2023 saw two concerning attacks on public water systems, highlighting the fragility and risk to utility systems. In Pennsylvania, malicious hackers breached the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa system the night after Thanksgiving. The criminals were making a political statement: the technology used to manage water pressure was developed by Israel,...

US federal agencies have teamed up to release a cybersecurity best practice guidance for the water and wastewater sector (WWS). The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have published the guide in an attempt to promote cybersecurity...

  One of the most common factors that can lead to cybersecurity incidents is a security misconfiguration in software or application settings. The default settings that come with the implementation of these tools and solutions are often not configured securely, and many organizations do not invest the time and resources into ensuring that they are. ...

Imagine you’re on the tail end of installing a 100-line script. It’s five o’clock, and you’re ready to head out early for once. You run the startup script on a new server, and then – the fated error message. Something isn’t working, and only after painstakingly reviewing 67 lines of code do you realize you had the IP address wrong. This could have been...

Like every other industry, the healthcare sector is barely recognizable when compared to its state 20 years ago. It, too, has been transfigured by technology. While this has brought many impactful benefits, it has also introduced at least one major challenge: keeping sensitive patient information private. At the heart of this privacy challenge stands...

Cybersecurity in Mental Healthcare - The Overlooked Risk Did you know the New-Age Therapeutic sector is unregulated? If that surprises you, then you’re not alone. I was a little surprised, too. Yes, there are various professional bodies a practitioner can join, and there are courses they can attend, but they aren’t forced to.  It should be noted that...

A WordPress plugin used on over 300,000 websites has been found to contain vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to seize control. Security researchers Ulyses Saicha and Sean Murphy found two critical flaws in the POST SMTP Mailer plugin. The first flaw made it possible for attackers to reset the plugin's authentication API key and view sensitive...

At Tripwire's recent Energy and NERC Compliance Working Group, we had the opportunity to speak with the Manager of Gas Measurement, Controls, & Cybersecurity at a large energy company. More specifically, we focused on SCADA and field assets of gas Operational Technology. The experience at the management level of such an organization provided a wealth of...

The shifting sands of IT make the adage "you never know it all" ever more true as time goes by. I recall days when it felt like you could click through every major directory of Yahoo and know a little something about everything. I was a young man with a voracious reading appetite and an active imagination – both of which were thoroughly outpaced by the...

In the digital world, where countless users communicate, share data, and engage in diverse activities, determining the origin and actions behind these interactions can be quite challenging. This is where non-repudiation steps in. Coupling other security factors, such as delivery proof, identity verification, and a digital signature, creates non...

Today’s VERT Alert addresses Microsoft’s January 2024 Security Updates. VERT is actively working on coverage for these vulnerabilities and expects to ship ASPL-1088 as soon as coverage is completed. In-The-Wild & Disclosed CVEs There were no in-the-wild or disclosed CVEs included in the January Patch Tuesday drop. CVE Breakdown by Tag While...

Tripwire's December 2023 Patch Priority Index (PPI) brings together important vulnerabilities for Microsoft and Google. First on the patch priority are patches for Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) that resolve elevation of privilege, remote code execution, and information disclosure vulnerabilities. Please note that CVE-2023-7024 for...

What is an Attack Surface? An attack surface is the total number of channels, pathways, or areas that threat actors can utilize to gain unauthorized access to networks. The result is that they can obtain private information or carry out a cyber-attack. An attack surface comprises the organizational assets a threat actor can exploit to gain unauthorized...

The payment industry is bracing for the transition to Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) 4.0, heralding significant changes in cybersecurity practices. As we approach the implementation of this revised standard, a critical focal point emerges: the role and new mandate of web application firewalls (WAFs) in ensuring compliance. The...

One of the most critical aspects of cybersecurity is ensuring that all software is kept up to date with the latest patches. This is necessary to cover any vulnerabilities that cybercriminals could take advantage of in order to infiltrate an organization and launch an attack. With the volume of updates and the effort needed to install and configure them,...

Frankly stated, operational resilience is your ability to climb the mountain, no matter the weather. Businesses now need more than a good security structure to weather the storms of AI-driven threats, APTs, cloud-based risks, and hyper-distributed environments. And more importantly, operational resilience in 2024 requires a paradigm shift. Attackers...

Electrical utilities are responsible for just about everything we do. This presents a tremendous burden on those who operate those utilities. One way these organizations offer assurance is through the audit process. While audits can generate tremendous anxiety, good planning, and tools can help make the entire process go smoothly. Moreover, these can...

Today’s VERT Alert addresses Microsoft’s December 2023 Security Updates. VERT is actively working on coverage for these vulnerabilities and expects to ship ASPL-1086 on Wednesday, December 13th. In-The-Wild & Disclosed CVEs CVE-2023-20588 AMD has released AMD-SB-7007 – Speculative Leaks Security Notice, which describes how some AMD processors can...

Organizations looking to protect their sensitive data and assets against cyberattacks may lack the ability to build a cybersecurity strategy without any structured help. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has a free, public framework to help any organization mature its IT security posture. Recently, the institute published an...

It’s the small vines, not the large branches, that trip us up in the forest. Apparently, it’s no different in Healthcare. In November, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a Mitigation Guide aimed at the Healthcare and Public Health (HPH) sector. In the midst of current hybrid cloud security challenges, hyper...