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Updated Ryuk Ransomware Decryptor Could Damage Larger Files

Attackers provided victims who paid with an updated Ryuk ransomware decryptor that could potentially damage their larger files. Emsisoft found that malicious actors had added numerous new features to Ryuk ransomware over the past year. In a lesser-known case, attackers gave Ryuk the ability to partially encrypt files that exceeded 54.4 MB in size....
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Navigating ICS Security: Knowing the Basics

As we begin our new decade of the 2020s, we can look back at the last 30 odd years and examine the collaboration between technology and our daily lives. If you think of your day-to-day, it’s easy to see how much our society relies on technology. Consider our smart devices such as mobile phones, watches, even homes. However, what about the technology...
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Spotify Phishing Campaign Tells Users that Their Subscriptions Are Frozen

A new Spotify-themed phishing campaign informed recipients that the music streaming service had frozen their subscriptions. On 5 December, MailGuard discovered an email that appeared to come from Spotify. The email itself used the display name "Spotify" along with the music streaming service's logo to lull recipients into a false sense of security....
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Moving to the Cloud: Motivations Behind the Migration

Consider how many times a day you check your mobile phone, smartwatch, smart TV, and/or other connected devices. How normal does it seem to be reaching out to an external source, not actually sure where this information is stored, or even coming from, but that it’s there, accessible and ready to be taken in? Organizations wishing to migrate to a...
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CMMC: The Logical End of ISO 27001, SOC 2 & Other Certifications

In the not-too-distant future, I can clearly see how ISO 27001, SOC 2 and other [redacted] certifications could become a diminished, legacy activity, viewed as a rarity left over from marketing efforts to distinguish an organization’s security posture from its competition. Absurd? Unrealistic? Actually, it is a very pragmatic understanding of what...
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Major data center provider hit by ransomware attack, claims report

CyrusOne, a major provider of enterprise data center services, is reported to have suffered a ransomware attack. The Dallas-headquartered company, which operates more than 30 data centers across the United States, China, London, and Singapore, is reported by ZDnet to have had some of its systems infected by the REvil (Sodinokibi) ransomware....
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PSA: Beware of Exposing Ports in Docker

Docker is an awesome technology, and it’s prevalent in nearly every software developer’s workflow. It is useful for creating identical environments and sharing them between development, testing, production, and others. It’s a great way to ship a reliable software environment between systems or even to customers. However, like with any technology,...
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Tripwire Patch Priority Index for November 2019

Tripwire’s November 2019 Patch Priority Index (PPI) brings together important vulnerabilities from Microsoft, Oracle, Linux Kernel and Adobe. Exploit Alert: Metasploit First, on the patch priority list, this month are vulnerabilities that have been recently added to Metasploit. Two vulnerabilities, identified by CVE-2019-11539 and CVE-2019-11510...
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Universal Network-level Call Blocking: What You Need to Know

Many of the current telephone scams use caller ID spoofing to mask the identity of the caller. A few of those telephone scams spoof caller IDs that don’t match the North American standard for legitimate numbers. These blatantly obvious spoofed caller IDs are the target of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). Last...
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Verizon’s 2019 Payment Security Report – Not Just for PCI

If you are responsible for cybersecurity or data protection in your organization, stop what you are doing and read this report. Actually, first, go patch your servers and applications and then read this report. Much like Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), the Payment Security Report (PSR) is a must-read for security professionals. While it focuses on the PCI DSS standard and...
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Smith & Wesson Online Store Affected by Magecart Attack

The online store for American gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson fell victim to a Magecart attack that's designed to steal customers' payment data. Willem de Groot of Sanguine Security learned that a particular Magecart group had been impersonating his employer and abusing his name as a contact to register domain names. While investigating this group,...
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Climbing the Vulnerability Management Mountain: Reaching Maturity Level 2

The path is starting to get steeper now as we climb to ML2. It is time to start defining a vulnerability management program with objectives and goals. This program is expected to grow and evolve over time as the organization grows and evolves. Document the requirements Start by documenting what is in place now and what objections the organization...
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Security for Cloud Services: IaaS Deep Dive

In this, the final post in my series on considerations for managing your security with cloud services, we will be looking at Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). If you haven’t yet read the previous blog entries about SaaS and PaaS, it’s worth going back to read these first, as much of the thinking associated with these services is also true for IaaS...
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Five “W’s” for Vulnerability Management

As we wind down 2019, it is a great time to think about your vulnerability management plans for the coming year. The five W’s can help guide our efforts as we resolve to improve our digital security for the coming new year. What Is Vulnerability Management? Vulnerability assessments are useful for detecting security issues within your environment....
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The Future of Cybersecurity Insurance

Cybersecurity incidents and data breaches have become a normal part of the news cycle. It feels like every day you hear about a big corporation or organization suffering an attack that has put customer or user data in jeopardy. Sometimes this is because a security strategy was lacking; sometimes, the criminal's attack was simply too powerful....
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DeathRansom Ransomware Fixes Issues, Now Encrypting Victims' Data

After its developers fixed several issues, DeathRansom ransomware is now actively infecting users and encrypting victims' data. DeathRansom wasn't actually crypto-ransomware when attackers first began distributing it. At that time, the threat pretended to encrypt users' information and appended the .wctc extension onto victims' files. Researchers...
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Fullz House Group Using Phishing and Web Skimming to Maximize Profits

A new threat group called "Fullz House" is using both phishing and web skimming in order to maximize the profits of its attacks. Fullz House isn't new to the threat landscape, but RiskIQ observed that the group had expanded its activities to include web skimming beginning in August-September 2019. These two operations are mostly split. However,...
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Ransomware: ‘Tis the Season for Retailers to be Prepared

‘Tis the season! Winter holidays are upon us, and with it brings the yearly high-volume online shopping season we all know as Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM). With the total US consumer spending estimated at over $717 billion in the 2018 BFCM season, retailers know that the next few weeks are a critical time for their infrastructure. Unfortunately...