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RBS Systems Failure: At the End of the Day, Nobody Died!

With the advent of the recent failure of RBS banking systems, there is a question on the lips of many security professionals, not to mention the aware members of the public, asking: “Are today's banking systems and the applied management fit for purpose?” The initiator of this particular article was born out of the recent debacle of the failing of...
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OPM Takes Background Investigations Portal Offline Due to Vulnerability

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has taken offline a web-based platform used to complete background investigations due to the discovery of a security vulnerability. According to a statement posted on the OPM's website, the move to temporarily suspend the portal, known as E-QIP, follows a comprehensive review of the government agency's IT...
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The OPM Breach: Timeline of a Hack

Updated: July 10, 2015 - 9:00 AM PST The United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has recently been in the news for two separate breaches that may have compromised the information of as many as 18 million former, current and prospective federal employees. Significantly, the story of these two intrusions stretches back to as early as spring...
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In the Trenches: Helen Patton, Ohio State University CISO

I was recently quoted in eCampus News regarding the recent cyber attack against Penn State, which triggered a number of conversations with CISO's at various academic institutions. One of these conversations was with Helen Patton, the Chief Information Security Officer for Ohio State University. I had a very interesting dialogue with her via email,...
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Magnitude EK Targets Adobe 0Day to Deliver CryptoWall Ransomware

The Magnitude exploit kit (EK) is leveraging a recently patched zero-day vulnerability found in Adobe Flash Player to drop CryptoWall ransomware. Early last week, Adobe released a security update for the critical vulnerability CVE-2015-3113, which affects Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. If unpatched, the flaw allows for an attacker to take control of...
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How to Deal with the Rise of Digital Abuse

On my way to a client site, I was listening with interest to a report on Radio 4 discussing a news article covering the rise of offences against women, including offences associated with the cowardly utilisation of the Internet to target, stalk, and to impose mental anguish and misery on the intended target of abuse. However, to maintain the correct...
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Cisco Issues Patches for Multiple Default SSH Keys Vulnerabilities

Cisco has released patches for SSH keys vulnerabilities affecting several of its virtual appliances. The vulnerabilities were discovered during internal security testing and have been found to affect Cisco Web Security Virtual Appliance (WSAv), Cisco Email Security Virtual Appliance (ESAv), and Cisco Security Management Virtual Appliance (SMAv). ...
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5 Practical Steps for Proactive Hardening of Your WS2003 Systems

If you read my previous post about Microsoft ending extended support for Windows Server 2003 (WS2003) on July 14, 2015, you’re familiar with what that means - Microsoft will not be providing further security patches, hot fixes, or software updates without a costly extended support agreement. “Many IT teams are very comfortable using Windows Server...
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Expedia, Travelocity, Hotels.com Warn Customers of Phishing Scam

A number of popular travel sites have alerted customers of fraudulent emails and SMS messages posing as the legitimate companies in an attempt to lure users into disclosing their personal information. According to reports, a similar notice was recently sent out to customers of online travel agencies Travelocity and Hotels.com, as well as their...
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Business Email Compromise Scam Alert Issued by FS-ISAC

The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) has issued an alert warning companies of a continued increase in wire transfer fraud due to business email compromise (BEC) scams. The product of a joint effort with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service, the alert discusses BEC attacks and provides...
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The 5 Most Common Attack Patterns of 2014

Tripwire is pleased to announce the release of its newest infographic, “Where Are Your Cyberattacks Coming From?” Created in response to the release of Verizon’s 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR 2015) back in April, the infographic explains the five most common attack patterns behind today’s data breaches. In this article, I will review...
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Gift Card Fraud: How It’s Committed and Why It’s So Lucrative

Gift cards have caused quite a headache for retailers in the last month, exposing another way that fraudulent activity can eat into razor-thin profit margins. Gift card fraud can range from physical theft to cloning to exploiting programming errors on the merchant side. The methods of attack are very similar to what is seen with credit card fraud,...
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VERT Vuln School: Return-Oriented Programming (ROP) 101

In the beginning, there were stack buffer overflows everywhere. Overflowing data on the stack made for a quick and easy way to subvert a program to run code provided by an attacker. Initially, this meant simply overwriting the saved return address on the stack with the location of shellcode typically on the stack and perhaps prefaced by a NOP sled,...
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Did The Aviation Industry Fail Cybersecurity 101?

Most of us in the cybersecurity industry are familiar with a recent “tweet heard around the world.” Yes, I’m referring to the infamous tweet that caused Chris Roberts to be removed from a United Airlines flight. This incident has undoubtedly generated much criticism aimed at both Roberts and the airline industry. I am not writing this article to...
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The Difference Between Cybersecurity Literacy and Awareness

The issue of cybersecurity has finally gained the attention of top company decision-makers in light of the ongoing large-scale breaches that continue to jeopardize company assets and customers’ privacy. However, as executives and board members become more aware of the impact of cyber attacks on the business, is awareness enough to allow them to...