All of us at Tripwire’s Vulnerability Exposure and Research Team (VERT) are constantly looking out for interesting stories and developments in the infosec world. Here’s what cybersecurity news stood out to us during the week of November 28th, 2022. I’ve also included some comments on these stories. UEFI bugs disabled Secure Boot Acer has fixed a high-severity vulnerability that could enable local...

Identity governance, also known as access governance, is an integral part of any enterprise data protection and compliance framework. Seamless and timely access to required systems or resources can significantly increase employees’ productivity and performance. However, excessive privileges or unmonitored user access can often lead to internal and external cybersecurity threats, such as insider...

Researchers investigating a newly-discovered botnet have admitted that they "accidentally" broke it. In November, security experts at Akamai described a Golang-based botnet that they had discovered, hijacking PCs via SSH and weak credentials in order to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and mine cryptocurrency. The botnet, which the researchers called KmsdBot attacked both...

One thing is for certain in football, surprises do happen. Whether it is Saudi Arabia beating Argentina or Germany losing to Japan in the World Cup 2022, football is a sport full of excitement. But have you ever thought that football can teach us many great lessons about cybersecurity? Football can be a great teachable moment for cybersecurity Football is a great sport to watch, and it's also a...

As the industrial sectors become more cyber-aware, OT visibility has become an important force towards protecting critical infrastructure. Yet, as OT Security progresses, the expansion of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) adds new challenges to maintaining pace with OT visibility. What once was a Whack-a-Mole game between security and its adversaries, now seems to be the same game between...

Recently, Tripwire held its Energy and NERC Compliance Working Group virtual event. Tripwire has customers spanning the entire energy industry, including small, medium, and large city municipals, cooperatives, and investor-owned utilities and energy companies. The information shared in these sessions offered valuable insights for both very mature customers, as well as new customers that are still...

Many people remember where they were during historic events. Whether it is a personal, or a public occurrence, it’s just human nature to remember these significant moments. Every profession also has its share of memorable events. In medicine, those who were in the profession will remember where they were when they heard about the first heart transplant or the discovery of a cure for a particular...

Zero trust is a security approach which replaces the traditional network edge. Since network resources can be anywhere – on-premises, in the cloud, or a hybrid of both – zero trust is built towards an identity-centric approach. This places people and resources at the heart of the security architecture. What is a zero-trust model? The most important thing about cybersecurity is the mindset embedded...

As the years go by, technology continues to evolve, and as we rely more and more on smart devices and the online space, there becomes greater risks of cyberattacks. If you work as a cybersecurity professional, then you are fighting the good fight, but it isn’t always easy. The job is unpredictable, and it requires odd hours and constant vigilance. The gig can be so tough that there is now a...

The healthcare industry has been a favored target for cybercriminals for many years. In the first half of 2022 alone, 324 attacks against healthcare organizations have been reported. Attackers have primarily focused on large hospitals in years past, but there has been a sudden switch to smaller healthcare companies and specialty clinics. There seems to be a clear trend in attacks against the...

Have you ever had to set up your Gmail account on a secondary device, such as your tablet, and when you tried to login, verification prompts were sent to your original device to confirm that the login attempt was done by you? You confirmed the login, and that ended it. That is exactly what happened to an Uber employee whose account was compromised. However, the Uber employee was not setting up...

UK police are texting 70,000 people who they believe have fallen victim to a worldwide scam that saw fraudsters steal at least £50 million from bank accounts. 200,000 people in the UK, including the elderly and disabled, are thought to have been targeted by conmen who masqueraded as highstreet banks. Scammers paid a subscription to a service called iSpoof.cc that allowed them to disguise their...

In the business world, compliance means making sure that companies of all sizes are meeting the standards set by regulatory or oversight groups in various laws and standards, such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOX, and GDPR. Sometimes, an organization will self-impose its compliance by adhering to guidance and frameworks from organizations such as NIST, ISACA, ISO, and other advisory bodies. When it comes to...

IT environments in businesses are often volatile. The value of hardware might depreciate over time. There is constant evolution in the world of software. Existing configurations go through a variety of transitions. While some of these updates are permitted since they are part of the organization's regular patching cycle, others raise red flags because they appear out of nowhere. Unauthorized...

It would be nice to imagine that when cyber criminals look for their next target, they ignore the small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that simply can’t afford an attack. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. In fact, 43% of cyber attacks are directed at SMBs. Today, a massive 80% of North American SMBs are at risk of a cyber attack. This is according to Vancouver-based CyberCatch’s Small and...

As we approach the holiday season, we wanted to focus this month’s post on you (and your family). Bad guys don’t just wait until the holidays to start causing havoc, they also relentlessly target all of us all throughout the year. Judging by our perseverance, nothing is going to keep us from a good holiday deal, and attackers love to use this season to their advantage. Therefore, we must all keep...

Tripwire's September 2022 Patch Priority Index (PPI) brings together important vulnerabilities for Microsoft. First on the patch priority list this month are patches for Chromium and Microsoft Edge based on Chromium. These patches resolve over 20 issues such as user-after-free, insufficient policy enforcement, out-of-bounds write, and heap buffer overflow vulnerabilities. Up next are patches for...

Every single blog you read on cybersecurity has at least one mention of the Zero Trust approach to cybersecurity (even this one 😊). Alas, don’t consider that Zero Trust is yet another hyped word that will soon vanish into thin air. Zero Trust, originally dubbed more than a decade ago, came up as a necessity to defend systems, networks, data and people against the increasing sophistication of...

Many enterprises perceive cyber-attacks as malicious actions predominantly executed by external actors. Enterprises devote time and budgets investing in methods to bolster their security perimeters against external threat actors. However, it is equally important for these organizations to remember that many cyber-attacks, which cost millions in losses, originate through an internal compromise. The...

Technology has expanded the avenues bad actors use to steal identities and sensitive data. However, digital tools are also giving users innovative countermeasures to protect themselves. Here are seven tactics anyone can use to help prevent identity theft. 1. Leverage Multifactor Authentication Strong passwords have always been an identity protection strategy, but security is evolving to meet...