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Mount Locker Ransomware Demanding Ransom Payments in the Millions

A new ransomware strain called "Mount Locker" is demanding that victims pay multi-million dollar ransom payments to recover their data. According to Bleeping Computer, the ransomware first began making the rounds in July 2020. The malicious actors responsible for this threat took a cue from other crypto-malware gangs by stealing victims' unencrypted...
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Helping Inspire the Next Generation of Cybersecurity Professionals

If you had asked 10 year old Tyler what he wanted to be when he grew up, the answer would have been a very enthusiastic, “Teacher!” Over time, however, that desire lessened as my fascination with technology grew. I ultimately ended up attending Fanshawe College to study Computer Systems Technology. I never fully abandoned that desire to teach,...
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Joint “CYPRES” Report on Incident Response Released by FERC

Earlier this month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) published a joint report entitled “Cyber Planning Response and Recovery Study” (CYPRES) in partnership with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and eight of its Regional Entities (REs) in order to review the methods for responding to a cybersecurity event. The...
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Being Cyber Resilient Is Critical for the Maritime Industry

Cyber-attacks against maritime and shipping organizations are only increasing. Notwithstanding the IMO’s requirement for organizations in this sector to achieve cyber resilience by 2021, more and more entities are being crippled by malicious attacks. Maritime cyber-attacks are increasing The last victim in a long list of cyber-attacks was cruise...
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Scammers Impersonating Texas Gov't Departments to Send Fake RFQs

Scammers are impersonating governmental departments within the State of Texas to send out fake Requests For Quotations (RFQs). On September 21, Abnormal Security revealed that it had spotted an attack email that impersonated the Texas Department of State Health Services. Scammers used spoofing techniques to camouflage the sender address as an...
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How CISOs Can Foster Effective Comms and Build a Cybersecurity Program

For many organizations, security flows from the top down. That’s a problem when executives don’t emphasize security as much as they should. Cisco learned as much in its CISO Benchmark Study “Securing What's Now and What's Next 20 Cybersecurity Considerations for 2020.” Here are just some of the findings from Cisco’s study: A majority (89%) of...
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Stop Wasting Your Time and Money with a “Checkbox" SCM Solution

By now, we know a lot about secure configuration management (SCM). We know the way it works, the integral processes of which it consists, the areas of your IT infrastructure that it can help secure as well as the different types of best practice frameworks and regulatory compliance standards with which it can help you to maintain compliance. All we...
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Maze Gang Distributed Ransomware Payload Inside VM

The gang responsible for the Maze ransomware family conducted an attack in which they distributed their malware payload inside of a virtual machine (VM). Sophos’ Managed Threat Response (MTR) observed the technique in action while investigating an attack that occurred back in July 2020. In that incident, the attackers packaged the ransomware payload...
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Building Your Team up to Win the Security Arms Race

In a fast-changing world, stopping to assess your success isn’t really an option anymore. It is increasingly important that security teams are constantly proving their worth and tracking their successes with a view to constantly improving so as to not to get caught behind the times and therefore exposed. How to Make Sure You’ve Got the Momentum You...
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The History of Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE)

During the late 1990s, security professionals were using information assurance tools in concert with vulnerability scanners to detect and remove vulnerabilities from the systems for which they are responsible. There’s just one problem – each security vendor has its own database with little to no crossover. Each vendor’s tool generates its own alert...
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New Smishing Campaign Using USPS as Its Disguise

A new SMS-based phishing ("smishing") campaign is using the United States Postal Service (USPS) as a disguise to target mobile users. On September 15, SlickRockWeb CEO Eric JN Eliason tweeted out two examples of the operation. Both attack SMS messages claimed to contain important information about a USPS package. Using that lure, they attempted to...
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Security Incident at VA Exposed 46K Veterans' Information

The Office of Management at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disclosed a security incident involving the personal data of 46,000 veterans. The VA detailed the data breach in a statement published on its website on September 14. According to this press release, the VA's Financial Services...
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Joint Cybersecurity Advisory on Threat Hunting and Incident Response Released

A joint cybersecurity advisory released on September 1st detailed technical methods for uncovering and responding to malicious activity including best practice mitigations and common missteps. A collaborative effort, this advisory (coded AA20-245A) is the product of research from the cybersecurity organizations of five nations. Those include the...