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Executive Cyber Intelligence Report: January 16, 2015

This report was prepared by The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and The Cyber Security Forum Initiative (CSFI) to create better cyber situational awareness (Cyber SA) of the nature and scope of threats and hazards to national security worldwide in the domains of cyberspace and open source intelligence. It is provided to Federal, State...
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US and UK Set to Increase Cyber Security Cooperation Via 'Cyber War Games'

The United States and the UK have announced that they will be creating “cyber cells,” intelligence units which will share information and conduct simulated cyber attacks in an effort to enhance the security cooperation between the two countries. “We have got hugely capable cyber defences,” UK Prime Minister David Cameron said about the agreement. ...
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Criminals Are After Your LinkedIn Account - Here is How to Protect it

Regularly in the news we hear about organisations having their Twitter or Facebook accounts compromised by cybercriminals - but they're not the only social media outlets which hackers and fraudsters have an interest in hijacking. Researchers at Symantec have warned this week of an increasing number of phishing emails being spammed out, claiming to...
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Vulnerability Scoring 102

In my last post, I talked about the basics of vulnerability scoring in vulnerability management and the disparity that can exist when you score the subjective elements of a vulnerability. We looked at the variance that can exist within CVSSv2 and how a properly developed score can show a clear difference between two unique issues. This time, I want...
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British Hacker Suspected of Defacing CENTCOM Social Media Sites

A Birmingham hacker who is believed to be fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, better known as ‘ISIS,’ is suspected of having orchestrated the defacement of U.S. CENTCOM social media accounts earlier this week. Investigators believe that 20-year-old Junaid Hussain helped administrate a Twitter account that operated under the pseudonym ...
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A Request To Threat Intelligence Providers

At Tripwire, we have recently seen increasing interest from our customers in being able to match up file changes found by our products with threat intelligence that comes from a variety of external sources. We have run into a common issue here when we have gotten down to the implementation details, and so I write this post as a plea to all the new,...
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VERT Alert: January 2015 Patch Tuesday Analysis

Today’s VERT Alert addresses 8 new Microsoft Security Bulletins. VERT is actively working on coverage for these bulletins in order to meet our 24-hour SLA and expects to ship ASPL-597 on Wednesday, January 14th. MS15-001 Microsoft Application Compatibility Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2015-0002 ...
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The Voice of the CISO: Interview with Thom Langford

Last year, we announced The Voice of the CISO, a new series in which we interview prominent individuals in the field to gain detailed insight into the mind of a CISO and to better understand their role within an organization. Our latest interview features Thom Langford, an information security professional who is the Director of Sapient’s Global...
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‘Silk Road Reloaded’ Adopts I2P Anonymous Network and Darkcoins

‘Silk Road Reloaded,’ a new anonymous online drug market, draws upon a host of new anonymizing features, including I2P connectivity and the use of cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin. By embracing I2P, the administrators of the new Silk Road iteration now welcome a service that, as opposed to Tor, is friendly to peer-to-peer connections and uses a...
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10 Notorious Cyber Criminals Brought to Justice - #7

It’s 2015—another year for law enforcement agencies to find and arrest some of the most dangerous hackers. With this optimism for the New Year at heart, we now focus in on the story of yet another notorious cyber criminal brought to justice: Albert Gonzalez. Gonzalez, who is known as “Segvec,” “Soupnazi” and “J4guar” among Internet circles, is an...
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Charlie Hebdo: Hacker Posts “Death to Charlie” Message With ISIS Flag on French Municipality Websites

A hacker has defaced the websites of a number of French municipalities with a message in support of the Wednesday attacks against the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, a massacre which killed 12 including two police officers. The front pages of the hacked sites were seen to display the “black flag of Islam,” which has become a symbol of the...
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Top Influencers in Security You Should Be Following in 2015

In December of 2011, Tripwire published a list of security’s top 25 influencers. More than three years later, we are pleased to announce a new list for 2015 -- The Infosec Avengers! For each influencer whom we have selected, we include their Twitter handle, blog URL and reasoning for selecting them. We also include their answer for what infosec...
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Social Engineering: How Dangerous is Your Lunch Break?

Ever heard the phrase 'Loose lips sink ships?' If an attacker (or anyone else) wants to know what’s going on in an organization, all they need to do is go to lunch. Hitting the popular restaurants and cafes around the target location is a no-risk method for gathering data. If two or more coworkers are together for any length of time it’s almost...
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Should Companies Strike Back at Hackers?

I was just reading an article about an FBI investigation of whether US banks are attacking their cyber attackers in an attempt to fight back. Along similar lines, we recently saw reports of Sony taking an offensive position by DDOS-ing sites hosting its content. The question of whether it makes sense to attack your cyber attackers isn't new—this has...
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Six Strategies for Reducing Vulnerability Risk

There's little doubt that effectively remediating vulnerabilities is an important part of a comprehensive information security strategy. Vulnerabilities in desktops, servers, laptops and infrastructure are commonly involved in intrusions and incidents. For example, the Chthonic malware designed to steal banking details, exploits a known Microsoft...
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Vulnerability Scoring 101

On any given day, my inbox is a flurry of activity that would make a January snow squall in Canada feel like a light breeze with the occasional flake. Like a snowflake, each email is unique but many share common themes. One of these themes is my favourite discussion topic: vulnerability scoring. I was inspired to further discuss this issue after the...
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Mobile Payment Security Faces an Uphill Battle in 2015

Only one percent of consumers believe using a third-party mobile payment provider, such as Apple Pay or Google Wallet, is a safe way to pay for in-store purchases, reveals Tripwire, Inc. This past holiday season, One Poll and Dimensional Research conducted a consumer survey of over 2,011 consumers in the United States and UK. The survey’s findings...
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2014: The Year of the Breach – Part 2

In anticipation of the New Year, Tripwire recently published an article that surveyed some of the better-known data breaches that occurred in 2014. We now present Part 2 of our two-part series, “2014: The Year of the Breach.” Home Depot (September) – On September 18th, Home Depot acknowledged that it had suffered a data breach. The attackers...