In 2013, 2014 and 2016, Yahoo suffered a series of data breaches. Yahoo reports that the largest one, in August 2013, affected all three billion user accounts then in existence worldwide. The stolen user account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, passwords encrypted with the MD5 cryptographic...

The importance of a mature vulnerability management program can’t be overstated. File integrity monitoring (FIM) and security configuration management (SCM) might be the bedrock of a strong cybersecurity program, but they can only go so far. Scanning for vulnerabilities needs to be a foundational part of your program, too. The Center for Internet...

I’ve got great news for you! My interview series continues. Last week, I spoke with Nicola Whiting, cyber hygiene specialist and Titania Chief Strategy Officer. This time, I had the privilege of speaking with defensive security expert Liz Bell. We talked about the 90s internet, blue teaming, sexism and transphobia in tech as well as what pen testing...

Large organizations have always focused on managing risk, but the technological breakthroughs that have enhanced our world in countless ways have also transformed how leading executives engage in enterprise risk management (ERM). The pervasive and ever-expanding threat of cyber crime means that comprehensive strategies for cyber security are now...

The annual Scalar Security Study, published in February 2019 and conducted by IDC Canada, identified a new normal across the threat landscape: cybersecurity incidents, be it exfiltration, infiltration or denial of service, occur on a regular basis. Focused on small, midsize and large organizations in Canada, the study confirms that intrusions are...

A British man has been jailed for over six years after exploiting ad networks on pornographic websites to spread malware onto innocent users' computers. 24-year-old Zain Qaiser made massive profits from victims in over 20 countries around the world through a criminal scheme which involved malware and blackmail. According to the National Crime Agency...

The MuddyWater threat attack group is using a spam campaign to hijack victims' computers and steal sensitive information. Discovered by Heimdal Security in early April, the campaign begins when malicious actors use social engineering techniques to trick a user into opening a malicious Microsoft Office document attached to a phishing email. The...

As technology advances and the costs of connecting electronic components to the internet decreases, the lower the cost of having an internet connected smart home is. Sensors placed throughout a house and integrated into home appliances can provide homeowners the advantages of monitoring and managing functions of the home remotely. According to...

Researchers have discovered that malicious actors leveraged the TRITON framework at a second critical infrastructure facility. In this particular attack, the threat actor maintained access to the target corporate networks for nearly a year before gaining access to the Safety Instrumented System (SIS) engineering workstation. They remained relatively...

Today’s VERT Alert addresses Microsoft’s April 2019 Security Updates. VERT is actively working on coverage for these vulnerabilities and expects to ship ASPL-825 on Wednesday, April 10th. In-The-Wild & Disclosed CVEs CVE-2019-0803 This CVE describes a privilege escalation vulnerability in Win32k that could allow an attacker to execute code in...

Indoor gardening system manufacturer AeroGrow has disclosed a data breach that involved customers' payment card information. In a sample data breach notice obtained by the Office of Attorney General for the State of California, AeroGrow senior vice president of finance and accounting Grey H. Gibbs...

Thanks for playing along! By now, you’ve probably seen that the winner of our tournament is Shellshock. I long felt that this was the expected winner of Patch Insanity given the competition and I wasn’t expecting any major upsets, but there were definitely one or two. The big one that came to mind for some of us was GHOST defeating EternalBlue....

Last time, I spoke with Ashanti, a Rust developer who’s always mindful of security. She explained how Rust is a more secure language, and she explained holochain to me. This time, I spoke to Nicola Whiting. As the Chief Strategy Officer of Titania, she works on how AI can be implemented to prevent cyber threats caused by poor cyber hygiene. Kim...

Security researchers have released a decryptor that enables victims of the Planetary ransomware family to recover their files for free. Released by Emsisoft, this decryptor requires a victim to have a copy of the ransom note. It's not hard to find. Planetary ransomware, which earns its name for its use of planet-related file extensions including "...

MITRE Corporation’s ATT&CK framework is a living, curated repository of adversarial tactics and techniques based on observations from actual attacks on enterprise networks. It’s a valuable trove of information for security analysts, threat hunters and incident response teams. Today, I’m going to look at a particular method for evading detection, often...

Vulnerability Management is a much-talked-about practice in the IT security industry. Whether it is the debate on vulnerability scoring, how to implement a suitable vulnerability management program based on your own resources or even trying to convince leadership a vulnerability management solution alone won't solve all your cybersecurity issues,...

Barely a day goes by anymore without another report of sensitive data being left accessible to anyone on Elasticsearch servers or MongoDB databases that have not been properly configured. Today is no different. As ZDNet reports, researchers have discovered several exposed servers that belong to Chinese recruitment firms. Security experts Devin...

German multinational pharmaceutical and life sciences company Bayer AG has revealed that it detected and contained a digital attack. As reported by Reuters, Bayer discovered the installation of malicious software on its systems in early 2018. It then quietly monitored and analyzed the malware through...

You would be hard-pressed these days to remain ignorant of the growth of ransomware incidents experienced by organizations large and small. We’ve seen a ton of press around these events, from CryptoLocker to WannaCry. The impact of this type of malware is newsworthy. The landscape of malware is changing, however. While ransomware is still a...

A data breach at the Georgia Institute of Technology, better known as Georgia Tech, potentially exposed the personal data of as many as 1.3 million users. On 2 April, the public research university published a statement on its website in which it revealed that an unknown actor had gained unauthorized...