According to Hiscox’s Third Cyber Readiness Report, which surveyed 5,400 firms in the U.S. and the E.U., cyber threats have “become the unavoidable cost of doing business today.” The Report notes that for the first time, “a significant majority of firms surveyed said they experienced one or more cyber-attacks in the last 12 months. Both … Continue Reading
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a warning on April 15, 2019, entitled “VPN Applications Insecurely Store Session Cookies” (Vulnerability Note VU#192371) stating that “[M]ultiple Virtual Private Network (VPN) applications store the authentication and/or session cookies insecurely in memory and/or log files.” The affected products identified by DHS are: Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect Agent … Continue Reading
I have been alerting clients that I know use Wipro, but may have missed some of you. It is being reported that IT outsourcing company Wipro Ltd. has been hacked through several phishing campaigns from what is believed to be a state-sponsored attacker. According to recent reports, including KrebsonSecurity, sources have stated that “Wipro’s systems … Continue Reading
Following in the footsteps of the New York Department of Financial Regulation (NYDFS) in enacting cybersecurity requirements for the financial services industry, and in response to massive data breaches in the insurance industry, a wave of states have either enacted or are pursuing legislation aimed at regulating the cybersecurity measures of insurance companies. In 2017, … Continue Reading
New malicious malware dubbed “Gustuff” targets big banks, fintech companies and cryptocurrency apps, according to the security firm Group IB. According to Group IB, which discovered Gustuff on hacker forums, the new malware is affecting Android devices and is “a mobile Android Trojan, which includes potential targets of customers in leading international banks, users of … Continue Reading
In the last two weeks, ransomware dubbed LockerGoga has attacked aluminum manufacturer Norsk Hydro, which announced that as a result of the attack, it had to shut down its worldwide network and chemical companies Hexion and Momentive. According to reports, each of the companies received similar ransomware messages. One company had to order all new … Continue Reading
The headlines of hacking incidents against counties, cities and towns are racking up like the retail space was several years ago. The hackers have targeted state and municipalities to wreak their havoc. This week, Orange County, NC was hit with a ransomware attack that brought it to its knees. As a result of the attack, … Continue Reading
Security researchers at Adversis have discovered that dozens of companies have inadvertently leaked corporate and customer data through their Box enterprise storage accounts because staff are sharing public links to their private corporate files. According to the researchers, data stored in Box enterprise accounts is private by default, but if users share the files or … Continue Reading
Cities and towns continue to be a profitable target for successful ransomware attacks. As we previously reported [view related posts], the list of cities and towns getting hit with ransomware attacks continues to grow. Last week, Jackson County, Georgia admitted that it paid hackers $400,000 to obtain access to its information that was locked down … Continue Reading
Cybersecurity company Carbon Black recently issued a report of the results of a survey of chief information security officers (CISOs) of financial organizations, which showed that the financial industry is getting hammered by more frequent and sophisticated cyber-attacks. Carbon Black partnered with Optiv to survey banks and financial institutions around the world. According to the … Continue Reading
In an effort to phase out what many in the security world believe are threats to the cybersecurity posture of governmental agencies and private entities alike, John Quinn, the Chief Information Officer of the State of Vermont, recently issued a memo to all state offices requesting that they determine whether any hardware or software manufactured … Continue Reading
We predicted last year that hackers would become more malicious in the future, not only stealing and selling data for nefarious purposes, but actually destroying data and even systems. That reality hit email provider VFEmail last week, and on February 12, founder Rick Romero tweeted “Yes, @VFEmail is effectively gone. It will likely not return. … Continue Reading
The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA) was intended to incentivize private entities to share threat intelligence information with the federal government (specifically the Department of Homeland Security), allowing all parties to react more quickly and efficiently to cyber threats. The vision was that thousands of companies would sign on, creating a powerful network … Continue Reading
To illustrate just how creative phishing campaigns have become, on January 30, 2019, it was reported by multiple credit unions that Bank Secrecy Act officers at credit unions around the country received emails that appeared to be from Bank Secrecy Officers at other credit unions. The emails were addressed to the actual Bank Secrecy officers … Continue Reading
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Team (US-CERT) recently issued an advisory outlining three vulnerabilities of Drager Infinity Delta patient monitoring devices. The vulnerabilities affect all versions of the Drager models—Delta, Delta XL, Kappa, and infinity Explorer C700—patient monitoring devices. According to the alert, the three security flaws include: Exposure … Continue Reading
I was a speaker at a recent conference of municipalities in a state last week, and during my presentation, I mentioned the various cyber-attacks that have affected cities, towns and educational departments in the U.S. (Atlanta, GA; Farmington, CT; West Haven, CT; Leeds, AL; Yarrow Point, WA; and Leominster, MA to name a few). Little … Continue Reading
We previously commended the Girl Scouts of the United States for encouraging girls to get involved in STEM, including cybersecurity by issuing a cybersecurity patch. The Girl Scouts announced that it has partnered with the Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to develop a new patch that girl scouts will be able to obtain if they successfully … Continue Reading
In its C-Suite Challenge 2019, The Conference Board surveyed more than 800 CEOs and some 600 other C-Suite executives around the globe, drawing primarily from the U.S., Asia, and Europe. An interesting finding from the press release about the survey is that U.S. CEOs rank cybersecurity and cyber threats as their #1 external concern for … Continue Reading
Cybercriminals have launched a new campaign that not only requires the victim to pay a ransom to have their data decrypted, but when the victim is directed to a PayPal account to pay the ransom to get the decryption key to unlock the data, the PayPal account page is fake and when the victim lands … Continue Reading
Marriott International Inc. has released new numbers relating to its Starwood Hotel’s reservation database by stating that 5 million passport numbers were stolen in the database. After further investigation, Marriott states that the information for fewer than 383 million guests (as opposed to 500 million) were exposed. The data that was compromised of these guests … Continue Reading
Just before the new year, the Department of Health and Human Resources (HHS) released voluntary cybersecurity practices for health care organizations, which consists of a main document, two technical volumes, and resources and templates that were compiled by more than 150 cybersecurity and health care experts. The publication, Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices: Managing Threats and … Continue Reading
Clearwater Compliance’s newest CyberIntelligence Insight Bulletin concludes that the top three cybersecurity risks for the health care industry, which accounts for 36.8% of reported critical risk incidents include: 1) user authentication deficiencies, including storing passwords in obvious places where others can find them such as on the computer monitor or under the keyboard, using generic … Continue Reading
Dataresolution.net, a cloud hosting provider that reportedly supports over 30,000 businesses worldwide appears to be another recent victim of the Ryuk ransomware and is reportedly responding to the attack which occurred on Christmas Eve. It is being reported that the attack is from North Korea. The attack appeared to allow the attackers to gain control … Continue Reading
Late last week, several major news organizations were hit with a ransomware attack believed to involve Ryuk ransomware that affected several Tribune newspapers around the country and two newspapers formerly owned by Tribune. Ransomware cyber-attacks typically attempt to disable systems and infrastructure and block access until ransom is paid as opposed to attempting to steal … Continue Reading
