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Killing Phish the Sumerian Way

Circa 3000 BCE – The Sumerian language is dead. Why? Because as it’s often said, a language is just a dialect with an army, and the army had long vanished. A thousand or so years earlier, however, Sumerian was the first language to have a written form, and Sumerians wasted no time in developing tools – elaborately carved cylinder seals – to...
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12 Steps to Cyber Health

A recent article by The Financial Times argues that boards should be looking to employ younger directors to tackle the cyber security “problem." Meanwhile, the EU has unveiled the proposed Network and Information Security Directive. Think about the psychology here, really… The more we raise the bar and levels of expectations, given the volume of...
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Optus Investigating Breach After Data Leak on Freelancer.com

Optus, the second largest telecommunications provider in Australia, is investigating a data breach after customer data was leaked onto Freelancer.com. Australian news site Crikey reports that the breach occurred when an employee of the debt collection firm Arc Mercantile posted a spreadsheet...
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Merry Malware: How to Avoid Holiday Phishing Scams

Phishing scams are a menace. According to the Verizon 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report, at least one in 10 people fall for phishing attacks. This rate of success spells trouble for businesses. Indeed, a report issued by the Ponemon Institute in August of this year found that the average organization could potentially spend up to $3.7 million...
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Xi Jinping: China Should Be Able to Censor Whatever It Wants on the Web

President Xi Jinping believes that the People's Republic of China should have the right to decide what to block and censor on the web. In his opening speech for the second World Internet Conference, which opened in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province on Wednesday, the Chinese president invoked national sovereignty, a principle enshrined in the Charter of the...
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Cyber Security in EMEA – A Letter from Neil Harvey

It is my privilege to have joined Tripwire as the company's Vice President of Sales for Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) earlier this Autumn. At this time, I would like to explain why ongoing developments in the security world influenced my decision to come aboard. So, let's jump right in. Why did I join Tripwire? First of all, EMEA – my area...
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UK Man Arrested in Connection to VTech Hack

UK law enforcement has announced the arrest of an individual as part of its ongoing investigation into the hack against VTech, a provider of electronic learning products. On Tuesday, officers from the South East Regional Organized Crime Unit (SEROCU) published a statement in which they explain the status of their investigation. "A 21-year-old man...
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Testing Scan Credentials for More Accurate Vulnerability Assessment

If your doctor walks into the exam room for your annual physical and listens to your heart, takes a quick look at your throat, and then gives a clean bill of health without asking many questions, a quick interaction might make you feel good if you’re not worried about your health. However, if you haven’t been feeling well, or if you are at risk for...
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Twitter Warns Users of Possible 'State-Sponsored' Attacks

At least 30 Twitter accounts received a disturbing message from the site late last week, warning that they may have been targeted by government or state-sponsored hackers. Canadian non-profit Coldhak, which focuses on privacy and freedom of speech issues, was one of the first to reveal that they had received the warning from Twitter, and included a...
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Retailers: Keep Your Guard Up This Season

For most retailers, the holiday season is easily the most profitable time of the year, bringing in huge crowds of shoppers the last couple weeks of the year. However, the much-anticipated holiday season is also notorious for being the season of hacking, as illustrated by several massive breaches during this time in previous years. Hence, retailers...
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The Tale of the '1718 File'

An interesting ruling was released by the Federal Trade Commission a few weeks ago. The ruling dealt with a case in which LabMD, a cancer research company, was accused of improperly protecting consumer data that, if disclosed, is likely to cause substantial consumer injury. The initial incident, which led to the FTC investigation, started back in...
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InterApp Claims It Can Steal Information from Any Phone User

Earlier this fall, a contributor to The State of Security explained that one of the greatest privacy and security challenges confronting our smartphones today are the apps we choose to install. He noted in his post how app developers often make money by harvesting data from users' devices and in turn selling this information to marketers. They also...
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Microsoft Warns XBox Live Users of MitM Attacks After Leaking Private Keys

Microsoft is warning XBox Live users of possible man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks after accidentally leaking users' private keys. In an advisory released on December 8th, Microsoft states that a a disclosed digital certificate could lead to spoofing attacks against users. "Microsoft is aware of an SSL/TLS digital certificate for *.xboxlive.com for...
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The Agent vs Agentless Debate – Part 1: The Security Side

Over the past 20 years, I have implemented many different security solutions – from IDS in the 90s to browser protection in 2014, and just about everything else in between. One thing that quickly became obvious during my time in information security is that security considerations are just one part of the equation for most organizations. Involving...
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Monitoring The Unknown

File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) has been around for a long time. In fact, Tripwire has been a pioneer in FIM since the early 1990s when Gene Kim released the first version of Tripwire. Monitoring for change enables you to know what changes were made, who made the changes, and the changes that occurred. This allows you to easily roll back to a known...
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Adobe Patches 79 'Critical' Vulnerabilities in Flash Player

Adobe has patched 79 "critical" vulnerabilities affecting Flash Player in its December 2015 security bulletin. The alert, which bears the vulnerability identifier APSB15-32, warns that all platforms are affected by the flaws. This includes Windows and Macintosh regarding the Flash desktop version 19.0.0.245 and earlier, as well as the Google Chrome,...
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Fancy Bear Threat Group Deploys 'Rare' Modification of AZZY Backdoors

Last month, Microsoft released a report on the advanced threat group Fancy Bear. This alert, as noted by security blogger Graham Cluely, explains how the group—otherwise known as "Sofacy," "Sednit," "STRONTIUM," and "APT 28"—stalks mailing lists, social media sites, and public forums in search of potential victims from whom it can steal login...
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What's New in CVSSv3?

CVSSv3 was released this past summer and a number of vendors, including Tripwire, are beginning to adopt it both internally and within their tools. I wanted to talk about some of my favourite (and not-so-favourite) aspects of CVSSv3. Up first, we have the addition of Scope. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the notion of Scope. I think...