Lohrman on Security
AUGUST 21, 2022
2022 has brought a surge in distributed denial-of-service attacks as well as a dramatic rise in patriotic hacktivism. What’s ahead for these trends as the year continues?
Joseph Steinberg
JUNE 10, 2022
Last week, I attended an excellent briefing given by Tom Gillis, Senior Vice President and General Manager of VMware’s Networking and Advanced Security Business Group, in which he discussed various important cybersecurity-related trends that he and his team have observed. Gillis shared how VMware’s customers’ attitudes towards security appear to be evolving in light of both recent developments within the cybersecurity industry and events going on in the world at large; among the developmen
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Schneier on Security
OCTOBER 11, 2022
Interesting research: “ ImpNet: Imperceptible and blackbox-undetectable backdoors in compiled neural networks , by Tim Clifford, Ilia Shumailov, Yiren Zhao, Ross Anderson, and Robert Mullins: Abstract : Early backdoor attacks against machine learning set off an arms race in attack and defence development. Defences have since appeared demonstrating some ability to detect backdoors in models or even remove them.
Daniel Miessler
JUNE 28, 2022
It’s common to hear that it’s hard to get into cybersecurity, and that this is a problem. That seems to be true, but it’s informative to ask a simple follow-up: The current cybersecurity jobs gap sits at around 2.7 million people. A problem for who? I think what we’re facing is an instance of the Two-Worlds Problem that’s now everywhere in US society.
Advertisement
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.
Krebs on Security
FEBRUARY 3, 2022
If you received a link to LinkedIn.com via email, SMS or instant message, would you click it? Spammers, phishers and other ne’er-do-wells are hoping you will, because they’ve long taken advantage of a marketing feature on the business networking site which lets them create a LinkedIn.com link that bounces your browser to other websites, such as phishing pages that mimic top online brands (but chiefly Linkedin’s parent firm Microsoft ).
Adam Levin
JULY 6, 2022
A firewall is a network security device or program designed to prevent unauthorized and malicious internet traffic from entering a private network or device. It is a digital safety barrier between public and private internet connections, allowing non-threatening traffic in and keeping malicious traffic out, which in theory includes malware and hackers.
Cyber Security Informer brings together the best content for cyber security professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
|
Troy Hunt
AUGUST 3, 2022
How best to punish spammers? I give this topic a lot of thought because I spend a lot of time sifting through the endless rubbish they send me. And that's when it dawned on me: the punishment should fit the crime - robbing me of my time - which means that I, in turn, need to rob them of their time. With the smallest possible overhead on my time, of course.
Lohrman on Security
DECEMBER 23, 2022
After a year full of data breaches, ransomware attacks and real-world cyber impacts stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, what’s next? Here’s part 1 of your annual roundup of security industry forecasts for 2023 and beyond.
The Last Watchdog
SEPTEMBER 7, 2022
Finally, Uncle Sam is compelling companies to take cybersecurity seriously. Related: How the Middle East paved the way to CMMC. Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification version 2.0 could take effect as early as May 2023 mandating detailed audits of the cybersecurity practices of any company that hopes to do business with the Department of Defense.
Anton on Security
JANUARY 10, 2022
New Paper: “Future Of The SOC: Process Consistency and Creativity: a Delicate Balance” (Paper 3 of 4) Sorry, it took us a year (long story), but paper #3 in Deloitte/Google collaboration on SOC is finally out. Enjoy “Future Of The SOC: Process Consistency and Creativity: a Delicate Balance” [PDF]. If you missed them, the previous papers are: “Future of the SOC: Forces shaping modern security operations” [PDF] (Paper 1 of 4) “Future of the SOC: SOC People?
Advertisement
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.
Javvad Malik
JULY 7, 2022
Over here in the UK we’ve had dozens of MPs (members of parliament) tender their resignation over the last day or so. While I’m not interested in politics, seeing so many resignation letters did provide me with the template to create the perfect letter. It consists of a few steps. 1. Yellow paper (not the white one peasants write on). 2.
