The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued an emergency directive that requires federal agencies to mitigate the threat of Domain Name System (DNS) infrastructure tampering. In "Emergency Directive 19-01," DHS explains that it's been working with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure...

If you have ever heard of the Federal Information Security Management Act, then you are aware of the work done by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The goal of the Act, not to mention the subsequent documents that resulted from strategies designed around implementing it, led NIST to create works designed to bolster security on the...

STOP ransomware is using adware installers disguised as cracks as a new method of distributing itself to unsuspecting users. According to Bleeping Computer creator and owner Lawrence Abrams, websites known for distributing software cracks, or software which has been modified to remove or disable certain features, commonly use adware bundles to...

A new strain of ransomware known as "Phobos" is using the same ransom note employed by Dharma to demand payment from its victims. Ransomware incident response provider Coveware found that Phobos' ransom message differs from Dharma's only in the branding used for its header and footer. Otherwise, the notes are exactly the same. ...

The Internet of Things (IoT) broadly refers to devices and equipment that are readable, recognizable, locatable, addressable and/or controllable via the internet. This includes everything from edge computing devices to home appliances, from wearable technology to cars. IoT represents the melding of the physical world and the digital worked, as...

Amazon GovCloud is an isolated Amazon Web Service (AWS) designed to allow customers and the U.S government agencies to move their confidential data into the cloud to address their compliance and specific regulatory requirements. It runs under ITAR, the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations. With this cloud service, US citizens can run...

A criminal Magecart gang successfully compromised hundreds of e-commerce websites via a malicious script that silently harvested personal data and payment card information as customers bought goods and services online. Rather than specifically target individual websites, the hackers audaciously hacked a third-party Javascript library from French...

A data breach known as "Collection #1" exposed approximately 800 million email addresses as well as tens of millions of passwords. In the beginning of January, multiple people reached out to Australian web security expert Troy Hunt about a sizable collection of files hosted on cloud service MEGA. This collection, which is no longer available on MEGA...

Hopefully, the title of this blog has gotten your attention. In one of my prior blogs, ICS Cybersecurity: Visibility, Protective Controls, Continuous Monitoring – Wash, Rinse, Repeat, we talked about how the malicious threat landscape for industrial controls systems is constantly evolving and getting more sophisticated, thereby raising the need to...

The cybersecurity space is in dire straits. Hackers are getting smarter and more sophisticated...and the availability of skilled men and women to combat them has never been lower. It’s an issue that’s been slowly growing worse year over year, yet there’s no clear solution in sight. What’s a business leader to do? The good news is that there’s never...

Mozilla has announced that it will disable support for the Adobe Flash Player plugin by default in version 69 of its Firefox web browser. On 11 January, Mozilla senior software engineer Jim Mathies opened a Bugzilla ticket announcing his employer's plan to "disable Flash by default in Nightly 69 and...

With the majority of people using smartphones these days, texting is all but a given when trying to communicate with your friends or family. But what about your doctor? A recent study determined that 96 percent of physicians use text messaging for coordinating patient care. This can raise eyebrows and red flags. Anyone with a cheap scanner, which...

A researcher has created a free decryption tool which victims of the PyLocky ransomware family can use to recover their affected files. Mike Bautista, a security researcher at the Cisco Talos Intelligence Group, is responsible for developing the tool. Cisco Talos has made this utility freely available for download on GitHub. First reported on by...

A large number of Reddit users are being told that they will have to reset their passwords in order to regain access to their accounts following what the site is calling a "security concern." The lockout occurred as Reddit's security team investigates what appears to have been an attempt to log into many users' accounts through a credential-stuffing...

Neiman Marcus Group, Inc. has agreed to pay $1.5 million as part of a settlement for an earlier data breach that exposed customers' information. Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas, announced on 8 January that he and his fellow Attorneys General from 42 other states will enter into the $1.5 million...

This article covers the main techniques cybercriminals use at the initial stage of attacks against enterprise networks. There are several dangerous phases of cyberattacks targeting the corporate segment. The first one encountered by businesses boils down to getting initial access into their systems. The malefactor’s goal at this point is to deposit...

Today’s VERT Alert addresses Microsoft’s January 2019 Security Updates. VERT is actively working on coverage for these vulnerabilities and expects to ship ASPL-812 on Wednesday, January 9th. In-The-Wild & Disclosed CVEs CVE-2019-0579 The Windows Jet Database Engine improperly handles objects in memory and, if an attacker can convince a victim to...

An unknown individual compromised an alert service and abused their access to send out a spam message to some of the service's customers. The Australian Early Warning Network (EWN) alert service disclosed first in a Facebook post and later on its website that the compromise took place near the beginning of the year: At around 930pm EDT 5th January,...