Digital fraudsters incorporated a chatbot into their phishing scam for the purpose of helping victims hand over their personal information. In a scam discovered by MalwareHunterTeam and shared with Bleeping Computer, digital attackers targeted Russian users with fake refunds of 159,700 rubles ($2,100) for unused web and phone services. The campaign...

The most recent National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidelines have been updated for passwords in section 800-63B. The document no longer recommends combinations of capital letters, lower case letters, numbers and special characters. Yet most companies and systems still mandate these complexity requirements for passwords. What...

If you have a familiarity with any information security frameworks and certifications, it’s more than likely you have heard of International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and possibly the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). From my experience, the most commonly referred to business-level security related certifications are ISO...

Security researchers discovered a new ransomware family called "PwndLocker" targeting municipalities and enterprise networks. Bleeping Computer learned that PwndLocker has been active since late 2019 and has targeted a variety of U.S. cities and organizations in that span of time. According to one source of the computer self-help site, the new...

Listen and subscribe to our new podcast! Tripwire’s cybersecurity podcast features 20-minute conversations with the people who protect people from cyber threats. Hosted by Tripwire’s VP of Product Management and Strategy, Tim Erlin, each episode brings on a new guest to explore the evolving threat landscape, technology trends, and cybersecurity best...

The operators of DoppelPaymer ransomware launched a site for publishing the data of their victims who don't pay the ransom. On February 25, DoppelPaymer's handlers published a site called "Dopple leaks." A message on the site at the time of launch revealed the attackers' intention for doing so: leak the names and data of victims who refuse to meet...

Over 10 million people who have stayed at MGM Resorts hotels - including Twitter boss Jack Dorsey and pop idol Justin Bieber - have had their personal details posted online by hackers. The security breach, publicised by ZDNet and security researcher Under the Breach, saw the records of 10,683,188 former guests - including names, postal addresses,...

Managing security incidents can be a stressful job. You are dealing with many questions all at once. What’s the scope? Who do I need to engage? How do I manage all of this? As an Incident Commander (IC), you have many responsibilities. You’re responsible for driving an incident to resolution as quickly as possible, creating the resources necessary...

Officials revealed that malicious actors had succeeded in infiltrating the computer network serving New York's state government. According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), officials revealed on April 13 that New York's Office of Information Technology had discovered the security incident in late...

A new wiper malware falsely informed victims in its infection notice that two security researchers had been responsible for attacking them. According to Bleeping Computer, users who downloaded programs from free software and crack sites found that they couldn't successfully authenticate themselves and unlock their Windows computers. Instead, their...

Security researchers observed an attack campaign that targeted misconfigured Docker API ports with samples of Kinsing malware. According to Aqua Security, the campaign began when it capitalized on an unprotected Docker API port to run a Ubuntu container. The command used for creating the Ubuntu container included a shell script "d.sh." By means of...

What's happened? Well, Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) happened. Okay, smart alec. I know about that. What else is going on? Well, because so many people are (wisely) staying at home, they're using videoconferencing and chat technology like Zoom to keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues. In fact, Zoom says that daily usage has soared from...

An attack campaign leveraged the Excel VelvetSweatshop encryption technique to deliver samples of the LimeRAT malware family. According to Mimecast, those responsible for this attack campaign turned to VelvetSweatshop to enhance the efficacy of their efforts. Nefarious individuals have a history of using a password to encrypt malicious Excel...

By now, many organizations have adopted the cloud in some way. We saw organizations moving whole servers over to the cloud at the beginning, but now we see small parts of a system being moved to the cloud and new cloud native offerings. We’ll use the analogies of Lincoln Logs and Legos to describe these deployment models. Infrastructure-as-a...

In a previous post, I shared some expert insight into how organizations can address the challenges of hiring skilled talent despite the ongoing infosec skills gap. Organizations can’t rest easy once they’ve brought on new talent, however. They need to make sure they hold onto their existing workforce. That’s easier said than done. Cybersecurity...

A school district in Texas announced that it lost approximately $2.3 million after falling victim to a phishing email scam. On January 10, the Manor Independent School District (MISD) published a statement on Twitter and Facebook in which it revealed that it was investigating a phishing email scam that cost it $2.3 million. https://twitter.com...

ML:3 is base camp, and getting here means you have reached a level that others have only dreamed about. At this level, the VM program is very good, and your visibility into threats to the environment is much better than it has ever been. Prioritizing Asset Assessment The biggest change at this level is the focus on the breadth of assessment going...

I recently wrote about phishing around the holidays and while I was working on the piece, I noticed a couple of friends posting recent emails on Facebook. I thought it might be fun to dig a bit deeper into those emails and look at the telltale signs that indicate these are phishing attempts. Signs of Phishing - Example #1 ...

An analysis of a new backdoor called "Poison Frog" revealed that the OilRig threat group was sloppy in its development of the malware. Kaspersky Lab came across Poison Frog while scanning its archives using its YARA rule to hunt for new and old malware samples employed by OilRig. It launched this investigatory effort shortly after crackers operating...

After spending several decades in this industry, I have seen growth in many different security products and in many different areas. All the while, I've questioned whether specific technologies were offering real value or were just over-marketed to create more revenue opportunities for investors. As we have seen repeatedly, categories of security...