Sat.Sep 26, 2020 - Fri.Oct 02, 2020

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Hacking Grindr Accounts with Copy and Paste

Troy Hunt

Sexuality, relationships and online dating are all rather personal things. They're aspects of our lives that many people choose to keep private or at the very least, share only with people of our choosing. Grindr is "The World's Largest Social Networking App for Gay, Bi, Trans, and Queer People" which for many people, makes it particularly sensitive.

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Ransomware Victims That Pay Up Could Incur Steep Fines from Uncle Sam

Krebs on Security

Companies victimized by ransomware and firms that facilitate negotiations with ransomware extortionists could face steep fines from the U.S. federal government if the crooks who profit from the attack are already under economic sanctions, the Treasury Department warned today. Image: Shutterstock. In its advisory (PDF), the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said “companies that facilitate ransomware payments to cyber actors on behalf of victims, including financial in

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Hacking a Coffee Maker

Schneier on Security

As expected, IoT devices are filled with vulnerabilities : As a thought experiment, Martin Hron, a researcher at security company Avast, reverse engineered one of the older coffee makers to see what kinds of hacks he could do with it. After just a week of effort, the unqualified answer was: quite a lot. Specifically, he could trigger the coffee maker to turn on the burner, dispense water, spin the bean grinder, and display a ransom message, all while beeping repeatedly.

Hacking 363
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Everyday Threat Modeling

Daniel Miessler

Threat modeling is a superpower. When done correctly it gives you the ability to adjust your defensive behaviors based on what you’re facing in real-world scenarios. And not just for applications, or networks, or a business—but for life. The Difference Between Threats and Risks. This type of threat modeling is a life skill, not just a technical skill.

VPN 326
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Why Giant Content Libraries Do Nothing for Your Employees’ Cyber Resilience

Many cybersecurity awareness platforms offer massive content libraries, yet they fail to enhance employees’ cyber resilience. Without structured, engaging, and personalized training, employees struggle to retain and apply key cybersecurity principles. Phished.io explains why organizations should focus on interactive, scenario-based learning rather than overwhelming employees with excessive content.

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Weekly Update 211

Troy Hunt

This week there's a lot of connected things: connected shoes, connected garage camera and connected GoPro. And then there's Scott's Grindr account. Awkward. Actually, since recording this weekly update the details of the issue have now been released so I'll talk about that in more detail next week. This week there's all the above and, on a more personal note, my relationship with Charlotte.

Firmware 332
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Who’s Behind Monday’s 14-State 911 Outage?

Krebs on Security

Emergency 911 systems were down for more than an hour on Monday in towns and cities across 14 U.S. states. The outages led many news outlets to speculate the problem was related to Microsoft ‘s Azure web services platform, which also was struggling with a widespread outage at the time. However, multiple sources tell KrebsOnSecurity the 911 issues stemmed from some kind of technical snafu involving Intrado and Lumen , two companies that together handle 911 calls for a broad swath of the Uni

LifeWorks

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Cyber Pearl Harbor Is Happening Right Now — It’s Ransomware

Daniel Miessler

Since 2007 the InfoSec industry has been talking about TheBigOne™—the event that would change cyber threats from annoyances to existential concerns. They called it Cyber Pearl Harbor. This doesn’t mean it can’t still happen. The idea was that it’d be some massive blast that would take out the country’s power grid, or disable the entire internet, along with what they used to call e-commerce.

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Hackers Release Student Data Following Ransomware Attack

Adam Levin

Ransomware operators have released the personal data of students in the Clark County School District in Nevada after officials refused to pay to have their files decrypted. The information leaked reportedly includes Social Security numbers, names, grades, addresses, and financial information. District officials have been thus far unable to verify the data.

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Attacks Aimed at Disrupting the Trickbot Botnet

Krebs on Security

Over the past 10 days, someone has been launching a series of coordinated attacks designed to disrupt Trickbot , an enormous collection of more than two million malware-infected Windows PCs that are constantly being harvested for financial data and are often used as the entry point for deploying ransomware within compromised organizations. A text snippet from one of the bogus Trickbot configuration updates.

