The Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (GLBA or GLB Act), or financial modernization act, is a bi-partisan federal regulation passed in 1999 to modernize the financial industry. It repealed vast swathes of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and the Bank Holding Act of 1956 , allowing commercial banks to offer financial services such as investments or insurance. It also controls how financial institutions deal...

At the turn of the most recent century, the financial world was in a moment of unregulated growth, which lead to some serious corporate misdeeds in the United States. This presented the opportunity for two senators to enact a new law to ensure accurate and reliable financial reporting for public companies in the US. The result was the Sarbanes-Oxley Act ( SOX ) of 2002. But what does financial...

Elon Musk's ascension isn't the first thing to cause waves of scams on Twitter , and it certainly won't be the last. On July 20th of 2022, data belonging to over 5 million Twitter users was put up for sale on the internet underground for $30,000. The FTC reported that we've experienced a recent "gold mine for scammers" and the April bump to a 10,000-character limit (for Twitter Blue) only makes...

The NSA has published a guide about how to mitigate against attacks involving the BlackLotus bootkit malware, amid fears that system administrators may not be adequately protected against the threat. The BlackLotus UEFI bootkit made a name for itself in October 2022, when it was seen being sold on cybercrime underground forums for $5,000. The news sent a shiver down the spines of many in the...

Attackers always seek the easiest path to get into our systems and compromise data. System misconfigurations and insecure default settings are often the criminals' favorite vectors since these errors allow them easy access to critical systems and data. The rise of misconfiguration errors was primarily driven by cloud data storage implementations deployed without appropriate access controls...

In the early days of computer networking, the idea of restricted permissions was shunned. Network administrators could access every system in the environment. In some extreme cases, a CEO would demand full administrative access to a network, thinking that this would protect against a rogue employee. As you can imagine, this set up a point of failure beyond logic. Fortunately, this ideology of...

If you’re busy securing the perimeter, mandating strong authentication practices, and restricting software downloads, you may be missing the mark. (Just to be clear: if you are doing those things, keep it up. You’re off to a good start, and none of what follows here replaces classic and vital cybersecurity measures.) Protecting your organization from outside threats is foundational to any...

They say character isn’t gained in a crisis; it’s displayed in one. By the time the disaster hits, the time for preparation has passed. But what if you could go through that earth-shattering event beforehand so when the time came, you’d be ready? Well, in security, you can. And it's not called cheating – it's called Red Teaming . It’s done differently, it provides a different outcome, and it tests...

Zero trust is a hot topic in cybersecurity, and for a good reason. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to securing your data and networks; rather, zero trust offers a more holistic perspective comprised of many different safety measures and practices and a shift in perspective on security. As threat actors step up their efforts and business operations, and depend more and more on digital...

What Is an SBOM (Software Bill of Materials)? A software bill of materials (SBOM) is a comprehensive, structured inventory of all components, libraries, and dependencies used within a software product or application. It typically includes information about the names, versions, and licensing details of each component. SBOM plays a critical role in managing the security of open source components by...

Digital technology is becoming an increasingly essential part of nearly every industry, and supply chains are no exception. In recent years, supply chains have become more dependent on digital solutions, from manufacturing, packing, and shipping processes, to storing records in the cloud. While digital technology increases speed, efficiency, and interconnectivity across industries, this increased...

Cybercrime has become a dominant concern for many businesses, as well as individuals. Cybercriminals will target any business, and any individual if they can realize a profit from their minimal efforts. One of the ways that criminals achieve their goals is through the use of malware that garners a fast profit, such as ransomware. More enterprising criminals will use more persistent malware, which...

We often hear how a company was compromised by a sophisticated attack. This characterization contains all the romantic thrill of a spy movie, but it is usually not how most companies are victimized. Most breaches usually happen as a result of malware entering the environment. The need to protect against malware is addressed in progressive degrees in Requirement 5 of the new 4.0 version of the...

The cybersecurity community is one of the best communities around. Whether it is our peers, our colleagues, or our managers, there are a number of great qualities that we all share. That’s one of the reasons that we’re so lucky to work in this industry. One of the more interesting aspects of the industry is that there are so many ways to accomplish a goal, and that doesn’t just apply to technical...

Today’s VERT Alert addresses Microsoft’s June 2023 Security Updates , which include a new release notes format. VERT is actively working on coverage for these vulnerabilities and expects to ship ASPL-1060 on Wednesday, June 14th. In-The-Wild & Disclosed CVEs There were no in-the-wild or disclosed CVEs in the June Patch Tuesday drop. CVE Breakdown by Tag While historical Microsoft Security Bulletin...

In April 2023, German artist Boris Eldagsen won the open creative award for his photographic entry entitled, Pseudomnesia: The Electrician. But, the confusing part of the event for the judges and the audience was that he refused to receive the award. The reason was that the photograph was generated by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool. It was reported that Eldagsen “said he used the picture to...

More than ten years after the hack of the now-defunct Mt. Gox cryptocurrency exchange, the US Department of Justice says it has identified and charged two men it alleges stole customers' funds and the exchange's private keys. Two Russians, 43-year-old Alexey Bilyuchenko, and Aleksandr Verner, 29, are charged with conspiring to launder 647,000 Bitcoins - in a cryptocurrency heist which would have...

If you mention data leakage to most people, they may think that it sounds like a problem for a plumber, but the phrase “data leak” has specific and troubling concerns for a business. Data leakage is a particular security threat, and there are many sources for data leaks. Data Breach Versus Data Leak Data breaches occur when an attacker from outside your organization gets into your IT ecosystem and...

What is the SEC? Founded 85 years ago at the height of the Great Depression, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has a clear mission: to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation. Put simply, the SEC aims to protect US investors by maintaining a fair market. The SEC doesn’t work directly with investors, however. Instead, it...

If you, or your kids, are fans of Minecraft - you might be wise not to download any new mods of plugins for a while. Computer security researchers say that they have uncovered that cybercriminals have succeeded in embedding malware named "Fracturizer" within packages and plugins used to modify the behaviour and appearance of the phenomenally popular game. As Bleeping Computer reports , hackers...