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World Password Day is Dead. Long Live World Password Day!

In 2002 I sat in a local bookstore in Jackson Hole, WY that offered a few Internet-connected computers for hourly use. After chatting with the owner and petting the resident store dog, I took a few guesses at the password protecting these computers. It took me maybe 10 attempts. It was, of course, some variation of the dog’s name. While this is a...
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A Tripwire Milestone: ASPL – 1000 is here

When I joined nCircle as a security researcher in 2006, ASPL 117 had just been released. I missed the ASPL-100 release celebration, which included custom sweatshirts, but there was still one unclaimed shirt in the office and I brought it home, my first piece of company swag. That shirt still hangs in my closet all these years later. For those of you that are unaware, ASPL, Advanced Security...
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May The Fourth Be with You: Jedi Mind Tricks and Scams

Over the past few years, I’ve used Star Wars Day as a way to talk about two of my favourite things – Star Wars and cybersecurity. I wrote about scammers in 2020 and IoT in 2021, and I really thought I’d write about IoT again this year. After all, there’s no shortage of IoT blunders to talk about and tie into the Star Wars mythos. Instead, an article...
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Extra, Extra, VERT Reads All About It: Cybersecurity News for the Week of April 25, 2022

All of us at Tripwire’s Vulnerability Exposure and Research Team (VERT) are constantly looking out for interesting stories and developments in the infosec world. Here’s what cybersecurity news stood out to us during the week of April 25, 2022. I’ve also included some comments on these stories. Homeland Security bug bounty program uncovers 122 holes...
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Tripwire Patch Priority Index for April 2022

Tripwire's April 2022 Patch Priority Index (PPI) brings together important vulnerabilities for Microsoft, Google Chrome, Oracle, and Adobe. First on the patch priority list this month is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows User Profile Service. This vulnerability has been added to the Metasploit Exploit Framework and...
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OSINT: The privacy risks of sharing too much information

In the past, I’ve written about digital privacy and how much data we leak through our day to day interactions. I think this is an important topic to consider and really focus on and it is an element of cybersecurity at both the enterprise and personal level that isn’t discussed enough. One of the reasons is that demonstrating this can definitely...
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Ransomware costs show prevention is better than the cure

If your company is worried about the financial hit of paying a ransom to cybercriminals after a ransomware attack, wait until they find out the true cost of a ransomware attack. Because the total costs of recovering from the ransomware attack are likely to be much, much higher. That's the finding of a new study by researchers at Check Point, who...
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PCI DSS 4.0 and ISO 27001 – the dynamic duo

It’s not often we can say this, but 2022 is shaping up to be an exciting time in information governance, especially for those interested in compliance and compliance frameworks. We started the year in eager anticipation of the new version of the international standard for information security management systems, ISO 27001:2022, soon to be followed...
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PCI DSS 4.0 is Here: What you Need to Consider

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a benchmark with tenure in the industry, with the first version being introduced in 2004. The PCI DSS was unique when it was introduced because of its prescriptive nature and its focus on protecting cardholder data. Cybersecurity is a changing landscape, and prescriptive standards must be...
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The Cyber Assessment Framework: Guided Cyber Resilience

Remember how, just a few years ago, many organizations were striving to be cyber secure? Over the last years, it seemed that crowing about one’s cybersecurity posture became the very thing that mocked every organization that was the victim of a newsworthy compromise. Many organizations began augmenting their previously acclaimed security posture...
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Improve your patching efficiency with Tripwire State Analyzer

Organizations are always concerned with improving efficiencies to make business flow smoother. Some of the biggest inefficiencies in any business revolve around time wasted on operational tasks. Whether it is a stale accounting process, or something as trivial as routing phone calls to the proper department, saving time by improving a process can...
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Extra, Extra, VERT Reads All About It: Cybersecurity News for the Week of April 18, 2022

All of us at Tripwire’s Vulnerability Exposure and Research Team (VERT) are constantly looking out for interesting stories and developments in the infosec world. Here’s what cybersecurity news stood out to us during the week of April 18, 2022. I’ve also included some comments on these stories. CISA Alert on ICS, SCADA Devices Highlights Growing...
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Threat Intelligence in the SOC- How can it help mitigate risks?

For most organizations, Security Operations Center (SOC) teams have long since been their first line of defense. These SOC systems efficiently ensure robust cybersecurity and are designed to detect, analyze, respond to, and prevent any cybersecurity incident that the organization might come across. Integrating a SOC within an organization aims to...
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The Four Stages to a Successful Vulnerability Management Program

Have you ever been around someone who is just better at something than you are? Like when you were in grade school and there was this person who was effortless at doing things correctly, like getting high grades? They had great study habits, they arrived on time, they were prepared and confident in the materials that they studied in class, and they...
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Top Tips for Moving from Compliance to Cybersecurity Excellence

Compliance should be an essential part of business operations, regardless of industry. Taking preventative measures to manage compliance and mitigate risk can feel like a hassle upfront, but it can save your organisation huge costs in the long run. Compliance violations can result in fines, penalties, lawsuits, loss of reputation, and more. However,...
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What Makes Telecommunication Companies Such a Fertile Ground for Attack?

Telecommunication is the first, and most robust network ever invented. This may seem like a brazen and bold statement, but when examined closely, it is not the stuff of fantasy. Prior to the invention and development of the internet, what other way could a person pick up a device, and “dial” a few numbers and end up seamlessly connected to someone...
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Extra, Extra, VERT Reads All About It: Cybersecurity News for the Week of April 11, 2022

All of us at Tripwire’s Vulnerability Exposure and Research Team (VERT) are constantly looking out for interesting stories and developments in the infosec world. Here’s what cybersecurity news stood out to us during the week of April 11, 2022. I’ve also included some comments on these stories. Microsoft's Autopatch feature improves the patch...
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Regulatory Compliance – Holding Security Back or Forcing us to Reassess old biases?

A recent survey conducted by IBM and Censuswide of the UK market explored some of the drivers for modernisation and revealed some interesting challenges that organisations currently face as more and more businesses expand their digital boundaries. The most interesting finding was the that one of the drivers for modernisation (according to 28% of participants in the survey) was “Changing industry...