There are several websites available that offer temporary and disposable email addresses, which have become quite popular among Internet users today, as they provide a quick alternative to anyone who wishes for their email address to remain private when sending and receiving emails. Temporary and Disposable Email/SMS - What you Need to Know Some...

HSBC, one of the world’s largest banks, was targeted by distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS), causing its personal banking website and mobile services in the UK to shut down. According to reports, the attacks began Friday morning, which prevented customers from accessing online banking...

On Thursday, an activist posted online a data dump of private files belonging to the United States' largest police union. The Guardian reports that the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), a union which represents 333,000 law American enforcement personnel, has contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigations and requested that it investigate how 2.5GB of...

In January, I discussed how scammers commonly use money-based schemes, bot spam, pay-per-follower ploys, illegitimate direct messages (DMs), and worms to harass Twitter users. These malicious actors are in it for the money and/or for unauthorized access. They do not care where or how they need to compromise someone in order to obtain what they want,...

Centene Corporation has begun the process of notifying 950,000 members who may have been affected by a possible data breach. On Monday, the multi-line healthcare enterprise announced that it was launching a search for six hard drives that are currently unaccounted for among its information technology assets: "Centene takes the privacy and security...

A ransomware attack campaign based in India has caused millions of dollars of damages after infecting three banks and a pharmaceutical company. The research team at Malwarebytes has identified LeChiffre, whose name means "encryption" in French, as the malware responsible for the attack campaign. "It is different than most of the ransomware present...

In November 2014, researchers from Ben-Gurion University unveiled "AirHopper," a type of malware which forces a computer to transmit sensitive information in the form of keystrokes to a mobile receiver via FM radio waves. The team went on to demonstrate that an AirHopper-based attack could succeed without the availability of a network, SIM, or Wi-Fi...

In my previous post in this series, we discussed that a "SIEM" is defined as a group of complex technologies that together, provide a centralized bird's-eye-view into an infrastructure. Furthermore, it provides analysis and workflow, correlation, normalization, aggregation and reporting, as well as log management. In this next post, I hope to answer...

"123456" and "password" were the most-used and second most-used passwords of 2015, according to an annual worst passwords ranking. Every year, SplashData, a developer of password management software, releases an annual list of the worst--in this case, most commonly used--passwords. It builds its ranking based on more than two million leaked...

Looking for a great information security podcast? There are plenty to choose from! Here’s a roundup of currently active information security podcasts. The list is split into two categories: podcasts run by people representing themselves (meaning they are not speaking for a company) and podcasts produced under the name of a company. I made the...

Today’s VERT Alert addresses 9 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-652 on Wednesday, January 13th. Ease of Use (published exploits) to Risk Table Automated Exploit Easy ...

Time Warner Cable (TWC) is planning to notify 320,000 of its customers whose account information might have been compromised. The American cable telecommunications company first learned of the issue after the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) reached out and alerted them to the fact that some of their customers' email addresses and passwords...

A group of researchers has made public a database, dubbed "SCADAPASS," containing default credentials for more than 100 industrial control system (ICS) products belonging to various top vendors. The research team—known as SCADA StrangeLove—published the list on GitHub, which includes the product and vendor names; device type; default username and...

These days, consumers are constantly being pushed to move away from paper correspondence and communication to an electronic alternative. Every time I sign into my bank account, I’m reminded of my option to forego the physical receipt of my monthly statement and go paperless. While the benefits of going paperless are clear to both businesses and...

Some of the world's most popular news and entertainment websites have been spreading poisoned adverts to potentially hundreds of thousands of visitors, putting innocent readers at risk of having their computers hit by threats such as ransomware. Famous sites which displayed the malicious ads and endangered visiting computers include MSN, bbc.com,...

21st Century Oncology, a Florida-based chain of 181 cancer treatment centers in the US and Latin America, announced earlier this month that an unauthorized intrusion into one of its databases may have exposed patient information. In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the clinic said it is...

China has called for increased cooperation with the FBI on matters pertaining to internet security and counterterrorism. Reuters reports that Guo Shengkun, China's minister of public safety, recently told FBI Director James Comey in a Beijing meeting that his country was willing to enhance its mutual trust and respect with the United States with...

What is SCM? Well, let’s start with what it stands for. Generally, it represents "Security Configuration Management," but it is also referred to as "Secure Configuration Management." Both are equally acceptable and mean the same thing. SCM exists at the point where IT Security and IT Operations meet. It’s a software-based solution that aims to...

In Part 1 of this article series, we considered the specific elements that make up the game of chess and how they parallel the core elements of effective security programs. In Part 2, we’ll look at some fundamental chess concepts, such as time, space, material and structure, and how these ideas parallel concepts in security. We’ll also cover the...

What you are about to read is not from 1995. This is not Throwback Thursday. What follows is an account of the first full day of booth duty at Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2016 conference in sunny Las Vegas. For those of you who have never heard of HIMSS, (I certainly hadn’t until my boss asked me to attend.) it is a...