August, 2020

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Voice Phishers Targeting Corporate VPNs

Krebs on Security

The COVID-19 epidemic has brought a wave of email phishing attacks that try to trick work-at-home employees into giving away credentials needed to remotely access their employers’ networks. But one increasingly brazen group of crooks is taking your standard phishing attack to the next level, marketing a voice phishing service that uses a combination of one-on-one phone calls and custom phishing sites to steal VPN credentials from employees.

Phishing 363
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I'm Partnering with NordVPN as a Strategic Advisor

Troy Hunt

I love security. I love privacy. Consequently, it will come as no surprise that I love tools that help people achieve those objectives. Equally, I have no patience for false promises, and I've been very vocal about my feelings there: But one of them is literally called “Secure VPN”, how is this possible?! “Are You Using These VPN Apps? Personal Info Of 20 Million Users Leaked: That’s 1.2TB Data” [link] — Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) July 20, 2020 VPNs are a great example of where a tool can be us

VPN 350
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Drovorub Malware

Schneier on Security

The NSA and FBI have jointly disclosed Drovorub, a Russian malware suite that targets Linux. Detailed advisory. Fact sheet. News articles. Reddit thread.

Malware 335
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Carnival Announces Data Breach Following Ransomware Attack

Adam Levin

Carnival Corporation, the largest cruise ship company in the world, announced that it had experienced a data breach following a ransomware attack on their systems. In an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company announced that it had “detected a ransomware attack that accessed and encrypted a portion of one [their] brand’s information technology systems,” adding that the hackers responsible downloaded “certain” data files.

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How to Avoid Pitfalls In Automation: Keep Humans In the Loop

Speaker: Erroll Amacker

Automation is transforming finance but without strong financial oversight it can introduce more risk than reward. From missed discrepancies to strained vendor relationships, accounts payable automation needs a human touch to deliver lasting value. This session is your playbook to get automation right. We’ll explore how to balance speed with control, boost decision-making through human-machine collaboration, and unlock ROI with fewer errors, stronger fraud prevention, and smoother operations.

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How to Initiate Contact With a Mentor

Daniel Miessler

I’ve been in security for over 20 years now and have received thousands of emails asking for help or mentorship. And throughout that time I’ve also reached out to hundreds of people asking for something similar. I’ve had a mix of success and failure on both ends of that equation, and I think I might have deciphered what was going wrong. This can still work with some people, if it’s authentic.

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North Korean hackers are actively robbing banks around the world, US government warns

Tech Republic Security

The BeagleBoyz have made off with nearly $2 billion since 2015, and they're back to attacking financial institutions after a short lull in activity.

Banking 218

LifeWorks

More Trending

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Weekly Update 204

Troy Hunt

It's an extra early one this week and on review, I do look a bit. dishevelled! I run through a whole bunch of things from this week's Twitter timeline and there's some great audience questions this week too so thanks very much everyone for the engagement. Next we'll do it at the other end of the day again and I'm sure there'll be a heap of new stuff to cover before then.

Internet 344
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Cory Doctorow on The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

Schneier on Security

Cory Doctorow has writtten an extended rebuttal of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff. He summarized the argument on Twitter. Shorter summary: it's not the surveillance part, it's the fact that these companies are monopolies. I think it's both. Surveillance capitalism has some unique properties that make it particularly unethical and incompatible with a free society, and Zuboff makes them clear in her book.

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What to Do If and When Zoom Goes Down Again

Adam Levin

Zoom’s service outage on August 24 caused a ripple effect felt in schools and companies across the world. Students were unable to attend classes via remote learning, meetings were cancelled and for roughly three hours users were wondered if the now-ubiquitous platform had been brought down by hackers. Although the company later released an announcement attributing the outage to an “application-level bug,” it made clear that most of us are not prepared for an interruption to a service we’ve grown

Education 246
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What They Don’t Tell You About Being a Bounty Hunter or Content Creator

Daniel Miessler

I have been following the bug bounty and security creator/influencer scenes since they started. And as someone in security who also creates content, I feel very close to it all. What I’ve seen in the last year has been troubling. I keep seeing friends and associates—both in conversations and in social media—crumble under the relentless pressure to produce.

Media 205
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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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How the pandemic and remote work initiatives forced organizations to change IT priorities

Tech Republic Security

Global tech professionals reveal recruiting projects fueled by budgets prioritizing staff education, according to a recent IT trends report from Netwrix.

Education 218
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Microsoft Put Off Fixing Zero Day for 2 Years

Krebs on Security

A security flaw in the way Microsoft Windows guards users against malicious files was actively exploited in malware attacks for two years before last week, when Microsoft finally issued a software update to correct the problem. One of the 120 security holes Microsoft fixed on Aug. 11’s Patch Tuesday was CVE-2020-1464 , a problem with the way every supported version of Windows validates digital signatures for computer programs.

Antivirus 363
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Weekly Update 205

Troy Hunt

Between still feeling a little groggy after hitting the water hard on an early wake boarding session then my camera overheating and shutting down towards the end of the live stream, this wasn't the smoothest of weekly updates, I still got across everything I needed to. I'm especially excited about those Shelly 1 units for cheaply IoT'ing existing lights and I'm hoping to have some of that up and running next week.

