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Dealing with Security in the Real World

Seven months ago I began an odyssey through our medical system that ended in December with my last visit to my surgeon's office. Throughout the entire experience, I couldn't help but make mental notes about the security practices I encountered. I want to be clear from the beginning – nothing I saw was egregious or malicious, just caring people...
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Researchers Disclose Default Credentials for Over 100 ICS/SCADA Products

A group of researchers has made public a database, dubbed "SCADAPASS," containing default credentials for more than 100 industrial control system (ICS) products belonging to various top vendors. The research team—known as SCADA StrangeLove—published the list on GitHub, which includes the product and vendor names; device type; default username and...
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Blast a Hole in Adobe Flash and Earn $100,000

Fancy earning $100,000? Of course, you do. Well, now there's an opportunity to earn a huge reward if you can demonstrate how Adobe Flash can be exploited. Sounds good right? Well, here's the bad news for the rest of us: it's not Adobe offering the money in the form of a bug bounty. Less than a month ago, Adobe proudly announced a series of security...
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More Executives Turn to Cyber Risk Transfer

As cyber threats grow in scope and potential impact, the complexity of enterprise digital data protection grows to astonishing proportions. Last year, a Fortune 500 survey revealed that cyber security is the second biggest concern for CEOs, who keep looking for new solutions to keep their data safe and their clients happy. The enterprise data is...
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The Top 11 Information Security Conferences of 2016

UPDATED 01/07/2016 to include RSA Conference USA. (Please see below.) In Part II of our 2015 Infosec Wishlist series, a number of security experts expressed their desire for the security community to renew its focus on collaboration, communication and unity in the New Year. To accomplish this goal, folks in information security will need to...
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BlackEnergy Malware Caused Ukrainian Power Outage, Confirms Researchers

Researchers have confirmed that a variant of the BlackEnergy malware was behind a power outage that occurred around Christmas Eve last year. Reuters reports that the Western Ukrainian power company Prykarpattyaoblenergo reported on outage on December 23rd that affected an area including the regional capital Ivano-Frankivsk. A subsequent...
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Sweet Security Part 2 – Creating a Defensible Raspberry Pi

Back in July, I brushed on the topic of using a Raspberry Pi as a cheap and effective way to secure Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Control Systems (ICS) networks where traditional protection mechanisms are not feasible. I took those concepts and spoke to them at the IoT Village at DefCon 23 in a level of detail that explained how to...
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8 Top Tips for Successfully Implementing your Security Control

Have you discovered a security gap? Have you found a possible solution? Have you received funding for it? If you answered 'yes' to all of the above, you're half way to successfully implementing a new control. Here are some other (often overlooked) actions you should consider to ensure the success of your project: 1. Be sure the solution solves your...
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Fake IRS Spam Email Campaign Serves Up Kovter, CoreBot Malware

Last week, we reported on a post office email scam that was recently observed to be targeting PostNord customers with Cryptolocker2 ransomware. Our story noted that customers commonly fall for this type of scam because, by nature, they tend to trust institutions with which they are familiar. As a result, users were more than willing to click on a...
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How We Can Turn the Tide on Cyber Security in 2016

By any measurement, 2015 was another bad year for the world in terms of cyber security. Despite record spending of more than $75 billion USD, losses were still estimated to be around $400 billion, with some firms predicting losses will grow to over $2 trillion by the end of 2020. But 2016 doesn’t have to be another losing year for cyber security...
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CISO Resolutions for 2016

2015 was an eventful year for cyber security. Major vulnerabilities, including Superfish, "No iOS Zone" and CVE-2015-2502 made waves in the infosec community, as did a variety of criminal collectives – including Lizard Squad, Phantom Squad and DD4BC – that use distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack campaigns to get what they want. Let's also...
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ProxyBack Malware Transforms Infected Systems Into Internet Proxies

Security researchers recently uncovered a new type of malware—known as ProxyBack—designed to turn the infected systems of unsuspecting victims into Internet proxies. According to researchers at security firm Palo Alto Networks, the family of malware contains more than 20 versions, and may have been used to infect systems as far back as March 2014....
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FIM Hunting: How To Kill and Remove Unwanted Files

Organizations have a deep interest in detecting and preventing threats within their environments. From firewalls to file integrity monitors, there are many opportunities to catch and stop attackers in their tracks. A basic workflow for IT security revolves around prevention, detection and remediation. As a researcher in Tripwire’s Security and...
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GOTPass Seeks to Replace Passwords with Images and Patterns

A new system called GOTPass could offer a alternative to multi-factor authentication by replacing passwords with images and patterns. Endgadget reports that the system, which was developed by researchers at the University of Plymouth, requires a two-step one-time setup. First, users are asked to draw a pattern on a 4x4 grid, a method of...
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A Holiday Nightmare: Cryptolocker2 Delivered by PostNord Email Scams

For years, computer criminals have been targeting unsuspecting web users with post office email scams. This particular method of attack consists of a fake email in which a recognizable postal service notifies the recipient that it has failed to deliver a package to their address. The email subsequently asks that the recipient pick up the package...
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Safety - Part of Information Security

In the Internet of Things (IoT) era that we have entered, it is becoming apparent to me that nothing follows a linear progression anymore. The abstract models created by start ups, which can and often do disrupt the industry, promote new ways of engaging in business that are not common sense. To illustrate this, I’ve made a list of examples that...
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Hyatt Hotels Investigates Malware Found on Payment Processing Systems

Hyatt Hotels has launched an investigation after discovering malicious activity on its payment processing systems. Stephanie Sheppard, a spokeswoman for Hyatt, announced the investigation in an email to Hyatt guests on Wednesday: "Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) today announced that it recently identified malware on computers that operate the...