Schneier on Security

FEBRUARY 26, 2018

If you're going to commit an illegal act, it's best not to discuss it in e-mail. It's also best to Google tech instructions rather than asking someone else to do it: One new detail from the indictment, however, points to just how unsophisticated Manafort seems to have been. Here's the relevant passage from the indictment. I've bolded the most important bits: Manafort and Gates made numerous false and fraudulent representations to secure the loans.

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Surveillance Banking Internet Internet 355

Krebs on Security

NOVEMBER 7, 2018

A year ago, KrebsOnSecurity warned that “Informed Delivery,” a new offering from the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) that lets residents view scanned images of all incoming mail, was likely to be abused by identity thieves and other fraudsters unless the USPS beefed up security around the program and made it easier for people to opt out. This week, the U.S.

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Identity Theft Advertising Accountability Banking 279

Troy Hunt

DECEMBER 30, 2018

Patience. Frugality. Sacrifice. When you boil it down, what do those three things have in common? Those are choices. Money is not peace of mind. Money’s not happiness. Money is, at its essence, that measure of a man’s choices. This is part of the opening monologue of the Ozark series and when I first heard it, I immediately stopped the show and dropped it into this blog post.

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Technology Education Marketing Insurance 278

The Last Watchdog

AUGUST 27, 2018

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks continue to erupt all across the Internet showing not the faintest hint of leveling off, much less declining, any time soon. Related video: How DDoS attacks leverage the Internet’s DNA. To the contrary, DDoS attacks appear to be scaling up and getting more sophisticated in lock step with digital transformation; DDoS attacks today are larger, more varied and come at the targeted website from so many more vectors than ever before.

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DDOS IoT Digital transformation Internet 255

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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have migrated their testing and production workloads to the cloud, yet development environments often remain tied to outdated local setups, limiting efficiency and growth.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.

Software

Thales Cloud Protection & Licensing

FEBRUARY 9, 2018

With organizations around the world now deploying ever-increasing amounts of encryption solutions in an effort to ward off cybercrime, businesses are facing a combination of challenges. Whether it’s varying protection levels, differing operational techniques and policies, or juggling multiple keys, managing more than one encryption system can quickly turn into a complex web that demands time, expertise and money to manage effectively.

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Encryption Cybercrime Cybersecurity 195

Security Affairs

DECEMBER 23, 2018

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software is affected by a vulnerability that could be exploited by an attacker to retrieve files or replace software images on a device. . A privilege escalation vulnerability tracked as CVE-2018-15465 affects the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software. The flaw could be exploited by an unauthenticated, remote attacker to perform privileged operations using the web management interface.

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Firmware Authentication Software Advertising 112

WIRED Threat Level

MAY 15, 2018

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s job is to make sense of how Russia hacked the 2016 election. But to make sense of Mueller, you have to revisit some of the bloodiest battles of Vietnam.

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Hacking 112

Lenny Zeltser

MAY 7, 2018

This cheat sheet offers guidelines for IT professionals seeking to improve technical writing skills. To print it, use the one-page PDF version; you can also customize the Word version of the document. General Recommendations. Determine your write-up’s objectives and audience. Keep the write-up as short and simple as possible to achieve the objectives.

Technology 111

Technology 111

Dark Reading

OCTOBER 15, 2018

A tractor trailer housing a Cyber Tactical Operation Center will travel throughout the US and Europe for incident response training, security support, and education.

Education 102

Education Cybersecurity 102

Threatpost

NOVEMBER 1, 2018

Weighing the impact of GDPR and how the historic legislation has shaped privacy protection measures in the U.S., so far.

Insurance 102

Insurance Accountability Government 102

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Schneier on Security

JANUARY 19, 2018

Interesting research: " Long-term market implications of data breaches, not ," by Russell Lange and Eric W. Burger. Abstract : This report assesses the impact disclosure of data breaches has on the total returns and volatility of the affected companies' stock, with a focus on the results relative to the performance of the firms' peer industries, as represented through selected indices rather than the market as a whole.