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Negotiating with Ransomware Gangs

Schneier on Security

Really interesting conversation with someone who negotiates with ransomware gangs: For now, it seems that paying ransomware, while obviously risky and empowering/encouraging ransomware attackers, can perhaps be comported so as not to break any laws (like anti-terrorist laws, FCPA, conspiracy and others) ­ and even if payment is arguably unlawful, seems unlikely to be prosecuted.

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Zero Trust Mandate: The Realities, Requirements and Roadmap

The DHS compliance audit clock is ticking on Zero Trust. Government agencies can no longer ignore or delay their Zero Trust initiatives. During this virtual panel discussion—featuring Kelly Fuller Gordon, Founder and CEO of RisX, Chris Wild, Zero Trust subject matter expert at Zermount, Inc., and Principal of Cybersecurity Practice at Eliassen Group, Trey Gannon—you’ll gain a detailed understanding of the Federal Zero Trust mandate, its requirements, milestones, and deadlines.

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Google removes 17 Android apps designed to deploy Joker malware

Tech Republic Security

The Joker malware has been a persistent thorn in Google's side as it keeps popping up in shady apps to infect users of the Google Play store.

Malware 218
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Weekly Update 210

Troy Hunt

Wow, 4 years already. Regardless of where I've been in the world or the stresses that have been going on in my personal life , every single week without exception there's been a video. This makes 210 of them now, and these days they're live from a much more professional setup in a location that has absolutely no chance of changing for the foreseeable future.

Passwords 212
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Governnment Software Vendor Tyler Technologies Announces Breach

Adam Levin

Tyler Technologies, a software and technology provider for U.S. federal, state, and local government agencies, announced that its internal systems were hacked last week. . The company, which provides election, information management and emergency management systems to over 15,000 government offices across the country, announced the hack after its website was taken offline Wednesday, September 23. .

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Detecting Deep Fakes with a Heartbeat

Schneier on Security

Researchers can detect deep fakes because they don’t convincingly mimic human blood circulation in the face: In particular, video of a person’s face contains subtle shifts in color that result from pulses in blood circulation. You might imagine that these changes would be too minute to detect merely from a video, but viewing videos that have been enhanced to exaggerate these color shifts will quickly disabuse you of that notion.

Software 354
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Prevent Data Breaches With Zero-Trust Enterprise Password Management

Keeper Security is transforming cybersecurity for people and organizations around the world. Keeper’s affordable and easy-to-use solutions are built on a foundation of zero-trust and zero-knowledge security to protect every user on every device. Our next-generation privileged access management solution deploys in minutes and seamlessly integrates with any tech stack to prevent breaches, reduce help desk costs and ensure compliance.

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Cybersecurity: How to properly perform vulnerability assessments in your organization

Tech Republic Security

Assessing the security posture of devices is an important part of securing data and communications. Follow these steps to make sure you do it correctly.

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Maritime transport and logistics giant CMA CGM hit with ransomware

Security Affairs

The French maritime transport and logistics giant CMA CGM S.A. revealed it was the victim of a malware attack that affecting some servers on its network. CMA CGM S.A. , a French maritime transport and logistics giant, revealed that a malware attack affected some servers on its network. The company is present in over 160 countries through 755 offices and 750 warehouses with 110,000 employees and 489 vessels.

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Facebook Tightens Restrictions on Election Ads

Adam Levin

Facebook has announced that it will place greater restrictions on advertisements for social and political issues ahead of the upcoming U.S. presidential election. The company announced the new restrictions on its corporate blog earlier this week, which prohibit the following content: Ads discouraging participation in the voting process. Ads seeking to delegitimize lawful voting practices as fraudulent, illegal, or corrupt.

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Russia’s Fancy Bear Hackers Likely Penetrated a US Federal Agency

WIRED Threat Level

New clues indicate that APT28 may be behind a mysterious intrusion that US officials disclosed last week.

Hacking 142
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Optimizing The Modern Developer Experience with Coder

Many software teams have migrated their testing and production workloads to the cloud, yet development environments often remain tied to outdated local setups, limiting efficiency and growth. This is where Coder comes in. In our 101 Coder webinar, you’ll explore how cloud-based development environments can unlock new levels of productivity. Discover how to transition from local setups to a secure, cloud-powered ecosystem with ease.

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Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Train employees to be first line of defense

Tech Republic Security

This October looks quite different from previous years, as IT oversees staff who are no longer centrally located, creating a larger attack surface for bad actors. Awareness is key, experts say.

