Blog

Blog

Microsoft issues advisory to users after macro-less malware attacks

Hackers have been found exploiting a freshly-uncovered vulnerability in Microsoft's software to install malware on business computers. According to security researchers, since last month a Russia-linked hacking group known as APT28 have been using a Microsoft protocol called Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) to run malicious code through a poisoned Word...
Blog

Unthinkable! Hackers Loot Charity's Funds Right Before Christmas Season

Hackers have done the unthinkable by making off with a charity's funds right before the start of the 2017 Christmas season. The Utah Association for Intellectual Disabilities (UAID) first noticed something was wrong when it had not received any new email applications for help since 22 October. Typically, the charity gets numerous applications in...
Blog

Supercharging Cybercrime Detection with MITRE’s ATT&CK Framework

The majority of attacks that result in successful data breaches are simply not that complex. Many rely on well-known, tried-and-true methods. Indeed, the Verizon DBIR has for many years reported that upwards of 90 percent of attacks were successfully executed because of unpatched and known vulnerabiltiies or misconfigured systems. If we can only learn a few lessons from the latest attacks: ...
Blog

DEF CON 25: A First-time Speaker Experience

I’ve been involved in information technology and infosec since the mid-1990s. Until recently, I had not been actively attending infosec or hacker conferences. I started attending DEF CON in 2013 when the conference was held at the Rio Hotel. DEF CON was the first hacker conference I ever attended. I did not know many in the community and certainly...
Blog

Don't Let Real Estate Scams Crush Your Dreams of Home Ownership!

Fraudsters are increasingly targeting potential home buyers and real estate professionals with wire fraud schemes and phishing scams. In May 2017, the FBI revealed that the identified exposed losses resulting from business email compromise (BEC) scams increased by 2,370 percent between January 2015 and December 2016. Those scams preyed on...
Blog

Women in Information Security: Nitha Suresh

Last time, I talked with Glenda Snodgrass. She's a founder and the president of The Net Effect, a cybersecurity services company. This time, I had a fascinating discussion with Nitha Suresh. She taught me a bit about penetration testing and aircraft data networks. Kimberly Crawley: Hi, Nitha! Tell me a bit about what you do. Nitha Suresh: I am...
Blog

Fake WhatsApp Downloaded Over 1 Million Times Pulled from Google Play

Over one million Android users unknowingly downloaded a fake version of the popular WhatsApp messaging service from the Google Play Store. Disguised as an “update,” the app was designed to look nearly identical to the official version, and claimed to be developed by “WhatsApp Inc.” Over the weekend, however, several users on Reddit flagged the...
Blog

October 2017: The Month in Ransomware

Ransomware activity didn’t skyrocket last month, but there was definitely a substantial increase compared to September. Perhaps the most serious wake-up call was the onset of BadRabbit, a Petya-like culprit going on a rampage in Eastern Europe. A likely successor of the Cerber ransomware dubbed Magniber started making the rounds via the Magnitude...
Blog

Tor Browser Gets Interim Fix for Bug that Can Leak Users' IP Addresses

Certain users of the Tor Browser should implement a temporary fix for a vulnerability that can potentially leak their real IP addresses. On 3 November, Tor Browser 7.0.9 rolled out to macOS and Linux users. Included in the updated version is a fix for an issue that affects Tor Browser 7.0.8 on those two operating systems. Windows users aren't...
Blog

Policium Concisium: Advice on Writing a Security Policy

What do your policies look like? If your organization is like most, then your policies are probably voluminous and all-encompassing. This is a good thing – or is it? Probably one of the most painful aspects of being an infosec professional is having to author or review policies. (Audit is the other painful aspect.) When you first entered the field,...
Blog

EOL Systems: Combating the Security Risks with Foundational Controls

Security patches and updates leave companies at risk when they're running systems designated as end of life (EOL), such as .Net systems, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP. When Microsoft releases an update or patch after the operating system (OS) is no longer supported, cybercriminals and malicious software develops dissect the update and reverse...
Blog

IoT Security: Does Such a Thing Exist?

We've been hearing a lot about IoT security recently. The news is overwhelming us with stories about baby dolls and baby monitors that can listen in on conversations at home, not to mention surveillance cameras that provide video streams to unauthorized individuals. To better understand these events, let’s start by looking at what is IoT. According...
Blog

FBI Charges 22-Year-Old Student for Hacking System to Change Grades

A former student at the University of Iowa was arrested on computer-hacking charges for accessing copies of exams in advance, and altering grades for himself and his classmates. Chemistry major and wrestler Trevor Graves, 22, allegedly plugged keyloggers into university computers in classrooms and labs, allowing him to see whatever his professors...
Blog

50,000 Australian Employees' Personal Data Exposed Online

Negligence by a third-party contractor exposed the personal information of approximately 50,000 Australian employees online. A Polish security researcher who uses the moniker "Wojciech" discovered the information while searching for open Amazon S3 buckets. The details belong to 48,270 employees of Australian government agencies, banks, and a utility...
Blog

Tripwire University: ICS/SCADA Edition

What do Robert M. Lee, Eric Byres, Sean McBride, Dr. Oliver Kleineberg, and Sid Snitkin all have in common? If any of these names do not ring a bell, they’re each industrial cybersecurity experts in different realms. Along with Tripwire customers and other industry leaders, they will be sharing fast-paced perspectives and challenging you to think...
Blog

Welcome Back, Mr. Robot

“Hello, again, friend. It all went quiet for a while and the depictions of hacking and cyber on TV seemed to become trite and clichéd again. We stopped seeing him, Mr. Robot, but now he’s back again. Did you see him, too?” This blog may contain spoilers and was written following ‘eps3.2_legacy.so,’ which seems a good enough point into the new...
Blog

Tripwire Patch Priority Index for October 2017

BULLETIN CVE APSB17-32 CVE-2017-11292 Microsoft Browser - IE CVE-2017-11790,CVE-2017-11822,CVE-2017-11813 Microsoft Browser - Edge CVE-2017-11794,CVE-2017-8726 Microsoft Browser - Scripting engine CVE-2017-11796, CVE-2017-11808, CVE-2017-11809, CVE-2017-11805, CVE...
Blog

46.2 Million Mobile Numbers Leaked Online after Malaysian Data Breach

46.2 million mobile numbers have appeared online following a data breach that affected several Malaysian telecommunication companies. The incident involves 15 Malaysian telcos and mobile virtual network operators (MVNO). Included in the leak are customers' mobile numbers along with their personal and device information. Of note, those exposed...