it, and it is therefore safe. While it is critical to encrypt data at rest as well as in transit, the job of protecting data goes much deeper. Encryption can mitigate...

The Internet of Things (IoT) includes items such as smart appliances, smartwatches, and medical sensors. For organizations to enjoy all of the benefits and convenience of IoT devices, enterprise customers must fully understand the potential risks and threats to their systems and the underlying data. IoT devices often lack built-in security controls...

Remember your first day on the job? You might groan just thinking about it, or maybe you are filled with the optimistic nostalgia of all the great things you set out to accomplish. It’s all a matter of your current perspective. One of the greatest apprehensions about that first day is meeting all of your new colleagues. Someone probably gave you...

On May 13, Verizon released its Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) 2021. This annual publication serves many purposes. It yields context into what security analysts are seeing, for instance. But it also affects organizations’ security postures at an even higher level. Here’s Anthony Israel-Davis, research and development manager at Tripwire,...

Data breaches are now part of doing business, with many companies having been affected. Data is very valuable to criminals because it is often used to commit fraudulent activities as well as to enhance the credibility of scams. Data that is stolen ranges from Social Security Numbers (SSNs) to other identification documents and payment details. ...