Blog

Blog

5 Tips for National Cyber Security Awareness Month

Image As a regular reader of Tripwire, you are aware that October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. If you are a business owner, you are aware that every month is Cyber Security Awareness Month. To stretch the point one step further, as an employee, did you know that you are a valuable member of your organization’s Cyber...
Blog

Remote DoS Vulnerability Patched in Huawei 4G USB Modem

Image Chinese networking telecommunications equipment and services company Huawei has patched a vulnerability in its MBB (Mobile Broadband) product E3272s that if exploited could lead to denial-of-service attacks and remote arbitrary code execution. According to a security bulletin released by the company, "An attacker could send a...
Blog

Understanding External Security Threats

Image Cyber security is now a board-level risk across the entire spread of industry. However, it is a broad subject with a large number of unknowns, and some might say there's no real way to ever discover or quantify those unknowns. Unfortunately, this can result in cyber security being poorly understood and boards vulnerable to being...
Blog

3 Tips on How to Create a Cyber Security Culture at Work

Image This October marks another iteration of National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM), a program designed to engage both the public and private sectors on good security practices via activities that encourage awareness and resiliency in the event of a national cyber incident. Sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security ...
Blog

Building a Model for Endpoint Security Maturity

Image In today's world, our notion of endpoints has evolved from something with a user and a keyboard to something with exploitable vulnerabilities. This conceptualization therefore covers network connections beyond laptops, personal computers and mobile devices. Indeed, vulnerabilities arising from Internet of Things (IoT) appliances...
Blog

VERT Vuln School – SQL Injection 101

Image SQL injection is arguably the most severe problem web applications face. OWASP, an online community devoted to web application security, consistently classifies injection vulnerabilities as number one on their OWASP Top 10 Project. SQL injection vulnerabilities are a favorite amongst a number of “hactivist” groups whose aim is...
Blog

Managing Cyber Risks and Budgets

Image According to the 2015 Information Security Breaches Survey, 44 percent of both large and small organizations increased their security expenditure in 2015 compared with 53 percent and 27 percent in 2014, respectively. Despite the increase in expenditure, however, 90 percent of large organizations and 74 percent of small...
Blog

15 Million T-Mobile Customers' Information Exposed in Experian Hack

Image Hackers have compromised the personal information of 15 million T-Mobile customers after successfully infiltrating one of Experian's servers. John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile, has published a letter about the incident: "We have been notified by Experian, a vendor that processes our credit applications, that they have experienced a...
Blog

Homo Sapiens and the Human Equation of Ethics

Image I recall engaging into a conversation with a fellow security professional this year on the subject of where the CISO role should reside and to whom they should report. My opponent’s opinion was very much contrary to my own, vocalising the value of the CISO having full alignment with the main board and the company executive. I,...
Blog

Targeted Security Risk Assessments Using NIST Guidelines

Image What a whirlwind the past few months have been for data security, breaches and hacking events. From the Wyndham v. FTC ruling to yet another breach by a BCBS affiliate, there is increasing pressure across the information security industry to push organizations to perform those pesky security risk assessments touted by the...
Blog

Russian AV Firm Firebombed for Malware Report

Image A Russian antivirus (AV) firm was firebombed back in 2014 as a result of a report it published on a particular malware sample. On December 18, 2013, the AV company Doctor Web published a news item announcing that Trojan.Skimmer.18 had been added to the company's virus database. Later that same day, the company received a...
Blog

Post Office Email Scams Target Denmark, Drop Crypt0l0cker Ransomware

Image The post office email scam is a time-tested method of attack among malicious actors. Indeed, when users see that they have received an email from an actor purporting to be their local post office, most of them buy into the familiarity of this governmental institution and click on a link without taking the time to inspect the...
Blog

Thousands of Medical Systems Exposed to Web Attacks, Find Researchers

Image Two security researchers uncovered thousands of medical systems exposed online that are vulnerable to web attacks. On Saturday, September 26, researchers Scott Erven and Mark Collao presented their findings at Derby Con 5.0 in a presentation entitled "Medical Devices: Pwnage and Honeypots." "We know medical devices are exposed...
Blog

Securing the Smart Home (and Office)

Image Today, a segment will air on Crime Watch Daily where Tripwire Senior Security Researcher Craig Young and I reveal on camera how vulnerable smart homes can be when not properly secured. We show firsthand that the key weaknesses in most smart homes are a combination of insecure networks and default configurations, including...