It is October 2021, and another Cybersecurity Awareness Month is upon us. With so much having occurred over the last year, we should all be experts in personal cybersecurity protection. After all, when our homes became our primary business location, it all became very personal. I once worked at a company that prohibited me from offering personal...

All of us at Tripwire’s Vulnerability Exposure and Research Team (VERT) are constantly reviewing the news for interesting stories and developments in the cybersecurity world. Here’s what stood out to us during the week of September 27, 2021. We’ve also included the comments from a few folks here at Tripwire VERT. REvil Ransomware Group Goes...

What is your organization’s approach to security events? For many organizations, each security alarm is treated with the same urgency as a fire. While a sense of urgency is good, the ensuing panic that occurs is not a recipe for longevity. The constant shifting of attention from one emergency to the next is fatiguing; it can often lead to mistakes...

REvil is one of the most notorious ransomware groups in the world. Also known as Sodin and Sodinokibi, REvil has made a name for itself extorting large amounts of money from businesses, operating as a ransomware-as-a-service (RAAS) business model that sees it share its profits with affiliates who break into networks and negotiate with victims on...

In this episode, Patrick Miller, Founder of Ampere Industrial Security, discusses what utilities and other industrial companies need to consider when it comes to the goldmines of data they're collecting from their machines and customers. He also explains why security and privacy needs to be incorporated in these operations by design. https://open...

CIS Control 6 merges some aspects of CIS Control 4 (admin privileges) and CIS Control 14 (access based on need to know) into a single access control management group. Access control management is a critical component in maintaining information and system security, restricting access to assets based on role and need. It is important to grant, refuse,...

The skills gap continues to challenge organizations’ ability to fulfill their evolving cybersecurity requirements. Tripwire confirmed this back in 2020 when it partnered with Dimensional Research to survey 342 security professionals. Indeed, 83% of respondents told Tripwire that they felt more overworked going into 2020 than they did a year earlier....

In today’s world with cyber attacks hitting the headlines daily, cybersecurity is at the forefront of many business owners’ minds, but implementing the right solutions and knowing what to do to reduce your risk is a big challenge for decision makers in these organizations. The task is even harder for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMB) that tend...

"Say ‘Ta,’" said Mamma Bear. "Ta," said Baby Bear. He then dropped the mug of blackcurrant juice by accident. "What have you done?" exclaimed Daddy Bear. "The carpet is RUINED!!" Baby Bear felt a great sense of something disturbing, and this wasn’t a thousand voices suddenly being silenced. This was much deeper. This hurt, and Daddy Bear’s face...

The US Government has underlined once again that it continues to strongly discourage organisations hit by ransomware from giving in to extortion demands. In an updated advisory, the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has called upon businesses not to pay ransoms, and to focus on cybersecurity measures that can prevent...

Knowing who has credentials, how those credentials are granted, and how they are being used is the foundation of any secure environment. It begins with user accounts and the credentials they use. Maintaining a thorough inventory of all accounts and verifying any changes to those accounts as authorized and intentional vs unintended is paramount to...

Data breaches have reached a fever pitch over the last few years. The rapid frequency of successful attacks coupled with the rising costs to businesses has raised attention at the highest levels of global governments. In the past, breaches were relatively “localized,” that is, they affected the targeted company only. However, the newer attacks have...

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Act is a broad set of data privacy rules that define how an organization must handle and protect the personal data of citizens of the European Union (EU). The Regulation also outlines the way that organizations can report a data breach. Articles 33 and 34 outline the requirements for breach notification...

Cybersecurity has become a critical concern in every business sector nowadays due to organizations’ growing dependency on technologies. Research by Immersive Lab reported that in 2019 there were more than 20,000 new vulnerabilities. Not only that, TechRepublic reported that global companies experienced a 148% spike in ransomware attacks after COVID...

Tripwire Enterprise (TE) is at its heart a baselining engine. It’s been built to take information, create a baseline of it, and show when that baseline has changed. (It’s called a “version” in TE terms.) TE starts with a baseline version designated by an organization’s security teams. At some point, a change version with new information (file,...

Key Takeaways for Control 4 Most fresh installs of operating systems or applications come with pre-configured settings that are usually insecure or not properly configured with security in mind. Use the leverage provided by multiple frameworks such as CIS Benchmarks or NIST NCP to find out if your organization needs to augment or adjust any...

As part of our upcoming attendance at the International Cyber Expo & International Security Expo, we were lucky enough to sponsor The Cyber Security Webinar Series with Nineteen Group and Grey Hare Media. Both Philip Ingram MBE and Emanuel Ghebreyesus, strategic account director for Tripwire, spoke about several topics including: The increasing...

Today’s VERT Alert addresses Microsoft’s September 2021 Security Updates. VERT is actively working on coverage for these vulnerabilities and expects to ship ASPL-964 on Wednesday, September 15th. In-The-Wild & Disclosed CVEs CVE-2021-40444 This CVE describes a publicly exploited vulnerability in MSHTML that provides user level access upon...