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Marketing Financial Services Data breaches Healthcare 329

Krebs on Security

SEPTEMBER 21, 2018

It is now free in every U.S. state to freeze and unfreeze your credit file and that of your dependents, a process that blocks identity thieves and others from looking at private details in your consumer credit history. If you’ve been holding out because you’re not particularly worried about ID theft, here’s another reason to reconsider: The credit bureaus profit from selling copies of your file to others, so freezing your file also lets you deny these dinosaurs a valuable reven

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Identity Theft Banking Insurance Marketing 279

Troy Hunt

FEBRUARY 21, 2018

Last August, I launched a little feature within Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) I called Pwned Passwords. This was a list of 320 million passwords from a range of different data breaches which organisations could use to better protect their own systems. How? NIST explains : When processing requests to establish and change memorized secrets, verifiers SHALL compare the prospective secrets against a list that contains values known to be commonly-used, expected, or compromised.

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Passwords Data breaches Mobile Risk 279

Schneier on Security

JANUARY 23, 2018

This is a clever attack. After gaining control of the coin-mining software, the malware replaces the wallet address the computer owner uses to collect newly minted currency with an address controlled by the attacker. From then on, the attacker receives all coins generated, and owners are none the wiser unless they take time to manually inspect their software configuration.

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Cryptocurrency Malware Software Scams 304

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.

Cybersecurity

Schneier on Security

FEBRUARY 7, 2018

This story of leaked Australian government secrets is unlike any other I've heard: It begins at a second-hand shop in Canberra, where ex-government furniture is sold off cheaply. The deals can be even cheaper when the items in question are two heavy filing cabinets to which no-one can find the keys. They were purchased for small change and sat unopened for some months until the locks were attacked with a drill.

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Schneier on Security

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

There are a lot : The cybersecurity company McAfee recently uncovered a cyber operation, dubbed Operation GoldDragon, attacking South Korean organizations related to the Winter Olympics. McAfee believes the attack came from a nation state that speaks Korean, although it has no definitive proof that this is a North Korean operation. The victim organizations include ice hockey teams, ski suppliers, ski resorts, tourist organizations in Pyeongchang, and departments organizing the Pyeongchang Olympi

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Internet Internet Cyber Attacks DDOS 246

Schneier on Security

OCTOBER 2, 2018

From Kashmir Hill : Facebook is not content to use the contact information you willingly put into your Facebook profile for advertising. It is also using contact information you handed over for security purposes and contact information you didn't hand over at all, but that was collected from other people's contact books, a hidden layer of details Facebook has about you that I've come to call "shadow contact information.

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Krebs on Security

DECEMBER 1, 2018

We don’t yet know the root cause(s) that forced Marriott this week to disclose a four-year-long breach involving the personal and financial information of 500 million guests of its Starwood hotel properties. But anytime we see such a colossal intrusion go undetected for so long, the ultimate cause is usually a failure to adopt the most important principle in cybersecurity defense that applies to both corporations and consumers: Assume you are compromised.

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Passwords Accountability Malware Phishing 278

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.

Risk

Krebs on Security

NOVEMBER 26, 2018

Maybe you were once advised to “look for the padlock” as a means of telling legitimate e-commerce sites from phishing or malware traps. Unfortunately, this has never been more useless advice. New research indicates that half of all phishing scams are now hosted on Web sites whose Internet address includes the padlock and begins with “[link].

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Phishing Scams Cryptocurrency Internet 278

Troy Hunt

JANUARY 10, 2018

India's Aadhaar implementation is the largest biometric system in the world, holding about 1.2 billion locals' data. It's operating in an era of increasingly large repositories of personal data held by both private companies and governments alike. It's also an era where this sort of information is constantly leaked to unauthorised parties; last year Equifax lost control of 145.5 million records on US consumers (this started a series events which ultimately led to me testifying in front of Congre

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Hacking Government Encryption Risk 278

Schneier on Security

NOVEMBER 21, 2018

Democracy is an information system. That's the starting place of our new paper: " Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy." In it, we look at democracy through the lens of information security, trying to understand the current waves of Internet disinformation attacks. Specifically, we wanted to explain why the same disinformation campaigns that act as a stabilizing influence in Russia are destabilizing in the United States.

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Krebs on Security

NOVEMBER 23, 2018

‘Tis the season when even those who know a thing or two about Internet scams tend to let down their guard in the face of an eye-popping discount or the stress of last-minute holiday shopping. So here’s a quick refresher course on how to make it through the next few weeks without getting snookered online. Adopting a shopping strategy of simply buying from the online merchant with the lowest advertised prices can be a bit like playing Russian Roulette with your wallet, for the simple r

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Scams Wireless Phishing Banking 275

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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.

