GoDaddy has remediated a blind cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that attackers could have used to take over, modify, or delete users' accounts. Security researcher Matthew Bryant discovered the flaw using a tool XSS Hunter late last year. At that time, he found he could set his first and last name to an XSS payload. He opted to use a generic...

Here at Tripwire, one of the responsibilities of VERT (Vulnerability and Exposure Research Team) is the monthly publication of our Patch Priority Index (PPI). Equal parts science and art, the PPI is released by VERT researchers who deal with vulnerabilities resolved by these patches on a daily basis. When this process first began, it prompted a very...

As I discussed in my previous article, threat intelligence provides organizations with contextual details regarding specific threats. Such information is crucial for companies that are committed to formalizing their information security practices. By relying on multiple feeds of threat intelligence, for instance, enterprises can continuously...

The 2016 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) is out, and I’m excited to announce that this year’s findings leveraged vulnerability data from Tripwire and other vendors, including our partner Kenna Security. The 2016 Verizon DBIR recommends establishing “a process for vulnerability remediation that targets vulnerabilities which attackers...

OpenSSL has issued fixes for six vulnerabilities, including two flaws with a "high" severity rating. On Tuesday, the corporate entity responsible for OpenSSL, a software library that helps to secure web communications against eavesdropping, published a security advisory in which it provides details on the two "high" severity vulnerabilities. ...

Organizations face a constant barrage of digital threats. To mitigate the risk of an attack, IT staff need to continually protect all of an organization's endpoints, such as by creating patching schedules and by hardening vulnerable devices. Unfortunately, protection has its limitations. Security personnel can harden a device or implement a patch...

2016 marks the ninth year Verizon has published its annual Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR). Once again, organizations sent their data on thousands of security incidents and data breaches to Verizon, whose researchers analyzed that information to highlight new patterns, steady trends, and interesting tidbits in the evolving digital threat...

As I discussed in last week's post, smartphones, tablets, desktops, industrial equipment, servers and other technologies that connect to a corporate network are considered endpoints. Unfortunately, bad actors can abuse those devices and their network access to attack an organization. That is why IT staff need to protect as many of their company's...

A security researcher successfully compromised a Facebook server only to discover that someone had already been there. Bug bounty hunter Orange Tsai explains in a blog post that after poking around some Class C IP addresses of "vpn.tfbnw.com," an internal domain for Facebook, he came across a special server with the name "files.fb.com." The...

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), famed as one of the top tech schools in the country, introduced an “experimental” bug bounty program this week. The private, Cambridge-based research university is among the first academic institutions to announce a program designed to encourage finding...

2016 is shaping up to be the year of ransomware. Cyber-attacks are on the rise, with companies losing control of their critical assets. And the problem isn’t going away. Could your company fall victim to these malicious attacks? Everyone is vulnerable, but the good news is that there are simple steps you can take today using security tools you already...

I was on a security panel recently where we were asked to define the Internet of Things (IoT). This term is as vague as it is broad. It can be argued that it includes almost any “thing” that can be part of a network. I was not happy with any of our answers, including my own, so I spent some time thinking about it. When I was asked this question at a...

As a child, I loved taking things apart. I was always overly precocious and immensely curious—so much so, that I was frequently disciplined for “breaking” things. Years later, as a young adult—I would find myself taking things apart again—only this time, I was a divorced mother of three and going back to college, where the taking-apart part inspired...

Sports fanatics using the CBS Sports app or mobile site recently may have had their personal information exposed to online theft, researchers say. According to mobile security firm Wandera, both the Android and iOS versions of the app were found transferring users’ names, email addresses, account...

Today’s VERT Alert addresses 13 new Microsoft Security Bulletins. VERT is actively working on coverage for these bulletins in order to meet our 24-hour SLA and expects to ship ASPL-666 on Wednesday, April 13th. Ease of Use (published exploits) to Risk Table Automated Exploit Easy ...

Millions of users are open to attacks that can quietly compromise machines by exploiting a weakness in some of Firefox's most popular browser extensions. On Thursday, Boston University PhD Ahmet Buyukkayhan and Northeastern University Professor William Robertson presented their research on the attacks at Black Hat Asia in Singapore. Black Hat Asia...

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is the unsung champion and defender of all good citizens of the Internet. Rather like some invisible, altruistic Marvel superhero, it works tirelessly behind the scenes each and every day helping to protect the things we need and like to do online. Along with its now atrophied predecessor Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), it...

Security experts have discovered vulnerabilities in a database where the U.S. State Department stores visa information. Reuters writes that the State Department first learned of the security flaws following an internal review of its computer systems several months ago. In a report, security experts...

It’s been a month since Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center joined the ranks of Premera Blue Cross, Anthem, CareFirst BCBS, and a considerable number of other healthcare institutions that have experienced recent hacks where personal patient data might have been exposed. While it may have played out like the plot of a bad "cyber"-thriller movie,...

If there is one truth about today's threat landscape, it is that nothing remains the same. Such dynamism rests partially with the sheer volume of threats circulating the web. Multiple reports indicate that bad actors are developing as many if not more threats than security personnel have time to remediate. Indeed, in the second quarter of 2015 alone...