The title of this piece is quite obvious, but it is also an unappreciated fact. Consider for a moment the change we have seen over the last 30 years: access to cyberspace was scarce, often limited to enterprise users such as governments, educational institutions and the largest corporation, whereas today, there are billions of users that treat the...

Many organizations migrate to the cloud because of increased efficiency, data space, scalability, speed and other benefits. But cloud computing comes with its own security threats. To address these challenges, companies should create a hybrid cloud environment, confirm that their cloud security solution offers 24/7 monitoring and multi-layered...

A system administrator is accused of having caused its former employer $100,000 in damages using malicious code equipped with a "time bomb" feature. Allegro Microsystems, a LLC company which makes and markets high-performance semiconductors, says Nimesh Patel of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts tampered with its servers back in January 2016. For his...

Take a moment to think about apps used daily on your smartphone. Facebook? Twitter? Email? Web browser? No one wants to be stalked or let anyone see their personal information from their smartphones. Think about leaving your phone unlocked while you're at home or unattended on your desk while going for meeting at work. What if someone looks at your...

Malicious hackers are seizing control of poorly-protected home routers, and commanding them to launch attacks designed to brute force their way into WordPress websites. Security researchers at Wordfence first determined that something noteworthy was happening when they witnessed an unusual spike in attacks originating from Algeria against its...

Do you know who has access to your organisation's network? Are you confident that all the users on your network are authorised to access your systems, and have a good idea of what devices have been connected to your firm's systems? If so, good for you. But not all organisations have such tight control over who gains access to their IT infrastructure...

Microsoft has announced the end of Windows Vista support and is urging customers who still use the operating system to upgrade as soon as possible. The Redmond-based technology giant finalized Windows Vista's end of term in a blog post on 11 April: "Windows Vista customers are no longer receiving new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or...

Today’s VERT Alert addresses the Microsoft April 2017 Security Updates. VERT is actively working on coverage for these vulnerabilities and expects to ship ASPL-720 on Wednesday, April 12th. With the elimination of Security Bulletins, the VERT Alert will be changing. This shortened version will act as a placeholder until the launch of the improved...

Whatever the reason is, ransomware activity skyrocketed last month. An influx of crude, unprofessionally tailored samples bombarded home users and enterprises, sometimes simply destroying data beyond recovery due to broken crypto. Meanwhile, high-profile threats like Spora, Sage, Cerber and Jigsaw became more sophisticated. The statistics for March...

Two security controls, file integrity monitoring (FIM) and security configuration management (SCM), help organizations manage change. The former monitors for unauthorized changes to a system's state, whereas the latter looks for configuration changes that introduce security risk. Both components are crucial to a company's strategy for defending...

You probably remember the massive iCloud breach in 2014 that resulted in compromised celebrity photos spreading through the internet like wildfire. That egregious invasion of privacy caused great embarrassment and damage to the reputations of nearly 100 A-list stars. Fortunately, these bad deeds did not go unpunished. In 2016, two men were brought to...

Network security has been around almost as long as we’ve had networks, and it is easy to trace the various elements of network security to the components of networking that they try to mitigate. Over the past 30-35 years or so, the expansion of networking, especially the increased reliance on the Internet both as an avenue for commerce and as the...

Otherwise known as the measuring stick by which your GDPR compliance will be assessed, the six core principles of the GDPR are the basic foundations upon which the regulation was constructed. Unquestionable and pure in nature, they are rarely acknowledged for one simple reason: five of the six have no real application in helping you in peddling...

"Covert Channel [Wikipedia]: a covert channel is a type of computer security attack that creates a capability to transfer information objects between processes that are not supposed to be allowed to communicate by the computer security policy." Today, in a world where the hacking techniques are getting more and more sophisticated and security...

Kmart is informing customers that their credit card details may have been stolen after learning of a security breach involving its payment processing systems. Sears Holdings, Kmart’s parent company, confirmed the incident on Wednesday, but did not disclose any information regarding the number of stores affected or when the incident occurred. The...

With the summer holiday and festival season getting into full swing, you’ll want to stay connected to convenient travel and social media apps more than ever. But it’s important to be hyper-aware that cyber thieves are on the prowl for your personal, financial and location information. When traveling, like many of us will be doing this Memorial Day,...

News of the Google Docs phishing scam is not the first time that shared cloud-based resources have hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Many popular collaboration and IT management tools, such as Teamviewer and Slack, have had their time in the spotlight for compromises and breaches. The truth is these systems unwittingly provide an easy...

An updated variant of Jaff ransomware boasts a more professional design and now encrypts victims' data with the WLU extension. On 23 May, Internet Storm Center (ISC) handler Brad Duncan collected 20 malspam emails that all used a fake invoice theme and a spoofed email address. The emails also came with a PDF attachment containing an embedded Word...

Public web applications are an attractive target for hackers. Attacks on web applications open up wide opportunities, including access to internal resources of the company, sensitive information, disruption of the application, and circumvention of business logic. Virtually any attack can bring financial benefits to the attacker and losses, both...

Restaurant search website Zomato has announced that it has suffered a major security breach, resulting in the theft of a user database containing 17 million users' names, email addresses and passwords. The news comes as it is reported that a hacker calling themselves "nclay" is claiming to offer the database for sale on the dark web. ...