In today’s world, where technology is becoming an ever greater part of our everyday lives, it appears we aren’t quite keeping up with it. Believe it or not, we still tend to underestimate the importance of cyber security, as a recent survey by Soha System’s Third Party Advisory Group has shown. According to the survey, less than two percent of IT...

This year’s Infosecurity Europe conference had so many great places to be and things to do that it was often hard to choose how best to spend one's limited time and harder still for many to identify a single highlight. For myself personally, however, it had to be the opportunity to hear one of my favourite writers for many years speaking on the...

PCI-DSS v3.2 will be in full-force this October. At that time, service providers will be required to complete penetration tests by an external third party twice a year. The term “service provider” leaves significant room for interpretation. Discuss PCI-DSS v3.2 with your QSA to determine how changes may impact your organization. Whether to be PCI...

Global financial services firm Morgan Stanley has agreed to pay a $1 million penalty for failure to safeguard customer data, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on Wednesday. According to a statement by the SEC, the Wall Street bank violated a federal regulation – known as the “Safeguards Rule” – by failing to adopt federally...

uTorrent is urging all forum users to change their passwords after an attacker gained access to one of its forum databases through its software vendor. Torrent client uTorrent was acquired by BitTorrent Inc. back in 2006. Its developer team operates an IP.Board forum where users can contact one another as well as read announcements. That forum runs...

In May, ransomware was in full bloom. Over sixteen new ransom Trojans surfaced, plus one Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) and plenty of updates to existing ransomware. The good news is that at least six new decryptors were released. The database of ransom infections has been extended, with a novel specimen that targets websites rather than computers...

When playing chess, you need to consider not only your next three to five moves but also the next several moves of your opponent. In our case, the security of an organization's data and infrastructure is open to an abundance of moves by hackers and malicious insiders. Regardless of which defensive pieces you have in place – knights, bishops, pawns...

It was philosopher and military strategist Sun Tzu who once wrote that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in 100 battles. Though The Art of War was written in ancient China and therefore probably does not refer to the ongoing battle against Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) attacks, it very well could. After...

The Milwaukee Bucks confirmed that a phishing email scam resulted in the NBA franchise disclosing the financial records of the team’s players and staff. In a statement made last week, the team said it has reported the incident to the IRS and the FBI. “On May 16, 2016, we discovered our company was the...

There is some promising news regarding the state of cyber security among financial services organizations. As an industry, risk-averse financial services companies are investing more in cyber security, with a security spending increase of 14 percent. This heightened focus on security might explain why organizations working in financial services...

By now, you understand the importance of integrating multiple threat intelligence feeds into your organization's security infrastructure, cultivating security awareness among employees on an ongoing basis, and creating clearly defined security policies. Those are all crucial steps that go into the planning phase of your organization's endpoint...

A security researcher recently discovered a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Google by accident. Patrik Fehrenbach explains in a blog post that he came across the flaw after deciding to take advantage of Google Cloud Console's 60-day free trial and test for XSS bugs. XSS flaws come in two types. A bug is 'reflected' if the payload...

Yahoo says a state-sponsored actor stole the account information for at least 500 million of its users in a breach that occurred back in late-2014. On 22 September, Yahoo CISO Bob Lord confirmed that the hack might have compromised several pieces of its users' account information: "We have confirmed that a copy of certain user account information...

Technology analysts are divided on the notion of a "smart" city. On the one hand, proponents note that by creating "smart" systems to run public transportation, waste removal, traffic control, and the water system, cities can improve the efficiency of their municipal services. Such enhanced productivity would help urban centers better accommodate...

Many people don’t understand how fraudulent charges range from as little as $7.19 from some odd electronics store to $655.38 at some store in Russia while you reside in North America. We tend to think that this may have happened because we used our cards to pay for parking at random locations or for public transportation. As it is easier and quicker...

According to new data, the education sector now ranks as the most-targeted industry by ransomware attacks. In a recent report, security firm BitSight analyzed the growing ransomware threat across nearly 20,000 companies over the last 12 months. Researchers found that organizations in education had the highest rate of ransomware – with at least one...

A research team is blaming dark web sellers and websites for foolishly uploading geotagged images to underground marketplaces. Paul Lisker and Michael Rose, who are both Harvard students of CS and Government , authored a study in which they asked the following question: is it possible dark web users are unwittingly revealing their location as they...

A security researcher has come up with a method that would allow an attacker to bypass the iOS passcode limit on certain iPhone models. Sergei Skorobogatov's process consists of an attacker mirroring the Flash memory stored in an iPhone 5c's NAND cells. During a press conference back in March, FBI Director James Comey explained his agents could not...

In my last blog post, I introduced the topic of automation and how it can help improve security posture. In this post, we’ll be covering some of the risks automation can mitigate against. Data Breaches and Cyber Attacks A recent survey by ISACA on organization preparedness indicated that only 38% of businesses were confident they were prepared to...

FBI Director James Comey feels that covering up a computer's webcam with a piece of tape is "sensible" and "a good thing." In an interview commemorating 10 years of operation for the National Security Division (NSD), a body of the U.S. Department of Justice that leverages law enforcement, intelligence, and other government resources to respond to...