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2016 Verizon DBIR: Fix What Attackers are Targeting

The 2016 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) is out, and I’m excited to announce that this year’s findings leveraged vulnerability data from Tripwire and other vendors, including our partner Kenna Security. The 2016 Verizon DBIR recommends establishing “a process for vulnerability remediation that targets vulnerabilities which attackers...
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10-Year-Old Receives $10,000 Bug Bounty from Instagram

Instagram has rewarded 10-year-old “Jani” with $10,000 for finding a flaw in the popular social media platform. Jani found that he could change code on Instagram’s servers and force-delete users’ posts. According to Forbes, he ultimately verified the bug by deleting a comment the company had posted on a test account. A spokesperson for Instagram has...
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OpenSSL Fixes Two "High" Severity Vulnerabilities

OpenSSL has issued fixes for six vulnerabilities, including two flaws with a "high" severity rating. On Tuesday, the corporate entity responsible for OpenSSL, a software library that helps to secure web communications against eavesdropping, published a security advisory in which it provides details on the two "high" severity vulnerabilities. ...
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Microsoft 'Simplifies' Update Acquisition

On April 21st, an email from Microsoft appeared in the mailbox of mailing list subscribers informing everyone that MS16-039 had been revised and the update for Microsoft Live Meeting 2007 Console had been re-released. It contained an additional tidbit of information that many people overlooked: "Effective as of the May 2016 security bulletin...
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FBI Warns of a Rise in Ransomware Attacks

The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is warning businesses to be on the lookout for a rise in ransomware attacks. On Friday, the FBI published a letter revealing that the threat posed by ransomware to hospitals, state and local governments, law enforcement, small businesses, and private individuals is growing. "Ransomware has been around for...
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Whaling: Tracing the Evolution of Phishing Attacks

Phishing is a common social engineering attack, but it does not have a very high success rate. In ordinary phishing campaigns, attackers send out fake messages with the hope that at least some of the recipients will click on a malicious URL or email attachment. Phishing correspondence is, for the most part, never personalized and its content varies...
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Catchy Healthcare Metaphor Title Goes Here

When talking about the state of information security in the healthcare world, it’s all too easy to come up with witty titles along the lines of, “Is IT Security in Need of a Check-Up?” or, “<Insert Software Name Here> Is Just What the Doctor Ordered For Securing Your Data!” However, indulge me here: In the healthcare sphere in general, it’s...
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How to Make the Most Out of Your Threat Intelligence Program

Organizations face a constant barrage of digital threats. To mitigate the risk of an attack, IT staff need to continually protect all of an organization's endpoints, such as by creating patching schedules and by hardening vulnerable devices. Unfortunately, protection has its limitations. Security personnel can harden a device or implement a patch...
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Re-Examining Identity & Access Management (IAM)

There is a lot security professionals disagree on when it comes to Identity & Access Management (IAM). One thing most would agree on though is that IAM means many things to many people, and has been shaped more by vendor product boundaries over the years than by overarching architectures, processes and governance. The basic term “Identity Management...
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Takeaways from the 2016 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report

2016 marks the ninth year Verizon has published its annual Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR). Once again, organizations sent their data on thousands of security incidents and data breaches to Verizon, whose researchers analyzed that information to highlight new patterns, steady trends, and interesting tidbits in the evolving digital threat...
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Hacking Competition Challenged UK Cyber Security Students

A recent hacking competition challenged teams of cyber security students from some of the United Kingdom's top universities. On Saturday, April 23, the University of Cambridge hosted the Inter-ACE Cyberchallenge 2016, a two-competition ethical hacking event between the UK Academic Centres of Excellence in Cyber Security Research. Dr. Frank Stajano,...
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Decryption Tool Released for CryptXXX Ransomware

Researchers have developed a utility that allows victims affected by CryptXXX ransomware to decrypt their files for free. CryptXXX is one the newest crypto-ransomware samples to be observed in the wild. It is being delivered to users as a Dynamic-Link Library (DLL) dropped by Bedep, a piece of malware which has the ability to download additional...
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Defining Your Security Policy: A Healthcare Perspective

The healthcare landscape has many challenges – security being at the forefront. Ransomware attacks grow increasingly rampant with each day and healthcare is the perfect target due to hospitals relying on antiquated technology that alerts them only after the infection occurs. Cybercriminals are always on the forefront and looking at innovative ways...
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Shopware Patches 'Critical' Remote Code Execution Bug

Shopware has patched a 'critical' remote code execution bug that affects the functions of both the shop and the overall system. According to a thread posted on Bugtraq, David Vieira-Kurz, a security engineer at Immobilien Scout GmbH, found that the script located at "/backend/Login/load" in Shopware's eCommerce platform is susceptible to remote code...
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4 Key Steps to Securing Your Endpoints

As I discussed in last week's post, smartphones, tablets, desktops, industrial equipment, servers and other technologies that connect to a corporate network are considered endpoints. Unfortunately, bad actors can abuse those devices and their network access to attack an organization. That is why IT staff need to protect as many of their company's...
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SWIFT Software Hacked in Bangladesh Bank Heist, Find Researchers

Researchers have determined that those who stole approximately $81 million from the Bangladesh Bank most likely did so by hacking into SWIFT's client software. SWIFT, or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, provides banks and other organizations with secure messaging services. According to its 2015 traffic, more than 11...
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MazarBOT Android Malware Distributed via SMS Spoofing Campaign

In the fall of 2015, Heimdal Security detected a post-office email scam targeting unsuspecting Danish users. The campaign sent out fake emails purporting to originate from PostNord and Post Denmark. When clicked on, the infected emails downloaded Cryptolocker2 ransomware onto users' machines. Several months later, Heimdal has now spotted another...