Joseph Steinberg
OCTOBER 24, 2022
An online cybersecurity event with 2,500 people already logged in had to be cancelled after suspected cybercriminals launched a social engineering attack in the event’s chat window. According to multiple media reports, the Australian Institute of Company Directors had been scheduled to run an an online event today for nearly 5,000 registrants at which the organization planned to discuss its new “cybersecurity governance principles.
Schneier on Security
DECEMBER 30, 2022
Yet another smartphone side-channel attack: “ EarSpy: Spying Caller Speech and Identity through Tiny Vibrations of Smartphone Ear Speakers “: Abstract: Eavesdropping from the user’s smartphone is a well-known threat to the user’s safety and privacy. Existing studies show that loudspeaker reverberation can inject speech into motion sensor readings, leading to speech eavesdropping.
Daniel Miessler
DECEMBER 24, 2022
If you follow Information Security at all you are surely aware of the LastPass breach situation. It started back in August of 2022 as a fairly common breach notification on a blog, but it, unfortunately, turned into more of a blog series. The initial blog was on August 25th, saying there was a breach, but it wasn’t so bad because they had no access to customer data or password vaults: Two weeks ago, we detected some unusual activity within portions of the LastPass development environment.
Advertisement
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.
Krebs on Security
DECEMBER 13, 2022
InfraGard , a program run by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to build cyber and physical threat information sharing partnerships with the private sector, this week saw its database of contact information on more than 80,000 members go up for sale on an English-language cybercrime forum. Meanwhile, the hackers responsible are communicating directly with members through the InfraGard portal online — using a new account under the assumed identity of a financial industry CEO tha
Schneier on Security
NOVEMBER 17, 2022
Twitter is having intermittent problems with its two-factor authentication system: Not all users are having problems receiving SMS authentication codes, and those who rely on an authenticator app or physical authentication token to secure their Twitter account may not have reason to test the mechanism. But users have been self-reporting issues on Twitter since the weekend, and WIRED confirmed that on at least some accounts, authentication texts are hours delayed or not coming at all.
Schneier on Security
NOVEMBER 1, 2022
It’s Iran’s turn to have its digital surveillance tools leaked : According to these internal documents, SIAM is a computer system that works behind the scenes of Iranian cellular networks, providing its operators a broad menu of remote commands to alter, disrupt, and monitor how customers use their phones. The tools can slow their data connections to a crawl, break the encryption of phone calls, track the movements of individuals or large groups, and produce detailed metadata summari
Schneier on Security
OCTOBER 3, 2022
This is interesting research : In this paper, we develop a new mechanism for detecting audio deepfakes using techniques from the field of articulatory phonetics. Specifically, we apply fluid dynamics to estimate the arrangement of the human vocal tract during speech generation and show that deepfakes often model impossible or highly-unlikely anatomical arrangements.
Advertisement
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.
Schneier on Security
OCTOBER 17, 2022
Suspected members of a European car-theft ring have been arrested : The criminals targeted vehicles with keyless entry and start systems, exploiting the technology to get into the car and drive away. As a result of a coordinated action carried out on 10 October in the three countries involved, 31 suspects were arrested. A total of 22 locations were searched, and over EUR 1 098 500 in criminal assets seized.
Joseph Steinberg
SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
It is not a secret that the American people remain in danger of massive, crippling cyberattacks that could impact financial services, utilities, health care, and just about every other area of modern life. What is not often discussed about the danger, however, is that one of the primary reasons that the United States, as a country, remains ill-prepared for fending off cyberattacks, is that decentralized State and Local government agencies, and not the centralized Federal government, run or overs
Schneier on Security
AUGUST 18, 2022
The USB Rubber Ducky is getting better and better. Already, previous versions of the Rubber Ducky could carry out attacks like creating a fake Windows pop-up box to harvest a user’s login credentials or causing Chrome to send all saved passwords to an attacker’s webserver. But these attacks had to be carefully crafted for specific operating systems and software versions and lacked the flexibility to work across platforms.
