Blog

Blog

Critical insights into Australia’s supply chain risk landscape

Australian organizations find themselves navigating a minefield of supply chain risks, with a surge in incidents stemming from multi-party breaches. These breaches are often caused by vulnerabilities in cloud or software providers and are emerging as a challenge that demands attention and proactive strategies. From July to December 2023, 483 data breaches were reported to the Australian...
Blog

Achieving continuous compliance with Tripwire’s Security Configuration Manager

Security and compliance are often tightly intertwined. The main difference is that sometimes security can outpace compliance efforts. While it is easy to infer that a more secure system exceeds a compliance requirement, an auditor should not be expected to deduce the state of a system; the evidence needs to be clear. There are many factors that can cause compliance shifts. Configurations are...
Blog

Firmware Monitoring is Just a Snapshot Away

Any time the television news presents a story about cybersecurity, there is always a video of a large data center with thousands of blinking lights. Even most cybersecurity blogs will include an image of many lights on the front panels of servers, routers, and other hardware. However, most people don’t notice that the lights are usually green or some shade of blue. Rarely are those lights yellow...
Blog

Federated Learning for Cybersecurity: Collaborative Intelligence for Threat Detection

The demand for innovative threat detection and intelligence approaches is more pressing than ever. One such paradigm-shifting technology gaining prominence is Federated Learning (FL). This emerging concept harnesses the power of collaborative intelligence, allowing disparate entities to pool their insights without compromising sensitive data. A report by Apple suggests that the number of data...
Blog

LockBit affiliate jailed for almost four years after guilty plea

An affiliate of the LockBit ransomware gang has been sentenced to almost four years in jail after earlier pleading guilty to charges of cyber extortion and weapons charges. 34-year-old Mikhail Vasiliev, who has dual Russian and Canadian nationality, was arrested in 2022 as part of a multinational law enforcement investigation into LockBit that started in March 2020. According to media reports...
Blog

The 10 Most Common Website Security Attacks (and How to Protect Yourself)

According to the Verizon 2023 Data Breach Investigations Report , Basic Web Application Attacks accounted for nearly one-fourth of the entire breach data set. Although not the most sophisticated threats in the bunch, common web attacks like credential stuffing and SQL injection attacks continue to wreak havoc on the cybersecurity landscape, just like phishing and emerging AI-based attacks , and...
Blog

The Importance of Host-Based Intrusion Detection Systems

What Is a Host-Based Intrusion Detection System (HIDS)? A host-based intrusion detection system, or HIDS , is a network application that monitors suspicious and malicious behavior, both internally and externally. The HIDS’ job is to flag any unusual patterns of behavior that could signify a breach. By bringing this activity to the team’s attention, the HIDS enables in-house staff to investigate...
Blog

VERT Threat Alert: March 2024 Patch Tuesday Analysis

Today’s VERT Alert addresses Microsoft’s March 2024 Security Updates . VERT is actively working on coverage for these vulnerabilities and expects to ship ASPL-1097 as soon as coverage is completed. In-The-Wild & Disclosed CVEs There were no in-the-wild or disclosed CVEs included in the March Patch Tuesday release. CVE Breakdown by Tag While historical Microsoft Security Bulletin groupings are gone...
Blog

Reducing Cyber Risks with Security Configuration Management

Protecting sensitive data and other assets requires an organization to be adaptable and stay informed on things like the digital landscape and threat trends. While some aspects of security are within an organization’s control, it can be extremely difficult to manage all of the risks and vulnerabilities that are likely to arise. Security configuration management (SCM) is one way to take control of...
Blog

Cybersecurity in the Age of AI: Exploring AI-Generated Cyber Attacks

Historically, cyber-attacks were labor-intensive, meticulously planned, and needed extensive manual research. However, with the advent of AI , threat actors have harnessed their capabilities to orchestrate attacks with exceptional efficiency and potency. This technological shift enables them to execute more sophisticated, harder-to-detect attacks at scale. They can also manipulate machine learning...
Blog

