What is BlueKeep? BlueKeep is the name that has been given to a security vulnerability that was discovered earlier this year in some versions of Microsoft Windows' implementation of the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). The vulnerability was described as "wormable" by Microsoft, and users were warned that BlueKeep might be exploited in a similar...

Tripwire's January 2020 Patch Priority Index (PPI) brings together important vulnerabilities from Microsoft, Oracle, VMware and Linux. Exploit Alert: Metasploit Up first on the Patch Priority Index this month are vulnerabilities that have been recently added to Metasploit. Two vulnerabilities identified by CVE-2019-9213 and CVE-2018-5333 affect...

Digital criminals posted customers' payment card details exposed in the 2019 Wawa data breach for sale on a dark web marketplace. In December 2019, the Joker's Stash first announced what it called the "BIGBADABOOM-III" breach. Advertisements posted by the dark web marketplace announced that the breach included over 30 million payment card details...

Each year on January 28, the United States, Canada, Israel and 47 European countries observe Data Privacy Day. The purpose of Data Privacy Day is to inspire dialogue on the importance of online privacy. These discussions also seek to inspire individuals and businesses to take action in an effort to respect privacy, safeguard data and enable trust....

Trust, respect, understanding. These are all two-way relationships that must be earned over time. Whilst someone being hired in a senior position will likely already have a certain level of each, part of your job is to continuously cultivate all three of these elements with colleagues no matter your grade. When working within a cybersecurity practice,...

A new report into the state of ransomware at the tail end of 2019 has revealed that things aren't getting any better. In Q4 of 2019, according to the new study published by security firm Coveware, the average ransom payment more than doubled – reaching $84,116, up from $41,198 in Q3 of 2019. Coveware's report says that this reflects how some...

As a security consultant, I’m not going into an environment to design and build an organization’s network from the ground up in most situations. For the majority of the time, I’m working with legacy environments where some old technologies might be phasing out and newer ones joining the mix of solutions. In the case of one environment I went to, for...

With more business applications moving to the cloud, the ability to assess network behavior has changed from a primarily systems administration function to a daily security operations concern. And whilst sec-ops teams are already familiar with firewall and network device log tools, these can be of limited use in a "cloud first" business where much of...

The French Ministry of Interior has released a decryption utility for versions 1 and 2 of PyLocky ransomware to the public. On 11 June, the ministry of the French government unveiled the tool as the product of collaboration between its various agencies, including the Brigade d’enquêtes sur les...

An attack which targeted users of the Telegram app on Wednesday might be linked to protests in Hong Kong that turned violent. That's one of the theories in circulation, after a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack disrupted legitimate access to the Telegram secure messaging app by swamping it with "garbage requests." Pitched battles broke out...

Aircraft parts manufacturer ASCO has temporarily suspended operations worldwide after falling victim to a ransomware attack. As reported by Data News, ASCO decided that it would shut down its headquarters in Zaventem, a Belgian municipality situated within the province of Flemish Brabant, as a result...

When I was younger, I played a variety of team sports and enjoyed competing against opponents with my teammates. Winning was always a matter of applying sound tactics and strategy, attacking and defending well and using a blend of skill, talent and luck.Now that I'm older, I watch more than I play, and I'm able to appreciate the many lessons team sports teach, especially at the professional level....

Industrial control systems are fundamental to all industrial processes, from power generation to water treatment and manufacturing. ICS refers to the collection of devices that govern a process to ensure its safe and effective execution. These devices include Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, Distributed Control Systems (DCS)...

It doesn’t seem very long ago that I was writing about the newly released Risk Management Framework (RMF) and explaining the value of NIST SP 800-37 to our clients. With RMF Revision 2 just recently published in December of 2018, I thought it would be a good time to revisit the RMF and to highlight some of its key updates. Overall, the new version...

A security researcher has discovered a publicly-accessible database containing the details of millions of Instagram users, including their contact information. As TechCrunch reports, Anurag Sen discovered the database of more than 49 million records - exposed for anyone to access via the internet, no password required, on an unprotected Amazon Web...

A Windows laptop infected with six high-profile computer viruses has surpassed a value of one million dollars in public auction bids. For a project called "The Persistence of Chaos," contemporary internet artist Guo O. Dong and security firm Deep Instinct infected a Samsung NC10-14GB 10.2-Inch Blue Netbook (2008) running Windows XP SP3 with six...

A recent attack wave involving HawkEye malware sends data stolen from its victims to another keylogger provider's website. On 21 May, My Online Security came across a new sample of HawkEye. The actual delivery mechanism itself wasn't unique compared to previous attacks involving the malware. In this particular instance, the attack email used the...

It was only a few years back that cloud technology was in its infancy and used only by tech-savvy, forward-thinking organisations. Today, it is commonplace. More businesses than ever are making use of cloud services in one form another. And recent statistics suggest that cloud adoption has reached 88 percent. It seems that businesses now rely on the...

Following a ransomware attack at a medical billing company, thousands of patients are being warned that their highly sensitive medical information and personal details were amongst the breached data. Michigan-based Wolverine Solutions Group (WSG) says that it discovered its systems had suffered a security breach on September 25 last year. Malware...