Schneier on Security
JULY 18, 2022
Some sites, including Facebook, add parameters to the web address for tracking purposes. These parameters have no functionality that is relevant to the user, but sites rely on them to track users across pages and properties. Mozilla introduced support for URL stripping in Firefox 102 , which it launched in June 2022. Firefox removes tracking parameters from web addresses automatically, but only in private browsing mode or when the browser’s Tracking Protection feature is set to strict.
Advertisement
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.
Joseph Steinberg
JULY 21, 2022
The second edition of Cybersecurity For Dummies , Joseph Steinberg’s best-selling introductory-level book about cybersecurity, is now available. Like its first-edition counterpart, CyberSecurity For Dummies: Second Edition is written for general audiences, and can help people of all backgrounds stay cyber-secure, regardless of their technical skillsets.
Joseph Steinberg
JULY 22, 2022
CyberSecurity. The word may sound simple enough to easily define; but, in reality, it is not. From a practical standpoint, cybersecurity means quite different things to different people in different situations, a phenomenon that leads not only to extremely varied cybersecurity policies, procedures, and practices, but also to different understandings of the word cybersecurity itself.
Schneier on Security
JUNE 24, 2022
Earlier this month, I and others wrote a letter to Congress, basically saying that cryptocurrencies are an complete and total disaster, and urging them to regulate the space. Nothing in that letter is out of the ordinary, and is in line with what I wrote about blockchain in 2019. In response, Matthew Green has written —not really a rebuttal—but a “a general response to some of the more common spurious objections …people make to public blockchain systems.” In it, he
Joseph Steinberg
JUNE 9, 2022
The Tenafly, New Jersey, Public School District has canceled final exams for its high school students after a ransomware cyberattack crippled the district’s computer infrastructure. In addition to having cancelled finals, the district, which ranks in many surveys as being among the top 50 school districts in the country, has been forced to revert for its final days of instruction for the 201-2022 academic year to using paper, pencils, and pre-computer-era overhead projectors instead of its usual
Advertiser: Revenera
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.
Troy Hunt
SEPTEMBER 8, 2022
The first time I ever wrote publicly about a company's security vulnerabilities, my boss came to have a word with me after seeing my name in the news headlines. One of the worst days I've ever had was right in the middle of the Have I Been Pwned sale process, and it left me an absolute emotional wreck. When I wrote about how I deal with online abuse, it was off the back of some pretty nasty stuff. which I've now included in this book 😊 These are the stories behind the stor
Krebs on Security
APRIL 29, 2022
Google said this week it is expanding the types of data people can ask to have removed from search results, to include personal contact information like your phone number, email address or physical address. The move comes just months after Google rolled out a new policy enabling people under the age of 18 (or a parent/guardian) to request removal of their images from Google search results.
Schneier on Security
APRIL 20, 2022
Beanstalk Farms is a decentralized finance project that has a majority stake governance system: basically people have proportiona votes based on the amount of currency they own. A clever hacker used a “flash loan” feature of another decentralized finance project to borrow enough of the currency to give himself a controlling stake, and then approved a $182 million transfer to his own wallet.
Schneier on Security
APRIL 19, 2022
New paper: “ Planting Undetectable Backdoors in Machine Learning Models : Abstract : Given the computational cost and technical expertise required to train machine learning models, users may delegate the task of learning to a service provider. We show how a malicious learner can plant an undetectable backdoor into a classifier. On the surface, such a backdoored classifier behaves normally, but in reality, the learner maintains a mechanism for changing the classification of any input, with
Advertisement
The healthcare industry has massively adopted web tracking tools, including pixels and trackers. Tracking tools on user-authenticated and unauthenticated web pages can access personal health information (PHI) such as IP addresses, medical record numbers, home and email addresses, appointment dates, or other info provided by users on pages and thus can violate HIPAA Rules that govern the Use of Online Tracking Technologies by HIPAA Covered Entities and Business Associates.
Expert insights. Personalized for you.
360 
Let's personalize your content