Extortionists have launched a new sextortion scam campaign that leverages a fake Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) investigation to try to scare users. In an email I obtained from a wary user, the scammers pose as a fake CIA technical collection officer named Roxana Mackay. This character claims in the email that she's found the user's personal...

Digital attackers are targeting high-profile Instagram users with fake copyright infringement notifications in a bid to hijack their accounts. Detected by Kaspersky Lab, this scheme begins when an Instagram influencer receives an email notification informing them that their "account will be permanently deleted for copyright infringement." The email...

Take a look at the security headlines, and you'll see report after report of businesses and large organisations being hacked. Sensitive databases are accessed, passwords are stolen, email archives are plundered, innocent people are put at risk and corporations get a kick up the backside that they need to take security more seriously. But what you...

It can be hard to know how to best allocate your federal agency’s resources and talent to meet FISMA compliance, and a big part of that challenge is feeling confident that you’re choosing the right cybersecurity and compliance reporting solution. A Few FISMA SI-7 Basics So what sorts of specifications do you need to look for, and why? While the...

Utilities can be a pricey monthly expense for many households and businesses, with the average cost for households in America coming in at over $420 every month. Getting on top of utility usage, especially electricity—which typically constitutes the largest part of that monthly expense—can help save money, but it can also help conserve resources and...

'Tis the season to be shopping, as some might say. Holiday seasons are very good for retail businesses, with increased traffic in both online and brick-and-mortar stores. Unfortunately, business is good for cybercriminals during these busing shopping times, too – and, as a result, retailers need to ensure that their physical and cyber resources are...

Digging through my cupboards recently, I came across my old collection of 3½ floppy disks. It’s been quite some time since I’ve had a need to plug in my trusty USB floppy drive, so upon making this great archaeology discovery, I was left simply to ponder about their content and whether I’d really intended to break the write protect notch to prevent...

Cybersecurity is a manpower constrained market – therefore, the opportunities for artificial intelligence (AI) automation are vast. Frequently, AI is used to make certain defensive aspects of cyber security more wide-reaching and effective. Combating spam and detecting malware are prime examples. On the opposite side, there are many incentives to...

On Thursday 6th December, 2018, I realized how dependent I was on my mobile phone having an internet connection. That particular day, I was out and about away from Wi-Fi networks. The first time I noticed I had no connectivity was when I used my phone to check if my train was on time. As I got close to London, I realized I was not the only person who...

Tripwire's November 2018 Patch Priority Index (PPI) brings together the top vulnerabilities from Microsoft and Adobe. First on the patch priority list this month are patches for Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Edge and Scripting Engine. These patches resolve 13 vulnerabilities, including fixes for Memory Corruption, Elevation of Privilege (EoP),...

Regulations like the GDPR are changing both how we do business and how customers engage with their data. Healthcare is no exception to that rule. Even in light of strict frameworks like HIPAA, health organizations face a number of unique challenges where privacy laws are concerned. Here’s why – and how you can overcome them. The European Union’s...

A newly detected worm is propagating through removable drives to distribute a fileless variant of the BLADABINDI backdoor. In mid-November, researchers at Trend Micro first observed the worm, which the security firm detects as "Worm.Win32.BLADABINDI.AA." They're still investigating the threat's exact method for infecting a system. But after...

Four years after the initial iteration was released, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released version 1.1 of the Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity. The framework was initially developed to be a voluntary, risk-based framework to improve cybersecurity for critical infrastructure in the United...

Two young men received prison sentences for helping to perpetrate a data breach at the UK telecommunications provider TalkTalk. On 19 November, Judge Anuja Dhir QC at the Old Bailey sentenced Matthew Hanley, 23, to 12 months in prison. She handed down a slightly lighter sentence of eight months in jail to Connor Allsopp, 21. Judge Dhir explained...

Malaysia's largest media company allegedly suffered a ransomware attack that affected its ability to use its in-house email system. Anonymous sources told The Edge Financial Daily that ransomware attackers struck Media Prima Berhad, a media giant which operates businesses in television, print, radio,...

Knowing that a tomato is a fruit is knowledge – not adding it to a fruit salad is wisdom. Similarly, having knowledge about privacy and security is good, but true wisdom is knowing that they are vastly different from each other. While both, to some extent, revolve around the protection of your personal, public and corporate data, they are still not...

Everyone knows that it’s not a matter of if your private information will be breached. It’s a matter of when. I don’t have much of an expectation of privacy these days. A search in the Amazon application on my iPhone means that I’ll start seeing Facebook ads for that item. Google maintains a timeline of my visits to various locations. Video cameras...

Back in July, I wrote about the sextortion scam that had been circulating for a while. A new wave was spreading, and I’d seen multiple people taking about it on my Facebook, so I figured putting pen to paper (I suppose today that is fingers to keyboard.) made sense. Today, my aunt reached out to share the latest scam email she's received, one that I...

Thanks to a new notification service launched by the United States government in 2018, the President now has the power to issue alerts to every citizen with a working cell phone. The technology for this service, known as the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system, has been around for a number of years and has been implemented for events like Amber...