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5 Practical Steps for Proactive Hardening of Your WS2003 Systems

If you read my previous post about Microsoft ending extended support for Windows Server 2003 (WS2003) on July 14, 2015, you’re familiar with what that means - Microsoft will not be providing further security patches, hot fixes, or software updates without a costly extended support agreement. “Many IT teams are very comfortable using Windows Server...
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The 5 Most Common Attack Patterns of 2014

Tripwire is pleased to announce the release of its newest infographic, “Where Are Your Cyberattacks Coming From?” Created in response to the release of Verizon’s 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR 2015) back in April, the infographic explains the five most common attack patterns behind today’s data breaches. In this article, I will review...
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Gift Card Fraud: How It’s Committed and Why It’s So Lucrative

Gift cards have caused quite a headache for retailers in the last month, exposing another way that fraudulent activity can eat into razor-thin profit margins. Gift card fraud can range from physical theft to cloning to exploiting programming errors on the merchant side. The methods of attack are very similar to what is seen with credit card fraud,...
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The Difference Between Cybersecurity Literacy and Awareness

The issue of cybersecurity has finally gained the attention of top company decision-makers in light of the ongoing large-scale breaches that continue to jeopardize company assets and customers’ privacy. However, as executives and board members become more aware of the impact of cyber attacks on the business, is awareness enough to allow them to...
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Three Vulnerabilities Found in Magento Platform Patched by eBay

eBay has patched three vulnerabilities found in its Magento shopping platform that could have allowed for hijacking sessions and man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks. Hadji Samir, a penetration tester with Vulnerability Labs, released technical descriptions of a persistent input validation web vulnerabiility, a cross-site scripting (XSS) hole, and a...
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Report: Vulnerability Risk Correlates to Exposure on Social Media

The type of coverage a vulnerability receives on social media often correlates to that threat’s level of risk, reveals a recent report. This is just one of the findings of the 2015 State of Vulnerability Risk Management, a study issued earlier this month by NopSec Labs, a data science and research company that specializes in analyzing malware,...
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Microsoft's Anti-Surveillance Website Allegedly Hacked

A website used by Microsoft to challenge the U.S. federal government's policies on matters of privacy and surveillance has allegedly been hacked. According to ZDNet, Digital Constitution appears to have been modified at 9:15 pm EDT on Wednesday, with casino-related text -- including keywords used to garner greater search engine hits, such as "casino...
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7 Development AppSec Tricks to Keep the Hackers Away – Part 1

The mammoth rise in cybercrime has made organizations revise their application security strategy and implement new techniques to safeguard their software. This is largely because traditional security methodologies, such as Manual Testing and Web Application Firewalls (WAF), have been rendered irrelevant due to evolving hacking techniques. Unlike old...
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VERT Threat Alert: June 2015 Patch Tuesday Analysis

Today’s VERT Alert addresses 8 new Microsoft Security Bulletins. VERT is actively working on coverage for these bulletins in order to meet our 24-hour SLA and expect to ship ASPL-618 on Wednesday, June 10th. MS15-056 Internet Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability CVE-2015-1765 Multiple Elevation of...
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Ransomware Nearly Doubled in Q1 2015, Reports McAfee Labs

According to a report issued by Intel Security Group's McAfee Labs, ransomware has experienced a 165% increase in the first quarter of 2015. McAfee Labs Threats Report: May 2015 reveals that this increase has been fueled in part by the impression of underground criminals that victims in rich countries seem to be the most willing to make ransom...
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What's Left Behind: Oracle TNS Listener Log Files After an IP360 Scan

Ever looked at the messages in the Oracle listener logs generated by Tripwire IP360 scans and wondered what was going on? The most common one you see probably looks something like this: 01-JUN-2015 12:39:37 * (CONNECT_DATA=(COMMAND=VERSION)) * version * 1189 TNS-01189: The listener could not authenticate the user TNS-01169: The listener has not...
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Infosecurity Europe – Day 1 Highlights

With a reported 17,000 people flocking to Europe's largest security conference this week, there is no doubt that the industry is expanding vastly. Here, you’ll find hundreds of vendors, a variety of workshops and a range of sessions for professionals in the field, no matter what level. From technical insights to business risks, the events is a great...
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Prioritizing Patches: A Risk-Based Approach

It’s been a tough few weeks for those of us that are responsible for patching vulnerabilities in the companies we work at. Not only do we have the usual operating system and application patches, we also have patches for VENOM and Logjam to contend with. The two aforementioned vulnerabilities are pretty serious and deserve extra attention. But, where...
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Cyber Security Skills: The Hot New Must-Have IT Skill Set

Those in the IT world are always looking to develop the right skill sets that will help them get noticed above their competition. Considering how quickly technology changes, possessing a highly-desired set of skills can lead to better jobs and higher wages. Trends, of course, come and go, and keeping up with what is currently the most in-demand...
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Tripwire VERT Capture the Flag: Official Summary, Part 1

I’m happy to report that the first ever Tripwire VERT capture the flag contest was a huge success. With competitors registered from across the globe, our vulnerable application saw thousands of connections coming from dozens of unique addresses along with a non-stop flood of flags, questions,and...
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Microsoft and the Software Lifecycle

For some reason, Europe’s ‘The Final Countdown’ was playing in my head as I sat and pondered this write-up. I suppose that’s fitting given that we are about to cross the 60-day mark until Windows Server 2003 goes End-of-Life. The concept of product EOL can be confusing, especially given the frequent cross-contamination that exists within Microsoft...
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LogJam: Who is the Man-in-the-Middle?

While we're all collectively struggling with how to internalize Logjam, a high-profile vulnerability that doesn't have a catchy logo, I'd like to take those who are interested aside for a moment to consider how we might talk about the threat this vulnerability poses. I'll start with some basics, but if you want more technical details, the Tripwire...
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Microsoft Patching: Don't Forget to Read the Fine Print

During my career, I have built and managed hundreds of production-level client and server systems, and nothing can be more worrisome than when it comes time to apply patches and upgrades to software. Why? Because things can, and often times, do go wrong during patch and upgrade cycles. According to a few reports, it is possible that system...
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More Top Conferences in Information Security – Readers' Choice Edition

Last week, we published a list of the top 10 conferences in information security. In our article, we strove to include some of the biggest events in the industry. But realizing that we likely missed a few, we invited you – our readers – to write in and let us know of the conferences you feel should have made the list. Thank you to those who provided...