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Situational Awareness: Beware of Your Cyber Surroundings

In previous articles on understanding big data, the need for AI, using encryption and tokenization (including the drawbacks of encryption), and the series on human vulnerabilities, we laid down just some of the building blocks necessary to create a robust cybersecurity strategy. Yet there is a larger problem we often experience: losing the trees for...
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How to Build a Secure Wordpress Environment

In Part 1 of this series, we covered how easy it is for any novice to set up a self-hosted WordPress site and how quickly security can fall between the cracks. In this blog post, I will share with you what to look for in a Webhost provider, how to secure and harden WordPress, and what often-overlooked items you should watch out for during this...
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April 2017: The Month in Ransomware

Online extortionists took their attacks to a whole new level last month. They brought the infamous Locky monster back to life after more than three months of hiatus. The architects of the Jigsaw ransomware campaign were busier than ever, contriving seven new variants of their plague. The Hidden Tear, EDA2, and CryptoWire proof-of-concept ransomware...
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Phishers Spoofing Email Senders to Muck around with Victims' Web Accounts

Users encounter phishing attacks across every medium of their digital lives. Fortunately, there are lots of ways they can protect themselves. When a suspect email lands in their inbox, for example, recipients can check for grammar/spelling errors and other suspicious indicators. They can also verify the source by hovering over or clicking on the...
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Kazuar's API Access Lets Trojan Run Commands on Compromised Systems

A backdoor espionage trojan known as Kazuar has API access that it can leverage to run commands on the systems it compromises. The malware, which is written in Microsoft's .NET Framework and uses the ConfuserEX open source packer, initializes by gathering system and malware information and using those items to generate a mutex. It then creates a...
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Building on a Solid Foundation: Future-Proof your IT Environment

In today's expanding world of digital security threats, some truths are self-evident. Information security professionals must understand: That change happens That protecting customers and preventing unnecessary downtime is both a financial and moral imperative That we can only collect intelligence on things that we monitor That we must...
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Cyber Security in Canada's Schools: An Interview with Pierre Clavet

We at The State of Security recently began interviewing educators who are helping to launch cyber security programs in Canada's schools. Last time, we spoke with Benjamin Kelly, a teacher at Caledonia Regional High School in New Brunswick. We'll now speak with Pierre Clavet of Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick (CCNB). Maribeth Pusieski:...
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Report: Healthcare Data Breaches Hit Record High In 2016

Healthcare organizations reported 328 data breaches in 2016, a substantial increase from 268 the previous year and setting a new all-time high for the industry. According to Bitglass’ 2017 Healthcare Breach Report, the breaches exposed the records of roughly 16.6 million Americans as a result of hacks, lost or stolen devices, unauthorized disclosure...
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ThunderCrypt Virus File Ransomware Explained

A new ransomware threat is on the loose, and users better be prepared for it in case it comes knocking on their door. And it’s not the Locky Virus this time! This latest malicious variant goes under the name of ThunderCrypt Virus File Ransomware. For now, it has mainly been infecting users in different Asian countries but if history is any...
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Making a Shift to the Cloud? Time to Reevaluate Your Security!

Chances are if you are reading this article, you have already moved some, or perhaps most, of your IT infrastructure to the cloud. While most organizations spend lots of time, energy and money developing strategies for integrating their important data and workflow to the cloud, they usually don’t worry about security and risk management strategies...
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Extending Security to the Cloud

The world of IT is moving to the cloud. Market data varies but estimates of cloud usage show approximately 20-25% of overall computing workloads operate in public cloud environments today, with that number expected to grow to 50% over the next 5-10 years (Goldman-Sachs forecast). Organizations are starting to operate in a hybrid environment that...
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Health IT Vendor Restores EHR Access Following Ransomware Attack

A vendor of health information technology has restored access to electronic health records (EHR) after it suffered a ransomware attack. On 24 April, EHR and revenue cycle management solutions provider Greenway Health disclosed the ransomware incident to its customers. CEO Scott Zimmerman said there was no evidence that those responsible for the...
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100 Days in Office: President Trump on Digital Security

April 29, 2017, marked Donald Trump's 100th day in office as President of the United States. Since his inauguration on January 20, President Trump has fulfilled his campaign promises of nominating a conservative judge to the Supreme Court and withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But he has yet to meet some of his other...
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Foundational Controls Work - A 2017 DBIR Review

When the 2017 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) came out last week, I read through it like I do every year. Each time I go through the report, I challenge myself to find something new and interesting. This year, I was intrigued by the "Things to consider" and "Areas of focus" at the end of each section. These two blurbs gave tips on...
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Bug Bounties: An Overview of Their Past, Present, and Future

Bug bounties, security acknowledgements and reward programs all have strong ties to IT security today. But that wasn't always the case. In the past, public penetration testers and security researchers mostly looked out for their personal benefit without recognizing their own responsibility to the security community. The reason? In a lot of cases,...
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4 Things Birdwatching Can Teach About Security Awareness

Sometimes you find inspiration in unlikely places. Never did I think, for example, that I would be able to connect my day job as a writer in the security awareness field with a burgeoning hobby of mine: birdwatching. But the more I “bird,” the more what I learn about birdwatching—both in the field and from birdwatching blogs—begins to filter into my...