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...

A computer programmer pleaded guilty to making false statements about his involvement with the Silk Road underground web marketplace. On Setpember 21, Michael R. Weigand (also known as "Shabang") surrendered himself and told U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III that he had lied to federal...

A critical vulnerability in Instagram's Android and iOS apps could have allowed remote attackers to run malicious code, snoop on unsuspecting users, and hijack control of smartphone cameras and microphones. The security hole, which has been patched by Instagram owner Facebook, could be exploited by a malicious hacker simply sending their intended...

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,...

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...

Canadian multinational e-commerce company Shopify disclosed a security incident that involved the information of some of its merchants. On September 22, Shopify published an incident update on its website. This bulletin explained that "two rogue members" of the company's support team had attempted to...

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...

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...

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...

Burnout is a health hazard in any high-stress workplace, especially in any industry where highly skilled professionals must tackle urgent demands at unpredictable intervals and where effective response is time-sensitive or even urgently needed. Employee burnout is a security and business continuity issue. It directly impacts both an employee’s...

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...

A patient died after being redirected to another medical facility as the result of a German hospital having suffered a ransomware infection. On September 17, the Associated Press reported that a woman who needed urgent medical attention died after being transferred from University Hospital of...

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...

US authorities have charged two Russian men with allegedly defrauding cryptocurrency exchanges and their customers out of at least $16.8 million. The men - Danil "Cronuswar" Potekhin, 25, and 35-year-old Dmitrii Karasavidi, of Voronezh and Moscow respectively - are said to be responsible for a phishing campaign that targeted customers of...

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...

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...

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...

Security culture matters to executives, but these individuals are struggling to implement it. In a November 2019 study commissioned by KnowBe4, 94% of individuals with managerial duties or higher in security or risk management said that security culture was important for their organization’s success. Even so, Security Magazine shared that 92% of...

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...

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...