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 resilience and improve incident response in the WWS...

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. Several regulatory organizations have established...

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 prevented. File Integrity Monitoring (FIM)...

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 the venerable Health Insurance Portability and...

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 professional, licensed psychotherapists and...

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 knowledge for the attendees. SCADA...

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 growth of the internet and my own developing...

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-repudiation. This guarantees that the parties...

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 historical Microsoft Security Bulletin groupings are...

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 shift from a best practice to a prescribed...

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 aren’t out there doing the bare minimum . As the...

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 also help to achieve positive results. At the...

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 potentially return speculative data after a...

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 updated version of the cybersecurity framework...

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-distributed environment considerations, an AI...

While the EU AI Act is poised to introduce binding legal requirements, there's another noteworthy player making waves—the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF) , published in January 2023. This framework promises to reshape the future of responsible AI uniquely and voluntarily, setting it apart from traditional regulatory approaches. Let's...

Tripwire recently held its annual Energy and NERC Compliance Working Group. This year's attendees included more than 200 Tripwire customer utility personnel representing over 80 different registered entities from all across the US and Canada. The company sizes ranged from public utility districts and city municipalities to medium and larger-sized investor-owned utilities, including many of the...

In late September 2023, the US-based National Institute of Standards and Technology ( NIST ) published its Cybersecurity Framework Profile for Hybrid Satellite Networks, otherwise known as NIST IR 8441. This blog will explore the reasons behind NIST developing the framework, outline its intentions, and summarize its key points. What is a Hybrid Satellite Network? To understand IR 8441, we must...

In the vast and ever-evolving universe of information technology, there's one constant: change (that and cliches about constants!). Servers, systems, and software – they all get updated and modified. But, have you ever stopped to consider how even tiny differences between these digital entities can sometimes lead to unexpected challenges? In the world of Tripwire, we like to call this phenomenon...

Boards of directors need to maintain an appropriate level of cyber expertise, incidents must be reported within 72 hours after determination, and all ransom payments made must be reported within a day. Those are just some of the changes made by The New York State Department of Financial Services to its Cybersecurity Requirements for Financial Services (23 NYCRR 500) , effective November 1, 2023...