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Project Mayhem: Combating IRS/Tech Support Scams with Dubious Means

IRS scams and tech support scams are two of the most well-known fraud schemes preying on users today. In the former, bad actors cold-call unsuspecting individuals and tell them they'll go to prison and/or lose their assets unless they call back and agree to pay back taxes owed to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The latter leverages a fake...
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Hard Rock Hotels & Casinos Warns of Seven-Month Payment Card Breach

Hard Rock Hotels & Casinos is, once again, warning customers of a data breach that may have compromised their payment card information. In a press release last week, the popular hotel, resort and casino franchise announced it was recently alerted of a security incident through its third-party hotel reservation system – Sabre Hospitality Solutions...
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Fake Facebook Warning Urges Users to Decline Jayden K Smith Hacker

A fake Facebook message is urging users to not approve a friend request submitted by hacker who goes by the name Jayden K Smith. This hoax has many variants. All versions say the same thing: don't approve Jayden K Smith as friend or they'll hack a user's account, target their Facebook friends, and thereby spread their influence. Craig Charles of...
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Brainwashing Embedded Systems IoT Hack Lab Update

I’ve been studying the security designs of various embedded devices for the past couple of years. This research has led me to uncover dozens of critical flaws in internet-connected devices ranging from enterprise NAS devices and access points to countless consumer products like wireless routers, home automation controllers, security cameras and more...
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Man Admits to Phishing for Bitcoins on Dark Web Forums

A man has admitted that he committed fraud and money laundering as part of a phishing scheme to steal Bitcoins on dark web forums. On 27 June 2017, Michael Richo, 35, of Wallingford, Connecticut pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of access device fraud and one count of money laundering. The former offense carries a maximum sentence of 10...
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Security Risks to Consider When Deploying Containers on Docker

Docker – a platform for OS-level virtualization instances known as containers – has become a hugely popular infrastructure technology. Flexible containerization is completely changing the way we build and maintain applications at scale, with analyst group RedMonk identifying the large enterprise market as a key driving force. Towards the end of...
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Last month's malware outbreak cost this household company £100 million

Reckitt Benckiser, the household goods manufacturer of such famous products as Nurofen painkillers, Durex condoms, Dettol, and Harpic, has warned that it was hit hard by the June 27th global malware outbreak which struck power plants, airports, and government agencies in Ukraine before spreading to other multinational firms. In a sales warning for...
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Snap Map Feature Stirs Privacy Concerns among Parents and Schools

Snapchat's new Snap Map location-sharing feature is stirring concerns among parents and schools for the privacy and safety of their children. Launched on 21 June 2017, Snap Map allows Snapchat users to view publicly shared "Snaps" (photos and videos) from around the world. They can also use it to share their exact location with their "friends". The...
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Why Small Businesses Don’t Care About Cyber Security

With millions of small businesses out there, why don’t they care about cyber security? You may be reading this and own a small business or know someone that does. Think to yourself: why would small businesses not care about cyber security? You may find that it is not a problem of caring but a problem of understanding. Let’s take a look at some of...
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June 2017: The Month in Ransomware

When it seemed that ransomware authors hit the lowest of the low with their attacks a long time ago, they managed to take it a notch further last month. With the revamped Petya Trojan that surfaced on June 27, the crooks broke new ground and started waging a real cyber war against a particular country. This toxic code renders computers inoperable,...
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Servers of MeDoc Maker Seized by Police Following NotPetya Outbreak

Ukrainian police have seized the servers of the firm that created MeDoc accounting software on the suspicion the company unwittingly helped spread NotPetya malware. Col. Serhiy Demydiuk, head of Cyberpolice Ukraine, confirmed on 3 July 2017 that Intellect Service is under investigation. The officer said Ukraine's police is looking into the company...
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Cyber Security Heroes: Dr. Jessica Barker

They say you should never meet your heroes, often they will just disappoint you, but thankfully there’s also exceptions to this rule. In this five-part series, I will be introducing you to five of my key cyber security/infosec heroes. These individuals inspire me to continuously strive for more, in one case move across the pond, and all five gave...
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Email Server Vulnerability and Anti-Spam Protection Techniques

The role of cyber security in modern business is hard to overstate. Almost all business processes are automated to a degree and thus need to be thoroughly protected from any potential tampering. Vendors use anti-malware and anti-reverse engineering techniques to protect their products, but they can’t possibly weed out every vulnerability. One...
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No One Cares About Digital Security... Until it Breaks

I'm sure that everyone out there identifies with the title of this article in some way. We've all faced an issue where we were trying to get the attention of someone outside of the security field, so that they would pay attention to some sort of digital security issue. Basically, they were outside of the digital security field and decided not to...
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Blank Slate Delivering Ransomware via Microsoft-Themed Malspam

The Blank Slate attack campaign is pushing out one of two ransomware to unsuspecting Windows users via Microsoft-themed malspam. An attack begins when a user receives a malicious spam ("malspam") email message. As in previous instances of Blank Slate, the email's subject line doesn't give away the attack. It incorporates seemingly random numbers and...
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How to Choose a WordPress Security Plugin that’s Right for You

There are currently 50,416 plugins available in the WordPress repository. Out of these, roughly seven percent are security-based plugins. At the same time, when you search Google for "WordPress security plugin," 14,600,000 results come up. How can you choose a plugin from all these options? To answer that question, it's important to understand what...
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8tracks Hacked: 18 Million User Account Details Stolen

There's bad news for internet music fans, as it has been revealed that the details of millions of users of the 8tracks internet radio service and music social network have been stolen by hackers. In a message posted on its corporate blog, 8tracks confirms it has suffered a security breach: "We received credible reports today that a copy of our user...