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New Ransom-Based Email Scam Urges Recipients to Pay Up or Die

A new ransom-based email scam campaign is demanding that all recipients either meet the sender's demands and pay up or die. On 11 December, Spiceworks user Dave Lass shared the campaign with other members of the professional IT industry network. The scam doesn't waste any time in attempting to frighten the recipient. It begins with the subject line ...
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5 Key Updates to Version 1.1 Draft 2 of NIST’s Cybersecurity Framework

On 11 May 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that provides guidance on strengthening the United States' digital security. The directive makes clear that each head of a U.S. federal agency or government department is ultimately responsible for managing their organization's risk. It also emphasizes their use of a specific document...
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Last Christmas, I Gave You… An Insecure Connected Device

No doubt, a plethora of connected devices have made it onto your holiday shopping list this year. Virtual personal assistants, smart home devices, and perhaps a TV streaming device for catching up on the latest season of Stranger Things? Streaming TV devices are certainly a popular option as the cord-cutting trend continues, but buyers should be aware of devices that look too good to be true....
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VERT Threat Alert: December 2017 Patch Tuesday Analysis

Today’s VERT Alert addresses the Microsoft December 2017 Security Updates. VERT is actively working on coverage for these vulnerabilities and expects to ship ASPL-756 on Wednesday, December 13th. In-The-Wild & Disclosed CVEs This month, no Microsoft vulnerabilities have been publicly disclosed or are being actively exploited. There are, however, a...
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VERT Threat Alert: Return of Bleichenbacher’s Oracle Threat (ROBOT)

Vulnerability Description A team of researchers, including Tripwire VERT’s Craig Young has announced that TLS stacks from at least 8 different vendors are vulnerable to a well-known 19-year-old protocol flaw. The problem is that these implementations allow an attacker to identify whether or not a chosen ciphertext has proper PKCS#1 v1.5 padding...
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Notice of Ransomware Attack Released by National Capital Poison Center

The National Capital Poison Center (NCPC) in Washington, DC has published notice of a ransomware attack it suffered back in 2017. According to the news release (PDF), the critical health resource detected a ransomware infection on its systems in October 2017. It then launched an investigation into the matter with the assistance of a third-party...
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Women in Information Security: Jelena Milosevic

Last time, I had a chat with Kristen Kozinski. She's an expert on web development security, and she also has a pretty cool website for end user security education called Don't Click on That. This time, I have a very special interview with Jelena Milosevic. She's a nurse who has made it her mission to educate people about the cybersecurity problems...
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Criminal Stole "a Significant Amount of Data" in Airport Hacking Attack

A criminal stole "a significant amount of data" in a hacking attack that targeted one of the busiest airports in Australia. According to The West Australian, the breach occurred in March 2016 when a Vietnamese man named Le Duc Hoang Hai abused a third-party contractor's credentials to access the systems at Perth Airport, the fourth busiest airport...
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The Living Dead: Securing Legacy Industrial Systems

I’ve spent a lot of time in the depths of aging industrial power plants and the control houses of transmission substations. I’ve walked the aisles of countless steel cabinets taking inventory of the gear used to protect and control what’s been described as the most complex system on earth. Within these cabinets can be found a smattering of equipment...
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10 of the Most Significant Ransomware Attacks of 2017

Ransomware had a good year in 2017. For the first time ever, we saw several "cryptoworm" variants self-propagate across vulnerable workstations around the world. We also witnessed more traditional ransomware families cause remarkable damage to victimized organizations as well as strains that embraced novel tools and techniques. Here are 10 of the...
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Security Breach Exposed oBike Users' Personal Information

A security breach at bicycle-sharing operation oBike has exposed the personal information of users in Singapore and 13 other countries. A spokesperson for the company said the data leak "stemmed from a gap in our [application programming interface] that allowed users to refer a friend to our platform." With the oBike app, users can send invitation...
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Securing the Entire Container Stack, Lifecycle, and Pipeline - Part 3

As part of a three-part series on incorporating security into the container environment, I've talked all about containers and how to inject security into the pipeline. Let's now discuss tips on how to secure the container stack. What Do I Mean by "Stack"? What I’m calling the stack, in this case, refers to all of the layers or components involved...
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What Are the Benefits of Using Managed Security Services?

Today’s cybersecurity executives have a lot of choices in how they wish to purchase and consume products and services. The traditional approach of a large up-front capex investment in perpetual licenses works for some organizations, but many are looking towards managed services to reduce their up-front costs and move the overhead of managing the...
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NiceHash Temporarily Ceases Operations Following Security Breach

NiceHash has temporarily ceased operations following a security breach in which a criminal gained unauthorized access to its Bitcoin wallet. The trouble started on 6 December when users of NiceHash, a service which enables people to exchange computing resources known as hashing power to mine for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, began reporting...
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November 2017: The Month in Ransomware

November didn’t shape up to be revolutionary in terms of ransomware, but the shenanigans of cyber-extortionists continued to be a major concern. The reputation of the Hidden Tear PoC ransomware project hit another low as it spawned a bunch of new real-life spinoffs. The crooks who created the strain dubbed Ordinypt should be really ashamed of...
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Ransomware Attacker Demands $23K from Mecklenburg County

A criminal who infected the computer systems of Mecklenburg County with ransomware has demanded a ransom payment of $23,000 for the decryption key. On 5 December, the government for Mecklenburg County, North Carolina informed its Twitter followers that it was "experiencing a computer-system outage." https://twitter.com/MeckCounty/status...
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Survey: Nearly Three-Quarters of Retail Orgs Lack a Breach Response Plan

With more than 174 million Americans shopping over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, it’s looking to be a busy holiday season for retailers this year. As shoppers continue hunting for the perfect gift over the next couple weeks, it’s important to remember that cyber criminals will likely be on the hunt as well. How prepared are retailers to deal...
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5 Steps to a More Secure IoT Baseline

Enterprise access point maker Ruckus once again patched up command injection vectors that could completely compromise both the ZoneDirector controller, as well as the Unleashed AP. One of the vulnerabilities is in fact strikingly similar to an issue in another Ruckus Web-GUI I disclosed last year. While vulnerability is essentially an inevitable...
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Hacker Flooded Tourism Agency's Facebook Page with Bizarre Posts

A hacker commandeered a tourism agency's Facebook page and abused that unauthorized access to make a series of bizarre postings. Early in the morning on 4 December, the Facebook page for Explore Minnesota Tourism began publishing some unusual content. The stories consisted of fake news items with headlines such as "Detroit woman gives birth to her...