Healthcare

Troy Hunt

JULY 12, 2018

It was Jan last year that I suggested HTTPS adoption had passed the "tipping point" , that is it had passed the moment of critical mass and as I said at the time, "will very shortly become the norm" Since that time, the percentage of web pages loaded over a secure connection has rocketed from 52% to 71% whilst the proportion of the world's top 1 million websites redirecting people to HTTPS has gone from 20% to about half (projected).

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Schneier on Security

DECEMBER 6, 2018

In an excellent blog post , Brian Krebs makes clear something I have been saying for a while: Likewise for individuals, it pays to accept two unfortunate and harsh realities: Reality #1: Bad guys already have access to personal data points that you may believe should be secret but which nevertheless aren't, including your credit card information, Social Security number, mother's maiden name, date of birth, address, previous addresses, phone number, and yes ­ even your credit file.

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Hacking 273

Troy Hunt

SEPTEMBER 17, 2018

That's it - I'm calling it - extended validation certificates are dead. Sure, you can still buy them (and there are companies out there that would just love to sell them to you!), but their usefulness has now descended from "barely there" to "as good as non-existent" This change has come via a combination of factors including increasing use of mobile devices, removal of the EV visual indicator by browser vendors and as of today, removal from Safari on iOS (it'll also be gone in M

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Marketing Encryption Phishing Banking 272

Troy Hunt

SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

I have a love-hate relationship with ad blockers. On the one hand, I despise the obnoxious ads that are forced down our throats at what seems like every turn. On the other hand, I appreciate the need for publishers to earn a living so that I can consume their hard-earned work for free. Somewhere in the middle is a responsible approach, for example the sponsorship banner you see at the top of this blog.

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DNS Risk 272

Speaker: Blackberry, OSS Consultants, & Revenera

Software is complex, which makes threats to the software supply chain more real every day. 64% of organizations have been impacted by a software supply chain attack and 60% of data breaches are due to unpatched software vulnerabilities. In the U.S. alone, cyber losses totaled $10.3 billion in 2022. All of these stats beg the question, “Do you know what’s in your software?

Cybersecurity

Troy Hunt

JUNE 25, 2018

Pretty much every day, I get a reminder from someone about how little people know about their exposure in data breaches. Often, it's after someone has searched Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) and found themselves pwned somewhere or other. Frequently, it's some long-forgotten site they haven't even thought about in years and also frequently, the first people know of these incidents is via HIBP: large @ticketfly data breach. thanks @troyhunt for the excellent @haveibeenpwned service that notifies users o

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Passwords Data breaches Password Management Accountability 271

Krebs on Security

NOVEMBER 21, 2018

U.S. Postal Service just fixed a security weakness that allowed anyone who has an account at usps.com to view account details for some 60 million other users, and in some cases to modify account details on their behalf. Image: USPS.com. KrebsOnSecurity was contacted last week by a researcher who discovered the problem, but who asked to remain anonymous.

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Accountability Authentication Identity Theft Advertising 267

Schneier on Security

SEPTEMBER 14, 2018

Quantum computing is a new way of computing -- one that could allow humankind to perform computations that are simply impossible using today's computing technologies. It allows for very fast searching, something that would break some of the encryption algorithms we use today. And it allows us to easily factor large numbers, something that would break the RSA cryptosystem for any key length.

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Encryption Technology Engineering Authentication 265

Troy Hunt

MARCH 29, 2018

The penny first dropped for me just over 7 years ago to the day: The only secure password is the one you can't remember. In an era well before the birth of Have I Been Pwned (HIBP), I was doing a bunch of password analysis on data breaches and wouldn't you know it - people are terrible at creating passwords! Of course, we all know that but it's interesting to look back on that post all these years later and realise that unfortunately, nothing has really changed.

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Password Management Passwords Data breaches Retail 262

Speaker: Erika R. Bales, Esq.

When we talk about “compliance and security," most companies want to ensure that steps are being taken to protect what they value most – people, data, real or personal property, intellectual property, digital assets, or any other number of other things - and it’s more important than ever that safeguards are in place. Let’s step back and focus on the idea that no matter how complicated the compliance and security regime, it should be able to be distilled down to a checklist.