As recently as 2017, security and compliance professionals at many of Tripwire’s large enterprise and government customers were talking about migration to the cloud as a possibility to be considered and cautiously explored in the coming years. Within a year, the tone had changed. What used to be “we’re thinking about it” became “the CIO wants to see...

Last time, I got to speak with social engineering expert Jenny Radcliffe. This time, I got to speak with cybersecurity-minded client manager Tricia Howard. I got to learn even more about social engineering from her plus quite a bit about the importance of user education. Kim Crawley: Please tell me a bit about yourself and what you do. Tricia...

Last week, I spoke with bug bounty triager and Ubuntu fan Sophia Sanles-Luksetich. This week, I had the honor of speaking with social engineering specialist Jenny Radcliffe. Contrary to what a lot of Nigerian Princes would tell you, in my opinion social engineering is one of the most misunderstood areas of cybersecurity. Kim Crawley: Please tell...

A digital fraudster posed as English actor and film producer Jason Statham to prey upon and steal money from star-struck users. A woman who asked not to be named said the scam began when someone posing as Statham contacted her while she was on a Facebook page dedicated to the actor. She thought it was nice that the actor had seemingly embraced ...

Change is relentless. Technology evolves at breakneck speed, and security practitioners face a constant barrage of updates, system tweaks, and new tools. This relentless stream of modifications can create a clutter of information, making it challenging to pinpoint what is truly important.Effectively filtering through this noise through effective change management is critical for maintaining...

PCI DSS, or the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, is the set of requirements for organizations who process card payments. Sounds simple enough, right? But PCI compliance can pose a major challenge to organizations if they’re not equipped with the proper knowledge and tools. Let’s take a quick look at the basics of PCI compliance, what...

Last week, I had fun talking about the old-fashioned internet and defensive security with Liz Bell. This time, I spoke to bug bounty specialist Sophia Sanles-Luksetich. Did you know that Ubuntu was her first OS? Kim Crawley: Please tell me a bit about yourself and what you do. Sophia Sanles-Luksetich: I am a rookie information security consultant. I...

A person recently asked me if it was possible to implement ISO 27001 using a specific project management software product. They used the tool in the past to define project plans and make project reviews. While I told them this is entirely possible, the truth is one can implement ISO 27001 even without a project plan or any specific tools. But should...

Large organizations have always focused on managing risk, but the technological breakthroughs that have enhanced our world in countless ways have also transformed how leading executives engage in enterprise risk management (ERM). The pervasive and ever-expanding threat of cyber crime means that comprehensive strategies for cyber security are now...

The annual Scalar Security Study, published in February 2019 and conducted by IDC Canada, identified a new normal across the threat landscape: cybersecurity incidents, be it exfiltration, infiltration or denial of service, occur on a regular basis. Focused on small, midsize and large organizations in Canada, the study confirms that intrusions are...

The MuddyWater threat attack group is using a spam campaign to hijack victims' computers and steal sensitive information. Discovered by Heimdal Security in early April, the campaign begins when malicious actors use social engineering techniques to trick a user into opening a malicious Microsoft Office document attached to a phishing email. The...

Security researchers have released a decryptor that enables victims of the Planetary ransomware family to recover their files for free. Released by Emsisoft, this decryptor requires a victim to have a copy of the ransom note. It's not hard to find. Planetary ransomware, which earns its name for its use of planet-related file extensions including "...

You would be hard-pressed these days to remain ignorant of the growth of ransomware incidents experienced by organizations large and small. We’ve seen a ton of press around these events, from CryptoLocker to WannaCry. The impact of this type of malware is newsworthy. The landscape of malware is changing, however. While ransomware is still a...

A data breach at the Georgia Institute of Technology, better known as Georgia Tech, potentially exposed the personal data of as many as 1.3 million users. On 2 April, the public research university published a statement on its website in which it revealed that an unknown actor had gained unauthorized...

Digital attackers are using an Excel 4.0 macro dropper to infect unsuspecting users with a new variant of the ServHelper backdoor. In summer 2019, researchers at Deep Instinct detected a new attack campaign launched by digital threat group TA505. This operation began by attempting to trick users into opening an attached Excel document. When a user...

A popular web browser's hidden ability poses a serious risk to more than 500 million Google Play users and their Android devices. Malware analysts at Doctor Web recently observed that UC Browser, a web browser developed by the Alibaba-owned Chinese mobile Internet company UCWeb, can secretly download and execute new libraries and modules from third...

Welcome to Tripwire Patch Insanity! Comprised of 26 vulnerabilities divided into two conferences and four divisions, the goal of this tournament is to declare which named vulnerability is king of Patch Insanity! The original list of named vulnerabilities was taken from Hanno Böck’s named vulnerabilities repo. Any entries that did not have published...

A county government in North Carolina has suffered a ransomware infection for the third time in the past six years. According to a statement published on its website, the Orange County government observed on 18 March that a virus had infected its network. It responded by shutting down all servers,...

It wasn’t a very long time ago when cloud computing was a niche field that only the most advanced organizations were dabbling with. Now the cloud is very much the mainstream, and it is rare to find a business that uses IT that doesn’t rely on it for a part of its infrastructure. But if you're going to add cloud services to your company, you will...