A California city has temporarily shut down its online utility bill payment system amid fears that the portal suffered a breach. On 22 August 2017, the City Manager's Office of Oceanside, CA announced a possible security incident affecting its online bill payment system that residents can use to pay their utility (water, sewer, and trash) bills. As...

All CISOs know at least one story of a penetration test that went wrong. And many of them can share stories of penetration tests that went deeply wrong. For this reason, it is a worthwhile exercise to take account of best practices in managing such engagements. This is important for modern enterprise security teams given the prominent role...

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) has reportedly fallen victim to another massive cyber-attack, exposing the confidential records of up to 1.2 million patients. According to reports, an unknown hacker claimed to exploit a weakness in the NHS’ appointment booking system, SwiftQueue. The vendor is contracted by eight NHS trusts to manage booked...

Identity thieves are porting users' mobile phone numbers to devices under their control in order to hijack their web accounts. This type of attack begin when hackers call up a mobile service provider. Using a bit of social engineering, the bad actors convince an agent at the provider to transfer control of a target mobile phone number to a device...

A common best practice in any field is to benchmark performance or results against industry norms. Based on comparison results, adjustments or business decisions can be made. In the case of industrial control systems (ICS), security benchmarking is a challenge because there isn’t a lot of data available and it’s not as extensive or granular as...

As much as Facebook has brought many people from the remotest parts of the world together, connecting them over vast expanses of space and time, the platform has become one of the major distributors for cybercriminals. Their malicious intent is to spread viruses, malware and spyware throughout the abyss that is the internet. Being able to target...

Friday, August 18th was Bad Poetry Day. To celebrate, Tripwire decided to ask some of it's employees and friends in the community to share some of their security poems with us. Some folks tweeted theirs out using the hashtag #tripwirebadpoetryday. Others sent them in. Here are some of our favorites: Roses are red, Violets are blue Tripwire is...

New Jersey law enforcement has arrested a couple for abusing a vulnerability affecting Lowe's website in order to steal merchandise. On 15 August, Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato and Brick Township Police Chief James Riccio announced the arrests of Romela Velazquez, 24, and Kimy Velazquez, 40. Together, the couple allegedly orchestrated a...

How prepared are you for the NERC CIPv5 audit? Maybe you’re ready to jump in with both feet, maybe you have no idea where to start, or maybe you’re somewhere in the middle. No matter where you land, there are some best practices to help you along the way. While I can’t promise to rid you of all past sins and violations, I do have pointers based on...

Bad actors are constantly looking for ways to target unsuspecting users with malware or other digital threats. To increase the likelihood of a successful infection, these nefarious individuals incorporate holidays, current events and significant dates into their attack campaigns. It's, therefore, no surprise that digital miscreants are capitalizing...

The Internet is a potentially dangerous place for users. This is especially so for children. Oftentimes, these younger users don't yet understand that some people harbor bad intentions. They are therefore prime targets of digital predators who would seek to prey upon them online. Information security writer Kimberly Crawley explains that there are...

It's never a dull day if you're working in HBO's IT security team. One day you're dealing with the unauthorised leaking of upcoming episodes of "Game of Thrones", next you're facing multi-million dollar extortion demands from hackers who've broken into your network and stolen 1.5 terabytes data and the personal contact details of your celebrity cast...

Locky ransomware is now appending the ".lukitus" extension to victims' files after it's completed its encryption routine. On 16 August, Fortinet junior anti-virus analyst Rommel Joven came across one of Locky's newest variants. https://twitter.com/rommeljoven17/status/897766198674300928 The ransomware is making its way onto users' machines via a...

There is much consternation and many dismal proclamations from think tanks all the way to Twitter eggs decrying the shortage of skilled information security workers. The skills gap does exist, but it isn’t a singular chasm. It’s a series of rifts and valleys, each with different characteristics. Beyond acknowledging the gap, we need to survey its...

Container shipping company A.P. Moller-Maersk says a cyberattack that disrupted its operations will come with a hefty price tag of as much as $300 million in lost revenue. The Danish conglomerate, known as the largest container ship and vessel operator in the world, announced the estimated losses in its second quarter financial report."In the last...

Have you heard about the European Union's Network and Information Security (NIS) Directive, which is scheduled to enter into member state law in 2018? Maybe not. Both the world’s attention and appetite for IT security legislation has been overfed with all things General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) over the past two years, leaving little...

Digital security common sense says you should never plug an unauthorized device like an unknown Universal Serial Bus (USB) into your computer. Of course, logic doesn't always reign supreme when it comes to using a computer. We saw this on display at Black Hat USA 2016 when Google's anti-abuse research team shared an experiment for which its...

In the Army, we see the basic military fundamental skills being tested on every mission and operation. Whether the operator is jumping out of C-130 to scuba submersion or securing a post in country, their basic skills are always being tested. This goes for information security professionals, as well. Your basic skills sets will be tested every day....

A "Facebook password stealer" is capable of covertly pilfering sensitive information from any wannabe attacker who uses it. On 3 August, a security researcher by the name of MalwareHunterTeam tweeted about the credential-collecting tool's hidden nature. https://twitter.com/malwrhunterteam/status/893053328057413634 The phrase "how to hack facebook...

We all get them: those notices from the ARIN WHOIS service. Whether you run a corporate website or perhaps your own blogging domain, those notices arrive reminding us to confirm our internet records. How much attention do you pay to those? Do you treat them casually, relying on the idea that everything is working so that nothing needs to be done?...