A while ago, I had the crazy idea that I needed to read more technical books, so I purchased a pair of books that appealed to me: Attacking Network Protocols and Serious Cryptography, both published by No Starch Press. I was interested in reading along with others and sharing our thoughts and opinions, so I spoke with members of VERT and our...

When the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force on May 25, 2018, what will happen to currently-available domain registration data in WHOIS? The GDPR restricts how personal data about natural persons residing in the European Union can be collected, used and transferred, and it defines “personal data” very broadly....

Digital attackers are targeting organizations in the energy sector like never before. For example, just a few weeks ago, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a joint report describing a massive Russian hacking campaign to infiltrate America’s critical infrastructure. In a first, the US government publicly blamed Russia’s government for...

The 5th annual DevSecOps community survey for 2018 from Sonatype reveals heightened interest in DevSecOps practices after the recent surge of high profile breaches, as well as highlights security integration statistics among teams with mature DevSecOps workflows. In this blog post, we’ll discuss some of the important findings from the survey of 2...

A teenager faces upwards of 10 years in prison for downloading 7,000 freedom of information releases that contained people's sensitive personal information. On 11 April, Nova Scotia's police raided the home of a yet-unnamed 19-year-old. As many as 15 officers seized computer equipment from the teen, who lives with his parents and siblings and is in...

Much attention and excitement within the security world has recently been focused on the lucrative surge in crypto-mining malware and hacks involving or targeting cryptocurrency implementations themselves. Yet the volume of ‘real world’ transactions for tangible goods and services currently paid for with cryptocurrency is still relatively niche in...

Last time, I spoke with Cyber Czar founder Sorene Assefa. She’s passionate about raising cybersecurity awareness in South Africa. This time is really special because I got to chat with Tripwire’s own Cindy Valladares. She really recognizes the importance of valuing people with information security talents. Kim Crawley: What do you do and how did you...

A newly issued patch plugs more than a dozen vulnerabilities that affect certain versions of an industrial multiport secure router series. On 13 April, Cisco Talos published a report revealing the security weaknesses as part of a coordinated disclosure strategy with Moxa, an automation solutions provider for companies seeking to get the most out of...

Technology has become the lens through which we perceive and experience day-to-day life. Take the smartphone as an example. What used to be a technological rarity and business-oriented tool has become the nexus of our personal and recreational lives. Pew Research Center has found that more than three-quarters (77 percent) of Americans currently own...

For those reading this who were cognizant of such topics as the Internet of Things (IoT) and security architecture back in 2016, you may have had some passing knowledge of the Mirai botnet attacks that showed us all just how risky the present client-server model of IoT can be. At issue is the reality that the vast majority of these kinds of networks...

The chief executive officer of a Bitcoin exchange believes the theft of more than $3 billion from the platform was an inside job. On 12 April, the team behind Coinsecure replaced the Indian exchange's website with a statement. The notice reveals that someone exposed users' Bitcoin funds and then stole them out of a wallet under the platform's...

All indications suggest organizations' adoption of the cloud is going to ramp up considerably in the next few years. According to Cisco's Global Cloud Index: Forecast and Methodology (2016–2021) white paper, cloud data centers will process 94 percent of workloads and compute instances by 2021. Close to three-quarters of those resources will be...

Malicious hackers have been exploiting thousands of legitimate websites since at least December 2017 in a sophisticated campaign that has disguised malware as fake software updates. Security researchers at MalwareBytes report that they have uncovered evidence of thousands of compromised websites running popular content management systems (CMS) such...

A U.S. federal appeals court has ruled that victims of a payment card data breach at Barnes & Noble can seek damages against the national bookseller. According to Reuters, the decision came on 11 April when the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago said that Heather Dieffenbach of California...

Getting hacked is among the most discouraging experiences you'll deal with as a website owner. No matter how secure your site is, there is always a chance that your site may get hacked. According to Forbes, about 30,000 websites are hacked every day, and who knows if/when hackers will target your site next. Now think: your site is getting popular,...

Great Western Rail has taken the precaution of resetting the passwords for all its customers after detecting a limited campaign of password reuse attacks. As reported by The Register, the British train operating company detected password reuse attacks against some of its customers' GWR.com accounts. In total, it found that bad actors had targeted 1...

Today’s VERT Alert addresses Microsoft’s April 2018 Security Updates. VERT is actively working on coverage for these vulnerabilities and expects to ship ASPL-773 on Wednesday, April 11th. In-The-Wild & Disclosed CVEs CVE-2018-1034 A vulnerability in SharePoint Server could allow specially crafted web requests to read unauthorized content or...

Verizon Enterprise has named ransomware the most prevalent variety of malware in its 2018 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR). For the 11th edition of its report, Verizon Enterprise analyzed 53,308 incidents with 2,216 confirmed data breaches. Researchers with the American multinational telecommunications conglomerate found that three in 10...

In my last interview, I had the pleasure of speaking with Senior Security Analyst and Brakeing Down Security podcast host Amanda Berlin. Defensive security and blue teams are cool, and it’s about time that the area gets the recognition it deserves. This time, I spoke with Sorene Assefa. She’s the founder of Cyber Czar, a cybersecurity firm based in...

The United States Secret Service is warning of a new scam in which thieves are targeting the chip-based debit cards issued to corporations. As reported by Brian Krebs, the scam involves criminals intercepting a newly issued debit card along its way to a corporation, tampering with the chip and waiting until it's activated so that they can profit off...