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Kim Dotcom Reveals His End-to-End Encrypted Video Chat Service, MegaChat

The ever-controversial hacker-turned-millionaire-entrepreneur Kim Dotcom has announced the public beta launch of an end-to-end encrypted audio and video chat service, which he calls MegaChat. Anyone with an account on Mega's file-sharing file-syncing service can now access what is claimed to be a more secure alternative to Skype, boasting end-to-end...
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VERT Vuln School: XSS versus XSRF

Cross-site scripting, commonly referred to as XSS, is listed third in the OWASP Top 10 for 2013 Web Application Security risks. Unlike SQL injection attacks, which target data on the server, XSS provides a vector for attacking the users of a vulnerable web site. At a general level, XSS is when an attacker can cause a web site to render with...
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Hacker Halted... What Is It?

Hacker Halted is an IT security conference with the intention of educating the attendees in security and ethics. Last year, the conference was held in Atlanta on October 16-17. What VERT Presented at Hacker Halted VERT presented an implementation of a protocol independent fuzzer, which was built using python. We developed a fuzzer because we...
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Vulnerability Scoring 102

In my last post, I talked about the basics of vulnerability scoring in vulnerability management and the disparity that can exist when you score the subjective elements of a vulnerability. We looked at the variance that can exist within CVSSv2 and how a properly developed score can show a clear difference between two unique issues. This time, I want...
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Top Influencers in Security You Should Be Following in 2015

In December of 2011, Tripwire published a list of security’s top 25 influencers. More than three years later, we are pleased to announce a new list for 2015 -- The Infosec Avengers! For each influencer whom we have selected, we include their Twitter handle, blog URL and reasoning for selecting them. We also include their answer for what infosec...
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Six Strategies for Reducing Vulnerability Risk

There's little doubt that effectively remediating vulnerabilities is an important part of a comprehensive information security strategy. Vulnerabilities in desktops, servers, laptops and infrastructure are commonly involved in intrusions and incidents. For example, the Chthonic malware designed to steal banking details, exploits a known Microsoft...
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Mobile Payment Security Faces an Uphill Battle in 2015

Only one percent of consumers believe using a third-party mobile payment provider, such as Apple Pay or Google Wallet, is a safe way to pay for in-store purchases, reveals Tripwire, Inc. This past holiday season, One Poll and Dimensional Research conducted a consumer survey of over 2,011 consumers in the United States and UK. The survey’s findings...
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Vulnerability Management: Just Turn It Off! Part III

Four unnecessary risks that often appear in even the most secure networks, and step-by-step instructions on how to immediately address these considerable risks that can be hurting the security of our environment.
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Vulnerability Management: Just Turn It Off! Part II

Our last post in the “Turn It Off!” blog series discussed some of the most common and yet unnecessary features that can make your environment more vulnerable, including JBoss JMX consoles, server banners and the Apache HTExploit. These risks are often encountered by our Vulnerability and Exposure Research Team (VERT), even on well-defended networks and many of which have been around for quite...
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Friends Don’t Let Friends Mix XSS and CSRF

In preparation for my upcoming talk at BSides SF about finding vulnerabilities, I would like to share today some insights regarding two common types of vulnerabilities which leverage web browser in two unique ways. The goal of these vulnerabilities is quite different however. One is used to run untrusted code while the other is used to hijack authentication. The combined effect of these issues...
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Penetration Testing with Smartphones Part 1

When most people think of penetration testing, they think of a simulated external attack where the tester tries to break into a network remotely. Companies focus most of the security spending and policies on keeping hackers out remotely, from firewalls and other security hardening appliances, software and tools. However, given the proliferation of mobile devices in the workplace and use of Wi-Fi...