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Attackers Targeting FTP Servers to Access Patient Health Data, Warns FBI

The FBI issued an alert to the healthcare industry warning of criminal actors actively targeting anonymous File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers to access protected health information (PHI) and personally identifiable information (PII). According to the FBI’s Cyber Division, attackers are compromising such information from medical and dental entities...
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Ultra Secret Chat Using Wi-Fi Covert Channel

"Covert Channel [Wikipedia]: a covert channel is a type of computer security attack that creates a capability to transfer information objects between processes that are not supposed to be allowed to communicate by the computer security policy." Today, in a world where the hacking techniques are getting more and more sophisticated and security...
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The Sackcloth & Ashes of WordPress Security

This is my first blog in an ongoing “It’s Not Rocket Science” series featuring articles on Information security. "Security is not an absolute, it's a continuous process and should be managed as such. Security is about risk reduction, not risk elimination, and risk will never be zero. It's about employing the appropriate security controls that best...
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5 Lessons Lock Picking Can Teach You About Cyber Security

Security is a complex and connected web. Though there are many different categories within the all-encompassing field of security, there are still certain lessons that translate across the disciplines. Physical security can largely be seen as a manifestation of the ethereal elements of cyber security. Both the digital and the physical worlds of...
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3 Trends in Support of a More Nuanced Approach to ICS Security

The security community has seen multiple high-profile incidents targeting industrial control systems (ICS) over the past few years. No one can forget Christmas 2015, when a threat actor linked to the Russian government sent spear-phishing emails to the Western Ukrainian power company Prykarpattyaoblenergo. Those messages were laced with BlackEnergy,...
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Cerber Ransomware Infecting Users via "Blank Slate" Malspam Emails

Cerber ransomware is infecting unsuspecting users via malspam emails sent out by the "Blank Slate" attack campaign. Blank Slate is known for sending out attack emails with two defining characteristics. First, the emails don't come with any message text. Second, they don't contain any information that gives away the nature of their attachments. Even...
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SCM: Reducing Security Risk via Assessment and Continuous Monitoring

As I discussed in a previous blog post, a key security control known as file integrity monitoring (FIM) helps organizations defend against digital threats by monitoring for unauthorized changes to their system state. But that's only half the battle. A change could be authorized but still create new security risk. Organizations need to watch for...
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How to Protect Your E-commerce Business from Cyber Attacks

Just as traditional brick-and-mortar businesses are targeted by anarchists during protests or times of unrest, e-commerce businesses are targeted by cyber criminals, except they don’t wait for particular season or reason. Whether small, medium or large, every business is, sadly, at the mercy of hackers who will exploit every opportunity they get to...
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Man Used BEC Scam to Defraud Two U.S. Companies of $100M

A man used a business email compromise (BEC) scam to defraud two internet companies based in the United States out of 100 million dollars. On 21 March, the FBI along with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced criminal charges against Evaldas Rimasauskas, 48, of Vilnius, Lithuania. Lithuanian authorities arrested...
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Making Mistakes in Security

At some point in your career, you will make mistakes—small mistakes, big mistakes, even career-defining mistakes. I am writing this in retrospect because during the course of my job duties, I recently made a mistake. The details are irrelevant, but I wanted to share my experience with making mistakes in the professional world. Mistakes and human...
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Bringing Clarity to Really Really Big Data: A Case for AI and Machine Learning to Help Crunch and Protect Our Data

It's funny how kids have an affinity for toys we enjoyed as kids – like Legos. They will spend hours creating the biggest “thing,” often leading to a parent’s near universal response, “Johnny! That is the biggest tower I have ever seen! Great job!” Children (and we) love Legos because they foster imagination, offering a limitless way to create...
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The Importance of a Strategic Response to Cyber Incidents

There are a variety of ways a company can experience cyber incidents, ranging from a distributed denial of service network attack to internal information theft. The first response is usually to enlist incident response professionals to resolve the issue as quickly and efficiently as possible. However, there are several factors companies should...
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Clever Gmail Phishing Scam Tricked Even Technical Users

A Gmail phishing campaign is clever enough to have almost tricked or successfully fooled multiple technical users. The attack, which other contributors to The State of Security have spotted, begins when a Gmail user receives an email. Oftentimes, the message comes from someone they know whose account has already been compromised. The email appears...
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Wireless Routers: First Line of Defense

Almost everything you read or hear about routers includes a sentence or two about router security. The focus is generally on this essential piece of hardware as the first line of defense in an internet-connected world. Many medium-sized companies and large corporations take this into account when they purchase and set up their network infrastructure...