One of the most accredited forms of validation for a citizen’s identity is a Social Security Number. A Social Security Number is a significant piece of government-issued identification in the United States. When this information is compromised, it can lead to serious problems where an individual to impersonate someone. A citizen may never know that...

On September 20, 2018, the White House released a new cybersecurity strategy with several important changes in direction meant to give government agencies and law enforcement partners a greater ability to respond to cybercrime and nation-state attacks. The new U.S. cyber strategy makes one message clear: America will not sit back and watch when...

Tripwire's January 2019 Patch Priority Index (PPI) brings together the top vulnerabilities from Microsoft, Adobe and Oracle. First on the patch priority list this month are patches for Microsoft's Browser and Scripting Engine. These patches resolve six vulnerabilities, including fixes for Memory Corruption, Elevation of Privilege and Remote Code...

European aerospace corporation Airbus SE has revealed that a digital security incident recently affected some of its computer systems. In a press release published on 30 January, Airbus confirmed that its “Commercial Aircraft business” information systems suffered a security incident. The corporation said that the event did not affect Airbus'...

A federal judge has denied the approval of a proposed $50 million settlement to a class action lawsuit over a data breach at Yahoo. On 28 January, Judge Lucy Koh rejected the settlement in a order submitted to the San Jose division of the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California....

If you have ever heard of the Federal Information Security Management Act, then you are aware of the work done by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The goal of the Act, not to mention the subsequent documents that resulted from strategies designed around implementing it, led NIST to create works designed to bolster security on the...

STOP ransomware is using adware installers disguised as cracks as a new method of distributing itself to unsuspecting users. According to Bleeping Computer creator and owner Lawrence Abrams, websites known for distributing software cracks, or software which has been modified to remove or disable certain features, commonly use adware bundles to...

The Internet of Things (IoT) broadly refers to devices and equipment that are readable, recognizable, locatable, addressable and/or controllable via the internet. This includes everything from edge computing devices to home appliances, from wearable technology to cars. IoT represents the melding of the physical world and the digital worked, as...

The website of Luas, the tram system operating in Ireland's capital city of Dublin, has been taken offline this morning after hackers defaced the site and demanded a ransom be paid within five days. Early morning visitors to the website were greeted with a message from the hackers, claiming that data had been stolen from operator Transdev Ireland,...

If you own a WordPress site, then you should be careful about your website security. To successfully run a blog, business or online store, you need to make sure your website is totally safe. Customers visit your website, purchase products and pass sensitive information like passwords, credit card details etc. If there is a place to infiltrate to...

Tripwire's December 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 and Scripting Engine. These patches resolve nine vulnerabilities, including fixes for Memory Corruption and Remote Code Execution (RCE)...

If you think back to last year, Coinhive was everywhere. The service offered any website an arguably legitimate way of generating income that didn't rely upon online adverts. And plenty of well-known sites, such as Showtime, Salon.com and The Pirate Bay, were happy to give it a go. Rather than making money through ads that might irritate you or...

A couple of phishing schemes are currently targeting contractors who do business with two U.S. federal government agencies. Anomali Labs uncovered a malicious server hosting the two schemes in late February 2019. The first scheme begins when users visit transportation[.]gov[.]bidsync[.]kela[.]pw, a suspicious-looking subdomain which contains the...

For various reasons, many executives and senior team members with privileged status on the network and/or access to financial assets oftentimes need to access corporate IT systems from a public place outside the office. What is very common in these types of places is that they’re covered with security cameras. Such devices are a must-have for...

Home design website and community Houzz revealed that a security incident might have exposed some users' personal and account data. On 1 February, Houzz published a security update explaining that it detected the security event in late December 2018. The company didn't provide exact details about how...

The cyber security field is booming, with demand for cyber security professionals far outpacing supply. This talent shortage has created an industry where pay is high and the options for job seekers are plentiful. Yet there is also a shortage of cyber talent caused by a confluence of factors, including employers demanding too many required skills...

Vulnerability management (VM) programs are the meat and potatoes of every comprehensive information security program. They are not optional anymore. In fact, many information security compliance, audit and risk management frameworks require organizations to maintain a vulnerability management program. If you don’t have vulnerability management tools,...

Bolting on security after the fact. It’s been a common approach to software security for decades. We architect, build code, deploy it and then figure out how to secure it. From the parade of application-related breaches and data thefts over the last few years, we pretty much know this approach does not work. Fortunately, the evolution of continuous...

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone reading this article that there has been a major shift towards businesses hosting their critical applications in the cloud. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), as well as cloud-based servers from Amazon or Microsoft, have changed the way we build networked business systems for any size organization. Cloud-hosted...

The concept of configuration hardening has nice imagery to it. When we use it to describe battle-hardened soldiers who have been tested in combat, a grim, determined image invariably leaps to mind. The same thing happens when we speak of hardened steel that’s been repeatedly quenched and tempered or of hardened fortifications and bunkers.What Are the...