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QNAP urges users to update NAS firmware and app to prevent infections

Security Affairs

While the AgeLocker ransomware continues to target QNAP NAS systems, the Taiwanese vendor urges customers to update the firmware and apps. Taiwanese vendor QNAP is urging its customers to update the firmware and apps installed on their network-attached storage (NAS) devices to prevent AgeLocker ransomware infections. The name AgeLocker comes from the use of the Actually Good Encryption ( AGE ) algorithm to encrypt files, experts warn that encrypted files can’t be recovered without paying t

Firmware 145
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Cybersecurity Awareness Month: 20+ Free Resources for Your Cybersecurity Career

CompTIA on Cybersecurity

This cybersecurity awareness month, CompTIA wants to thank cybersecurity pros for ensuring information integrity.

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Securing Slack: 5 Tips for Safer Messaging, Collaboration

Dark Reading

Remote workers and scattered teams are relying on Slack more and more for messaging and collaboration. Here are a few extra tips for keeping data and systems more secure when using Slack.

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The Importance of User Roles and Permissions in Cybersecurity Software

How many people would you trust with your house keys? Chances are, you have a handful of trusted friends and family members who have an emergency copy, but you definitely wouldn’t hand those out too freely. You have stuff that’s worth protecting—and the more people that have access to your belongings, the higher the odds that something will go missing.

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Cybersecurity best practices: An open letter to end users

Tech Republic Security

In an effort to make IT pros' jobs easier, Jack Wallen offers cybersecurity tips to end users--in particular, what not to do to keep company networks, equipment, and data secure.

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A powerful DDoS attack hit Hungarian banks and telecoms services

Security Affairs

Hungarian financial institutions and telecommunications infrastructure were hit by a powerful DDoS attack originating from servers in Russia, China and Vietnam. A powerful DDoS attack hit some Hungarian banking and telecommunication services that briefly disrupted them. According to telecoms firm Magyar Telekom, the attack took place on Thursday and was launched from servers in Russia, China and Vietnam.

DDOS 145
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QR Codes: A Sneaky Security Threat

Threatpost

What to watch out for, and how to protect yourself from malicious versions of these mobile shortcuts.

Mobile 129
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The Strangest Election Scenario Runs Through Georgia

WIRED Threat Level

There’s a small but real possibility that we won’t know which party controls the Senate until 2021, thanks to a special election and a unique state requirement.

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The Tumultuous IT Landscape Is Making Hiring More Difficult

After a year of sporadic hiring and uncertain investment areas, tech leaders are scrambling to figure out what’s next. This whitepaper reveals how tech leaders are hiring and investing for the future. Download today to learn more!

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How to handle cybersecurity amid a tight IT budget

Tech Republic Security

There are ways to maintain and even enhance your security posture even when your tech budget is under stress, according to Kaspersky.

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Arthur J. Gallagher (AJG) insurance giant discloses ransomware attack

Security Affairs

US-based Arthur J. Gallagher (AJG) insurance giant disclosed a ransomware attack, the security breach took place on Saturday. US-based Arthur J. Gallagher (AJG) global insurance brokerage firm confirmed that it was his with a ransomware attack on Saturday, September 26. The company did not provide technical details about the attack, it is not clear how the ransomware operators breached the company and which is the family of malware that infected its systems.

Insurance 145
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Why Web Browser Padlocks Shouldn’t Be Trusted

Threatpost

Popular ‘safe browsing’ padlocks are now passe as a majority of bad guys also use them.

Phishing 129
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CFAA 101: A Computer Fraud & Abuse Act Primer for InfoSec Pros

Dark Reading

From WarGames, to Aaron Swartz, to bug bounties, to Van Buren, here's what cybersecurity researchers should know about the US's primary anti-hacking law before it gets its day in the Supreme Court.

InfoSec 121
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IDC Analyst Report: The Open Source Blind Spot Putting Businesses at Risk

In a recent study, IDC found that 64% of organizations said they were already using open source in software development with a further 25% planning to in the next year. Most organizations are unaware of just how much open-source code is used and underestimate their dependency on it. As enterprises grow the use of open-source software, they face a new challenge: understanding the scope of open-source software that's being used throughout the organization and the corresponding exposure.