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How to Leverage DevOps and Automation to Bolster Security

Speed and security. Old-fashioned thinking contended that the two were incompatible; that high-velocity development and deployment of apps and software services invariably introduced higher levels of risk. However, it has become increasingly apparent that speed is a necessary aspect of security. The stakes are sky-high, with some estimates...
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4 Fundamentals That Make Your Vulnerability Management (VM) Program Less Effective

If you are a security practitioner, then you may have noticed that much of the security industry exists because of vulnerabilities. Regardless of what job position you occupy, vulnerabilities are oftentimes the reason why you wake up every morning and ultimately engage infosec from within your cutting-edge working environment. Vulnerabilities will...
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End Users as the Strongest Link

“It’s okay that you don’t understand.” This comment came after I was frustrated with myself for not being born a genius at math. Usually, when you don’t know a subject or you don’t understand it enough, subject matter experts (i.e. your teachers/professors/mentors/etc) put you down for it. But this time was different because I had a real subject...
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Is Poor Security Worse Than No Security?

As Lead Systems Engineer (EMEA) at Tripwire, I’ve had the pleasure of sitting down with and talking to many prospective customers about their security needs. I always ask about their existing digital capabilities during our talks. When I do, I usually get the following response: “We have lots of different tools but these solutions are either...
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Tripwire Patch Priority Index for June 2019

Tripwire's June 2019 Patch Priority Index (PPI) brings together important vulnerabilities from Microsoft, Oracle, and Adobe. First and most importantly this month are patches available to resolve 2 deserialization vulnerabilities in Oracle WebLogic. These vulnerabilities are identified as CVE-2019-2725 and CVE-2019-2729. Both of these...
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How to Avoid Common Software Vulnerability Management Mistakes

Vulnerability management (VM) is an essential process through which organizations can reduce risk in their environments. But myths and misconceptions surrounding VM abound. For instance, organizations commonly approach vulnerability management in the same way as they do patch management. Others are guilty of believing that all attacks rely on...
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ATT&CK Structure Part I: A Taxonomy of Adversarial Behavior

Following last year’s exceedingly successful inaugural MITRE ATT&CK™ conference, this year’s highly anticipated ATT&CKcon 2.0 conference will be held from Oct 28-30 at MITRE’s McLean headquarters. MITRE’s always open to hearing feedback about the limitations of the ATT&CK framework and how to make ATT&CK more useful. Today, I want to look at the...
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13 Reasons Why WordPress Hacks are Successful

In the attacker's world, all vulnerabilities and potential exploits work toward the hacker's advantage — not yours, not mine. This includes WordPress hacks. While living back east (over a decade ago), I was friends with several small business owners. One weekend morning, the owner of the local photography studio called me at 7 am and said: "I think...
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What’s New and Changing in the World of Vulnerability Management?

According to CIS, “Organizations that do not scan for vulnerabilities and proactively address discovered flaws face a significant likelihood of having their computer systems compromised.” While vulnerability management (VM) isn’t new, I’ve seen it evolve a lot over my 22 years in the industry. Here are some big trends: Assets are Diversifying. Fast. The idea of an asset has changed and grown...
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Cyber Security Challenges in Healthcare IoT Devices

The recent Vectra 2019 Spotlight Report on Healthcare indicates that the proliferation of healthcare internet-of-things (IoT) devices, along with a lack of network segmentation, insufficient access controls and reliance on legacy systems, has created an increasing attack surface that can be exploited by cyber criminals determined to steal personally...
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Modular Plurox Backdoor Comes with Cryptomining, Worm-Like Plugins

A new modular backdoor detected as "Plurox" comes with multiple plugins that expand its capabilities to include cryptomining and worm-like behavior. In February 2019, Kaspersky Lab's researchers first detected the backdoor. Their analysis revealed that the backdoor, written in C, arrived with debug lines. This suggests that the malware was still in...
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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Vulnerability Management

On the surface, vulnerability management (VM) is nearly ubiquitous. If you ask someone whether their organization has VM, the vast majority will reply in the affirmative. In fact, Tripwire asked that very question in a recent survey on the topic. Eighty-eight percent of respondents said yes. Beneath that surface of ‘yes’ responses, however, lies a...
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Your Personally Identifiable Information Is Part of You: Stop Giving It Away

Are hackers really the problem when governments can just ask for or legislate the requirement to turn over user data? Russia currently has approximately 149 million people living within its borders, and while Tinder is not the most popular dating app in the country, even a small percentage of the population could be subjected to exposure by the government. Couple that with Russia's desire to...