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BlackShades RAT Co-Creator Receives Five Years of Probation

An American man has received five years of probation for co-creating the BlackShades remote access trojan (RAT). On Friday, Michael Hogue, 25, of Arizona, who went by the name "xVisceral" online, received his sentence from U.S. District Judge Keven Castel in Manhattan after pleading guilty back in 2013 to distributing the malware and conspiring to...
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Temporary and Disposable Email: Anonymity, Privacy or Security?

There are several websites available that offer temporary and disposable email addresses, which have become quite popular among Internet users today, as they provide a quick alternative to anyone who wishes for their email address to remain private when sending and receiving emails. Temporary and Disposable Email/SMS - What you Need to Know Some...
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Are Financial Services IT Pros Overconfident in Data Breach Detection Skills?

Tripwire studied confidence vs. knowledge of financial services IT security pros on seven key security controls necessary to detect a data breach. For many controls IT pros believed they had the information necessary to detect a breach quickly but provided contradictory information about the specific data. ...
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Activist Dumps Data of America's Largest Police Union

On Thursday, an activist posted online a data dump of private files belonging to the United States' largest police union. The Guardian reports that the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), a union which represents 333,000 law American enforcement personnel, has contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigations and requested that it investigate how 2.5GB of...
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4 Factors Behind the Rise of Exploit Kits as a Service

It has been a busy couple of months for the web's most notorious exploit kits (EKs). Back in September, researchers detected a ransomware attack that leveraged outdated content management systems (CMS) in order to redirect user traffic to malicious domains infected with the Neutrino exploit kit and Teslacrypt ransomware. Another ransomware attack...
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Vulnerability Management Program Best Practices – Part 3

This is the conclusion to a three-part series of building a successful vulnerability management program. The first installment focused on Stage One, the vulnerability scanning progress. Without a foundation of people and process, the remaining stages are prone to failure. The second installment focused on Stage Two and Three, using a vulnerability...
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Surfing the New Wave of Endpoint Security

Today, the modern IT environment has evolved beyond personal computers to include servers, workstations and point-of-sale (PoS) terminals. This complexity is forcing admins and security personnel everywhere to rethink how to protect all of their new endpoints. Eric Ogren, Senior Security Analyst at 451 Research, in particular sees that a new era in...
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Ukrainian Attack: Another Wake Up Call?

Critical infrastructure is under attack with disastrous implications that could alter our environment, such as disrupting service or even threatening public safety. The Ukraine attack resulting in six hours of loss of power for more than 80,000 customers is a recent reminder. According to an October 2015 report in CyberWarNews, “every bit of U.S....
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A Guide on 4 Common Facebook Scams

In January, I discussed how scammers commonly use money-based schemes, bot spam, pay-per-follower ploys, illegitimate direct messages (DMs), and worms to harass Twitter users. These malicious actors are in it for the money and/or for unauthorized access. They do not care where or how they need to compromise someone in order to obtain what they want,...
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Centene Begins Notifying 950,000 Members of Possible Data Breach

Centene Corporation has begun the process of notifying 950,000 members who may have been affected by a possible data breach. On Monday, the multi-line healthcare enterprise announced that it was launching a search for six hard drives that are currently unaccounted for among its information technology assets: "Centene takes the privacy and security...
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Cyberwarfare in 2016: The Virtual Battle for Your Information

In the 21st century, we can expect information technology to play a major role in international espionage and conflict. We hear constant news reports of data theft. Accusations made by world powers of online tampering or detrimental hacking are a common occurrence. Many of these accusations go unfounded, but they prove that the internet is...
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The Halfling-Dragon Principle of Password Creation

There’s an old principle in tabletop RPG (Role Playing Games) circles that goes something like this: If you find yourself in the company of a halfling and an ill-tempered dragon, remember that you do not have to outrun the dragon; you simply have to outrun the halfling. In the context of security and specifically password creation, this principle...
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Security as Discipline, Not Technology

It’s not much of a stretch these days to say that technology is becoming essential to our daily lives. We trust so much to our technology, from our bank accounts and financial statements to sensitive medical records and even (potentially) embarrassing personal information. We have complex interactions with non-human entities in which we share...
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Reaping the Returns of an Information Security Investment

People ask me, “What do you do?” When I answer with, “I am a penetration tester,” I find that people generally just nod along and pretend they know what it is that I actually do. However, on the day where I am in the mood to razzle dazzle, I answer with “I am a hacker!” The reactions generally vary between priceless disbelief and excitement. But in...