It should be hard for malicious hackers to break into systems, but all too often it isn't. That's a takeaway from a joint cybersecurity advisory issued by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the NSA and FBI, and their counterparts in Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and United Kingdom. The advisory, which is titled ...

#1 The history of the National Cyber Security Centre The UK's first cybersecurity strategy was launched in 2009 and outlined that whatever the shape of the cybersecurity mission, it made no sense to silo it away from other aspects of national security. To be effective, it had to be able to take advantage of high-grade intelligence and other...

A recent Facebook post from a family member made me realize that I needed to write about an overused term. A term, that when used, causes chaos and concern. I don’t blame the family member for using it, I’ve seen it used hundreds of times over the past few years and I’ve seen IT and cybersecurity professionals respond without correcting, even, on...

Have you ever dined in a restaurant with a police officer? When choosing a table, or seating location, law enforcement professionals will often choose the seat that positions them with their back to the wall. This plays out quite humorously when a group of law enforcement professionals dine together, all racing toward that coveted “protected”...

The first months of 2022 began slowly for privacy, but by the end of the first quarter we had our marching orders for the rest of the year. In the U.S., we saw an explosion of state privacy bills being put forward (again), the Senate utilized a seldom used maneuver to push President Biden’s Federal Trade Commission nominee through to confirmation,...

Cyber-attacks are becoming more sophisticated and devastating, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). With ransom demands rising and the cost of data breaches soaring, businesses are investing heavily in building their cyber defenses. However, cybersecurity is not bullet-proof. Buying a cyber risk insurance program can help outsource...

Today’s VERT Alert addresses Microsoft’s May 2022 Security Updates. VERT is actively working on coverage for these vulnerabilities and expects to ship ASPL-1002 on Wednesday, May 11th. CVE-2022-26925 In-The-Wild & Disclosed CVEs Based on Microsoft’s limited documentation, this appears to be a resurgence and/or improved version of PetitPotam. This...

Compliance is a key part of any organisation and in business terms, it is about ensuring companies of all sizes and their employees comply with existing national and international laws. In the UK the Companies Act 2006 is the main legislation that forms the primary source of company law and businesses of all sizes must ensure they adhere to it to...

All of us at Tripwire’s Vulnerability Exposure and Research Team (VERT) are constantly looking out for interesting stories and developments in the infosec world. Here’s what cybersecurity news stood out to us during the week of May 2, 2022. I’ve also included some comments on these stories. Microsoft Azure Vulnerability Exposes PostgreSQL Databases...

The popularity of cloud services has increased exponentially in recent years. The prospects of saving on capital and operational expenditures have been significant driving forces in influencing companies to adopt cloud services. Scalability and elasticity are also key drivers that encourage companies to move to the cloud. However, moving to the...

The most relevant cybersecurity threat to most businesses may be human, not technical. A sudden wave of cybercrime paired with longstanding tech labor challenges has created a cybersecurity skills gap, leaving companies without the expertise they need.Some companies lack dedicated security staff entirely, while others have a small, overworked...

Over US $43 billion has been lost through Business Email Compromise attacks since 2016, according to data released this week by the FBI. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) issued a public service announcement on May 4 2022, sharing updated statistics on Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks which use a variety of social engineering...

In 2002 I sat in a local bookstore in Jackson Hole, WY that offered a few Internet-connected computers for hourly use. After chatting with the owner and petting the resident store dog, I took a few guesses at the password protecting these computers. It took me maybe 10 attempts. It was, of course, some variation of the dog’s name. While this is a...

Over the past few years, I’ve used Star Wars Day as a way to talk about two of my favourite things – Star Wars and cybersecurity. I wrote about scammers in 2020 and IoT in 2021, and I really thought I’d write about IoT again this year. After all, there’s no shortage of IoT blunders to talk about and tie into the Star Wars mythos. Instead, an article...

It is often stated that security is hard. Whether it is the people, processes, and technology, or any combination of the three, security is a never ending challenge. Conversely, compliance is the opposite. Compliance is relatively straightforward. For too long, and for too many organisations, meeting a compliance standard was seen as a satisfactory...

All of us at Tripwire’s Vulnerability Exposure and Research Team (VERT) are constantly looking out for interesting stories and developments in the infosec world. Here’s what cybersecurity news stood out to us during the week of April 25, 2022. I’ve also included some comments on these stories. Homeland Security bug bounty program uncovers 122 holes...

Tripwire's April 2022 Patch Priority Index (PPI) brings together important vulnerabilities for Microsoft, Google Chrome, Oracle, and Adobe. First on the patch priority list this month is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows User Profile Service. This vulnerability has been added to the Metasploit Exploit Framework and...

In the past, I’ve written about digital privacy and how much data we leak through our day to day interactions. I think this is an important topic to consider and really focus on and it is an element of cybersecurity at both the enterprise and personal level that isn’t discussed enough. One of the reasons is that demonstrating this can definitely...

If your company is worried about the financial hit of paying a ransom to cybercriminals after a ransomware attack, wait until they find out the true cost of a ransomware attack. Because the total costs of recovering from the ransomware attack are likely to be much, much higher. That's the finding of a new study by researchers at Check Point, who...