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DDoS Group Claims Responsibility for Xbox Live Outages

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) group has claimed responsibility for a series of global outages to Xbox Live, Microsoft's online gaming network for the Xbox console. Recently, members of the group, which calls itself the New World Hackers, sat down with Newsweek to explain the motivation behind its alleged attacks. “Well, didn’t even take as...
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Endpoint Protection Warrants a Proactive Approach

Endpoints are more important than ever in today's connected world. As business increases, most organizations find it necessary to connect a variety of new devices to their networks to keep up with the demands of competing in a global economy. Each of these endpoint nodes may be devices with which employees interact on an ongoing basis, but they...
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Access Control in 2016 - What you Need to Know

Access control is one of those topics that often means different things to different people. In its most basic form, it is simply the “restriction of access to a resource." Unfortunately, as you drill down into what that actually means for your organization, things usually get muddy. For some people, it is simply selectively granting user access to...
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GDPR – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Unless you’ve been living out in the remotest frontier of some Data Protection Wild West, you will no doubt be aware that a ‘supervisory authority’ Sheriff will soon be riding into town, clutching a lengthy new scroll of law and order in the form of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). ICYMI or simply passed over it as not particularly...
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How Can we Remember all Those Passwords?

Despite the existence of a number of advanced authentication mechanisms, such as Single Sign-On (SSO), different types of Biometrics, multi-factor authentication, etc., the use of passwords is still the most popular means of authenticating users. The need to generate, and hopefully to remember these passwords, has become even more demanding due to...
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BSidesSF 2016 Preview: Sweet Security

Securing the Internet of Things (IoT) has become increasingly difficult. Devices are often shipped with out-of-date operating systems and unmaintained code, which is littered with vulnerabilities. To add to the frustration, traditional security tools cannot be installed on many of these devices. For many users, especially home and SMBs, there are...
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Tripwire at RSA Conference 2016: Cyberwar @ the Endpoint

Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, the RSA Conference creates invaluable opportunities for attendees to connect with top security leaders, discover innovative technologies and deliberate the industry’s most pressing issues. With over 30,000 attendees, this annual event continues to help drive the information security agenda worldwide, and...
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GitHarvester: Finding Data on GitHub

Even if you are not a developer, you should be familiar with GitHub. If you are not familiar, then consider this blog post your introduction. GitHub is a large cloud-based software repository that uses the git protocol. Creating a GitHub account is painless and free for anyone who is interested. You don’t even need to supply a valid email address to...
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DevSecOps: The Marriage of SecOps and DevOps

IT and software development, departments that have historically had a somewhat contentious relationship, are on a collision course – and at the center of this convergence is security. The rapid adoption of public cloud infrastructure is enabling new levels of cost efficiency, business agility and development capability for organizations of all sizes...
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Why is Change Detection so Important?

It’s the new byword in federal cyber security: “Act as though your network is already compromised.” But what does it mean? DHS’s big cybersecurity programs focus on solutions that either catch the bad guys at the perimeter (Einstein), or harden individual assets to make compromise more difficult (CDM investments in asset management, vulnerability...
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Half of American Ransomware Victims Have Paid the Ransom, Reveals Study

Exactly half of all Americans who have fallen victim to ransomware have fulfilled the attackers' demands and paid the ransom. This is just one of the findings of Ransomware. A Victim's Perspective: A study on US and European Internet Users (PDF), a report conducted by Bitdefender in November of last year. For its study, the security firm spoke with...
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BSidesSF 2016 Preview: Fuzz Smarter, Not Harder

Fuzz testing is one of the most powerful tools in the bug hunter’s toolset. At a basic level, fuzzing is the art of repeatedly processing crafted test inputs while checking for ill-effects, such as memory corruptions or information disclosures. One of the main advantages of fuzz testing is that it works 24x7 without a break and with no need for...
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Avoid These 3 Mistakes in Secure Software Development

Developers today recognize the importance of secure software development. Indeed, security was one of the key topics at this month's DeveloperWeek conference in San Francisco. This level of focus should be applauded. At the same time, however, we must recognize that planning for secure software development is not the same thing as implementing it....
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Hollywood Hospital Pays $17,000 to Ransomware Attackers

A hospital located in Southern California has paid $17,000 for the restoration of its system following a ransomware attack. News first broke last week about how staff at the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center began noticing issues in the hospital's IT system in early February. The Center decided to temporarily suspend its computer system, which...
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Chess Lessons for Security Leaders

Since the Middle Ages, chess has been used to teach strategic and tactical concepts to military leaders. For the same reasons, chess can be a great tool for today’s security leaders. We’re going to take a look at the parallels between chess and security in a series of blog posts. In Part 1, we will consider the specific elements that make up the...
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Contra-Cracking: How to Steer Kids Away from Malicious Hacking

In today's interconnected world, computer crime knows no age requirements. People of all ages are capable of committing malicious acts online. That includes teenagers. For example, in October 2015, a teenager allegedly breached the email account of CIA Director John Brennan. UK authorities now believe that they have arrested that same individual,...
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Fighting Ransomware – More Bad News for Ransomware Authors

There’s so much doom and gloom in the security industry because of ransomware. And yet, occasional success stories inspire us to fight back. Last time we wrote about ten ransomware recovery cases. New ransom Trojan variants have surfaced ever since, including the one dubbed HydraCrypt. The operators of TeslaCrypt campaign pulled off defiant attacks...