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Cybercriminals Use RansomWeb Attacks to Hold Website Databases Hostage

Image A security firm has identified a new method of attack in which hackers encrypt the data stored on website servers and demand a ransom payment for the decryption key. In an article posted on its blog, High-Tech Bridge explains how its security experts first detected the attack back in December of 2014. According to the firm’s...
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The Voice of the CISO: Interview with Brian Engle

Image Last month, we interviewed Thom Langford, the Director of Sapient’s Global Security Office. Among other things, he explained to us how critical people are to an organization’s cyber security success, not to mention how the CISO is instrumental in framing security issues so that different target audiences can understand them. As...
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How to Manage Certificate Expiration Effectively

Image Tripwire Enterprise isn’t just a change detection and compliance tool. The core ability to execute commands on agent boxes and network devices, capture the results and run the results through a series of tests can be applied to other use cases, as well.  These use cases are limited only by the imagination of the user. One such...
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Raptr Hacked, Users Asked to Change Their Passwords

Image Raptr, a popular gaming social network website, has urged all of its users to change their passwords following a recent hack. In a security update message posted on Raptr’s site, Founder and CEO Dennis Fong disclosed the incident to the Raptr community: “Maintaining the highest level of security around your Raptr account...
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Cyberterrorists Seek to Cause Physical Harm

Image The premise of a January 27, 2015, article by CNBC is that there is good evidence that a cyber attack against nearly any country’s critical infrastructure could be imminent. This kind of reporting has become so commonplace, but this doesn’t seem like just more FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) journalism. According to Eugene...
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Clearing the Air with Gogo Inflight Internet

Image   Gogo has become a household name by keeping consumers connected at 10,000 feet with the popular Gogo Inflight Internet service. Recently, however, Gogo has been receiving attention and, more specifically, criticism, in the wake of a tweet from Google security engineer Adrienne Porter Felt (@__apf__) to Gogo (@Gogo). The tweet...
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Habits Are Formed By Repetition, Not Reminders

Image There are five words today that, when coming from any adult relative with minimal technical chops, are the most terrifying you'll ever hear: I clicked on this link... I doubt any one of us at some point in our lives has managed to escape the inevitable cry for help from a technically challenged relative after they've managed to...
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Ransomware: Refusing to Negotiate with Attackers

Image   Last week, the information security community was saddened to learn of Joseph Edwards, a 17-year-old secondary school student who committed suicide after his computer became infected with ransomware. Edwards’ computer was corrupted by Reveton (or Police Ransomware), a common type of malware that locks a victim’s computer,...
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How to Detect the GHOST glibc Vulnerability

Image The GHOST vulnerability (CVE-2015-0235), which was discovered by researchers in the GNU C Library (glibc), allows local and remote access to the gethostbyname*() functions in certain cases. Although the vulnerability was just recently disclosed, the vulnerability was introduced in glibx-2.2 on November 10, 2000. Fortunately,...
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Don’t be Shellshocked by GHOST

Image If you’re following threat feeds, you’ve probably heard about GHOST (CVE 2015-0235), the new critical vulnerability that Qualys disclosed yesterday. This vulnerability has been found in glibc, the GNU C library, and it affects all Linux systems dating back to 2000. Redhat listed it on their CVE database as ‘critical’ with a CVSS...
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GHOST Vulnerability and Its Patch History

Image   There’s a lot of chatter going on right now related to the GHOST vulnerability that was announced yesterday. Lots of folks are talking about the vulnerability, particularly focused on the threat advisory published by Qualys. However, I thought I would spend a little time looking at the history of this vulnerability and how its...
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GHOST in the Linux Machine – CVE-2015-0235

Image Researchers have discovered a critical vulnerability (CVE-2015-0235) in the Linux GNU C Library (glibc) that could potentially allow attackers to execute code on servers and gain remote control of Linux machines, without the necessary system credentials. This flaw is found in most versions of Linux, in which a buffer overflow...
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VERT Alert: GHOST - glibc overflow

Image Vulnerability Description A heap-based buffer overflow was found in glibc's __nss_hostname_digits_dots() function, which is used by the gethostbyname() and gethostbyname2() glibc function calls. A remote attacker able to make an application call either of these functions could use this flaw to execute arbitrary code with the...
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Thought Experiment: Mandatory Online Banking Security Standards

Image Banks are required by law to follow government regulations; these subject the banks to specific requirements, restrictions and guidelines. The end goal being, among other things, transparency. What about setting specific requirements for banking website security? Pew Research Center statistics reveal that 51% of U.S. adults bank...
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Marriott Customers' Personal Details Exposed by Simple Web Flaw

Image Here's a piece of advice for anyone responsible for securing a corporation's data: If you discover security researcher Randy Westergren is using your app, you had best take a long hard look at whether you are protecting your users' information properly. Because, if you're not, there's a good chance that he might be about to tell...
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10 Notorious Cyber Criminals Brought to Justice – No. 5

Image Five cyber criminals down; five to go. Last week, we learned about Lin Mun Poo, a Malaysian hacker who at one time infiltrated a prominent U.S. financial institution as well as a contractor for the Department of Defense. Tripwire now continues its series on some of the most notorious cyber criminals brought to justice with...