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Computer Criminals Brought to Justice – Konstantin Simeonov Kavrakov

Last week, Tripwire explored the story of Austin Alcala, a teenager who penetrated a number of American videogame corporations and the United States military as a member of an international hacking group. We now report on the story of Konstantin Simeonov Kavrakov, a Bulgarian hacker who is responsible for having infiltrated Bill Gates’ bank account...
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Top Critical Skill In Information Security: Be Humble

"The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.” – Albert Einstein Being involved in information security is intimidating. Not just because you are dealing with complex technology with serious implications if you fail, but everyone around you is going to be smarter than you. Even your adversaries. Especially your adversaries. Get...
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Hard Rock Casino Credit Card Breach Undetected for 7 Months

The Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas has been hit with malware leading to the compromise of credit card data, names and addresses at restaurant, bar and retail locations. The compromise did not affect the hotel or casino transactions. At this time, no details regarding the specific malware or other specifics regarding the compromise were provided....
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FBI Assists Rutgers University Investigate Second DoS Attack in a Month

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is assisting Rutgers University investigate the source of a second targeted attack that has crippled the university’s Internet in the past month. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation is assisting the university with its search,” agency spokeswoman Celeste Danzi explained on Wednesday. ...
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RSA 2015 Keynote: Don't Be Afraid of the Bumps in the Night

Thirty thousand people; five hundred vendors; a clan of security practitioners seeking out safety in their ecosystem; a tribe of knowledge pursuing the opportunity to share best practice and thought leadership to increase likelihood of survival... my first RSA. Amit Yoran’s Keynote suggests that an evolution out of the Dark Ages of Security is...
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The Insecurity of Open Source is Not Poisoning the Well

In ages past, invading armies would poison the water source – usually a well – of a city in order to reduce the fighting capability of the enemy or to force the populace of a city under siege to surrender. This method was usually successful because an invader could have a devastating effect on a very large population with minimal yet targeted effort...
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This Hacker has Implanted a Chip in his Body to Exploit your Android Phone

Plenty of people these days are prepared to augment their bodies with face furniture, piercings, rings and tattoos. But would you implant a chip in your hand to show how easy it is to exploit an Android phone? That's what former US navy petty officer Seth Wahle did, in an attempt to demonstrate how business networks could be compromised. Wahle took...
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Cybersecurity Issues – Is Continuous Monitoring Enough?

Continuous monitoring is poised to do for information security what cloud deployment did for global productivity. Continuous monitoring not only has a role to play in preventing large-scale data breaches but it can also help compliance-sensitive organizations save money by facilitating long-term compliance continuity and reducing annual audit...
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The Four Most Common Evasive Techniques Used by Malware

Earlier this month, Lastline, a security firm that focuses on real-time analysis of advanced malware, issued a new report on the evolving landscape of evasive malware. Co-founder and chief scientist at Lastline Christopher Kruegel published the report as part of his presentation for RSA Conference 2015 entitled, “Evasive Malware Exposed and...
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Computer Criminals Brought to Justice – Austin Alcala

Last time, we explored the story of Timothy Lance Lai, at one time a private tutor who was arrested for providing his former students with a keylogger, which they in turn used to change their grades. We now report on the story of Austin Alcala, a teenage hacker who infiltrated various American corporations and the United States military as a member...
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Lessons Learned from RSA Conference 2015

After an action-packed week at RSA, we’re happy to say this year’s show didn’t disappoint, as it encouraged the information security community to “challenge today’s security thinking.” We saw consistent themes across many presentation topics, as well as vendors’ messaging, including one of the biggest issues seen in the recently released Verizon...
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Tesla's DNS Hacked Leading to Website and Twitter Hijacks

On Saturday, the website and Twitter account of electric vehicle maker Tesla was compromised briefly, as well as CEO Elon Musk's Twitter account. The website was defaced after the DNS for TeslaMotors.com was redirected to another server hosting an image with various messages and faces of a few people. ...
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Facebook Stores “Non-Posts” and Sends Unpublished Text to Its Servers

According to a tech consultant, Facebook collects all writing that is entered into a text box and sends it to its servers regardless of whether a user chooses to publish it. In a post published on his blog, Príomh Ó hÚigínn explains that Facebook sends an HTML post request containing the text a user writes. He observed this network traffic using...