File Integrity Monitoring vs. Integrity: What you need to know

Using security tools to monitor activities on IP based endpoints and the resulting changes that occur pose one of the most formidable challenges to security and regulatory compliance efforts, thanks to its potential to disrupt established security measures and protocols. Compliance frameworks, such as PCI DSS and NIST 800-53/SI-7, require organizations in every sector to maintain a consistent and...
Blog

$12.5 billion lost to cybercrime, amid tidal wave of crypto investment fraud

If you have been optimistically daydreaming that losses attributed to cybercrime might have reduced in the last year, it's time to wake up. The FBI's latest annual Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) report has just been published and makes for some grim reading. According to the IC3 report, online fraud hit record losses in 2023, with the American public reporting US $12.5 billion, a 22%...
Blog

So You Want to Achieve NERC CIP-013-1 Compliance...

Energy efficiency and availability is a major concern for all countries and governments. The electric grid is a vital sector, and any malfunctions will create ripple effects on any nation’s economy. As the grid is heavily dependent on cyber-enabled technologies and a vast chain of suppliers, contractors, and partners, the ability to safeguard the availability and reliability of the grid is crucial...
Blog

The Financial Sector Is Refocusing on Cybersecurity

In 2024, transformation is reshaping industries, and the financial sector stands at a crucial juncture. The Softcat Business Tech Priorities Report , a comprehensive survey encompassing over 4,000 customers across various sectors, sheds light on this transformation. Significantly, cybersecurity has emerged as the paramount concern for financial institutions for the second consecutive year. This...
Blog

What Are the Top 7 DDoS Mitigation Tactics for Energy Grids?

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks occur when adversaries overwhelm a connected target’s resources, aiming to make it unavailable. Learning the best strategies to protect from DDoS attacks is critical to energy grid cybersecurity. A well-planned DDoS attack on the grid could halt essential services, cause substantial disruptions to households and businesses, and prove incredibly costly...
Blog

What Are Command and Control Attacks?

In today's expanding cyber threat landscape, infiltrating a system goes beyond unauthorized access or malware installation. To achieve their ultimate objectives, cybercriminals need to maintain an undetected presence in the system or network to control or extract data according to their needs. Command and Control attacks, also known as C&C or C2 attacks, create a covert link between the...
Blog

The Role of Security Configuration Management (SCM) in Preventing Cyberattacks

In the intricate realm of cybersecurity, the relentless surge of cyber threats demands a constant reassessment of defensive strategies. Amidst this dynamic landscape, a subtle yet indispensable player takes center stage — Security Configuration Management (SCM) . This blog embarks on an insightful journey into the critical role played by SCM in the ongoing battle against cyberattacks, shedding...
Blog

The Need For Cybersecurity in Agriculture

Agriculture, a fundamental aspect of human civilization, plays an important role in global economic stability, contributing 4% to the global GDP . This sector not only provides food, but also supplies vital raw materials for various industries and drives economic development through job creation and trade facilitation. As we observe a technological revolution impacting every sector, agriculture is...
Blog

#TripwireBookClub – Black Hat GraphQL

The most recent book that we’ve read over here is Black Hat GraphQL: Attacking Next Generation APIs written by Dolev Farhi and Nick Aleks . The book is described as being for, “anyone interested in learning how to break and protect GraphQL APIs with the aid of offensive security testing.” As someone who works primarily with REST APIs , I was more interested in the introduction that it offered to...
Blog

Tripwire Patch Priority Index for February 2024

Tripwire's February 2024 Patch Priority Index (PPI) brings together important vulnerabilities for Microsoft, ConnectWise, and Google. First on the patch priority list are patches for ConnectWise ScreenConnect, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Windows SmartScreen, and Microsoft Windows Internet Shortcut files. These CVEs (CVE-2024-1709, CVE-2024-21410, CVE-2024-21351, CVE-2024-21412) have been...