In December 2020, the world discovered that the SolarWinds' Orion Platform had been compromised by cybercriminals, potentially affecting thousands of businesses the world over. Security groups such as the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) provided advice and guidance to security teams and IT companies on what actions they should take to minimize...

What is REvil? REvil is an ambitious criminal ransomware-as-a-service (RAAS) enterprise that first came to prominence in April 2019, following the demise of another ransomware gang GandCrab. The REvil group is also known sometimes by other names such as Sodin and Sodinokibi. There’s been plenty of ransomware before. What makes REvil so special? ...

The last time you were in a library, or a bookstore, you probably noticed how quiet it was. This doesn’t mean that people weren’t excited, or downright celebrating, they were engaged in a different method of celebration; the kind that takes place between the covers of a good book. April 23rd marks the celebration of World Book and Copyright Day....

Imagine an arc. Not just any arc. A rainbow. When we think of a rainbow, it conjures impressions of color, inspiration and even supernatural characteristics. Does your cybersecurity program long for a magical pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? With all the moving parts of cybersecurity, sometimes it seems like we are merely chasing rainbows. ...

Whilst employment has taken a downward curve over the last year or so, there are a variety of approaches I use when applying for a role to help my CV stand out. One key point is knowing what the job entails before submitting my cover letter and CV. This allows me to tailor my message effectively. Additionally, it enables me to find positions that I...

Several digital attacks against pharmaceutical companies have made news in the past few years. Back in 2017, for instance, Merck fell victim to NotPetya. The wiper malware spread to the pharmaceutical giant’s headquarters, rendered years of research inaccessible, affected various production facilities and caused $1.3 billion in damages, according to...

Here at Tripwire, we, like many others, recently surpassed the one-year anniversary of working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since March of 2020, we have converted kitchens, spare bedrooms and garages into office spaces. Our pets and children have become our coworkers, and companies are reporting a sudden increase in shirt sales as opposed...

As we know, Tripwire Enterprise (TE) is the de-facto go-to solution for File Integrity Monitoring (FIM). In normal operations, we deploy a TE agent to a system we want to monitor. TE then uses that agent to baseline the system against the appropriate rules, creating a known good state for that system. Moving forward, that system is monitored for...

Tripwire recently hired Naoufal Mzali as its first local regional sales manager specifically for the Africa and Levant region. I therefore decided to sit down with Naoufal and have a chat about cybersecurity and Tripwire’s mission for the region. Here’s what he had to say. Joe Pettit: Is the Levant and Africa a new territory for Tripwire? Or do you...

As expected, the start of 2021 has seen unprecedented movement in the U.S. with 22 states introducing comprehensive privacy legislation and even more introducing specific-use legislation. To date, hundreds of privacy bills were introduced across the states; to give some perspective, more than 50 privacy bills were introduced in New York alone....

The White House is reportedly moving swiftly forward with a plan to harden the security of the US power grid against hacking attacks. According to Bloomberg, the Biden administration has a plan to dramatically improve how power utilities defend themselves against attacks from countries considered to be adversaries in cyberspace - such as Russia,...

On March 17, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Treasury Department announced the extension of the federal income tax filing due date from April 15, 2021 to May 17, 2021. This decision is designed “to help taxpayers navigate the unusual circumstances related to the pandemic,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig explained in a news release....

Where were you when you first heard about the SolarWinds breach? It’s not unusual for information security professionals to learn about a breach. Keeping track of the news is part of the job. The SolarWinds attack, however, was different for two primary reasons. First, it reached the level of mainstream news. The majority of breaches stay mostly...

After a year of lockdown, or nearly full lockdown, due to the ongoing health crisis, we learned a lot from how our organizations responded when we all had to change our work habits to a home-office setup. Many companies that had only a casual relationship with Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology had to quickly reach expert-level proficiency in...

Today’s VERT Alert addresses Microsoft’s April 2021 Security Updates. VERT is actively working on coverage for these vulnerabilities and expects to ship ASPL-939 on Wednesday, April 14th. In-The-Wild & Disclosed CVEs CVE-2021-28310 Borin Larin of Kaspersky Lab discovered this vulnerability being actively used for exploitation and suspects that it...

In this blog series, I will be putting the spotlight on useful Ghidra features you may have missed. Each post will look at a different feature and show how it helps you save time and be more effective in your reverse engineering workflows. Ghidra is an incredibly powerful tool, but much of this power comes from knowing how to use it effectively. ...

Tripwire's March 2021 Patch Priority Index (PPI) brings together important vulnerabilities from SaltStack, VWware, BIG-IP and Microsoft. First on the patch priority list this month are patches for vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange (CVE-2021-27065, CVE-2021-26855), SaltStack (CVE-2021-25282, CVE-2021-25281), BIG-IP (CVE-2021-22986) and VMware...

Digital attackers are increasingly launching sophisticated campaigns in an effort to target U.S. federal agencies and other organizations. Two recent examples demonstrate this reality. These are the SolarWinds supply chain attack and the HAFNIUM Exchange exploit campaign. The SolarWinds Supply Chain Attack In mid-December 2020, the security...

Hidden deep in Google’s release notes for the new version of Chrome that shipped on March 1 is a fix for an “object lifecycle issue.” Or, for the less technically inclined, a major bug. Bugs like these have been common in Chrome, leading some to wonder whether the world’s most popular web browser is as safe as it could be? Google created Chrome as...

Cybercriminal extortionists have adopted a new tactic to apply even more pressure on their corporate victims: contacting the victims' customers, and asking them to demand a ransom is paid to protect their own privacy. At the end of March, Bleeping Computer reported that the Clop ransomware gang had not stopped at threatening hacked companies and...