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Copying a Key by Listening to It in Action

Schneier on Security

Researchers are using recordings of keys being used in locks to create copies. Once they have a key-insertion audio file, SpiKey's inference software gets to work filtering the signal to reveal the strong, metallic clicks as key ridges hit the lock's pins [and you can hear those filtered clicks online here ]. These clicks are vital to the inference analysis: the time between them allows the SpiKey software to compute the key's inter-ridge distances and what locksmiths call the "bitting depth" of

Software 279
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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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Hackers Are Using Legitimate Email Services for BEC Attacks

Adam Levin

Cybercriminals are increasingly registering email addresses with legitimate services and using them in the commission of business email compromise (BEC) attacks. A recent study of hacking methods published by Barracuda found that more than 6,000 email accounts using legitimate services had been linked to more than 100,000 BEC attacks on roughly 6,600 organizations this year. .

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NEW TECH: A better way to secure agile software — integrate app scanning, pen testing into WAF

The Last Watchdog

The amazing array of digital services we so blithely access on our smartphones wouldn’t exist without agile software development. Related: ‘Business logic’ hacks on the rise Consider that we began this century relying on the legacy “waterfall” software development process. This method required a linear plan, moving in one direction, that culminated in a beta deliverable by a hard and fast deadline.

Software 189
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IoT botnets: Smart homes ripe for a new type of cyberattack

Tech Republic Security

The burgeoning smart home device market has given rise to digital intrusion and potential energy market manipulation on a massive scale.

IoT 218
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Medical Debt Collection Firm R1 RCM Hit in Ransomware Attack

Krebs on Security

R1 RCM Inc. [ NASDAQ:RCM ], one of the nation’s largest medical debt collection companies, has been hit in a ransomware attack. Formerly known as Accretive Health Inc. , Chicago-based R1 RCM brought in revenues of $1.18 billion in 2019. The company has more than 19,000 employees and contracts with at least 750 healthcare organizations nationwide.

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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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Weekly Update 206

Troy Hunt

Since I recorded this morning, I've had an absolute breakthrough - I CAN OPEN MY GARAGE DOOR WITH MY WATCH ! I know, I know, it shouldn't be this hard and that's a lot of the point I'm making in this week's video. Having said that, some parts have been hard because I've made simple mistakes , but the nature of the IoT ecosystem as it stands today predisposes you to mistakes because there's so freakin' many moving parts that all need to be aligned.

InfoSec 323
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Using Disinformation to Cause a Blackout

Schneier on Security

Interesting paper: " How weaponizing disinformation can bring down a city's power grid ": Abstract : Social media has made it possible to manipulate the masses via disinformation and fake news at an unprecedented scale. This is particularly alarming from a security perspective, as humans have proven to be one of the weakest links when protecting critical infrastructure in general, and the power grid in particular.

Media 279
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Windows 7 End of Life Presents Hacking Risk, FBI Warns

Adam Levin

The FBI warned in a private industry notification published August 3 that companies and organizations still using Windows 7 are at risk. Microsoft’s end of life (EOL) announcement for version 7 of its flagship Windows operating system means most customers still using it would no longer receive security updates or technical support. According to the FBI notification, continued use of the platform “creates the risk of criminal exploitation.”.

Risk 220
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NEW TECH: Trend Micro flattens cyber risks — from software development to deployment

The Last Watchdog

Long before this awful pandemic hit us, cloud migration had attained strong momentum in the corporate sector. As Covid19 rages on, thousands of large to mid-sized enterprises are now slamming pedal to the metal on projects to switch over to cloud-based IT infrastructure. A typical example is a Seattle-based computer appliance supplier that had less than 10 percent of its 5,000 employees set up to work remotely prior to the pandemic.

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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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Microsoft says the pandemic has changed the future of cybersecurity in these five ways

Tech Republic Security

A new report from Microsoft suggests that cloud-based technologies and Zero Trust architecture will become mainstays of businesses' cybersecurity investments going forward.

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Hacked Data Broker Accounts Fueled Phony COVID Loans, Unemployment Claims

Krebs on Security

A group of thieves thought to be responsible for collecting millions in fraudulent small business loans and unemployment insurance benefits from COVID-19 economic relief efforts gathered personal data on people and businesses they were impersonating by leveraging several compromised accounts at a little-known U.S. consumer data broker, KrebsOnSecurity has learned.

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Weekly Update 203

Troy Hunt

What. A. Week. I've been absolutely non-stop publishing data breaches to HIBP whilst simultaneously putting in place the framework to start advising NordVPN on their cybers and open sourcing the HIBP code base at the same time (and a bunch of other more boring stuff that didn't make the cut). That's all explained in this week's update so I won't drill further into it here, there's obviously a couple of big announcements so if you have any questions, drop them in the comments below and I'll eithe

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US Postal Service Files Blockchain Voting Patent

Schneier on Security

The US Postal Service has filed a patent on a blockchain voting method: Abstract: A voting system can use the security of blockchain and the mail to provide a reliable voting system. A registered voter receives a computer readable code in the mail and confirms identity and confirms correct ballot information in an election. The system separates voter identification and votes to ensure vote anonymity, and stores votes on a distributed ledger in a blockchain.

Software 279
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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 Training Agency Breached After Phishing Attack

Adam Levin

The SANS Institute, a company that provides cybersecurity training and certification, announced that a data breach compromised the personally identifiable data of roughly 28,000 records. The breach has been traced back to a phishing attack that targeted an employee of the company. Describing itself as “the most trusted and by far the largest source for information security training in the world,” SANS stated in their announcement of the breach on August 6 that they “identified a suspicious forwa

Phishing 196
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Lemon_Duck cryptomining malware evolves to target Linux devices

Security Affairs

A new variant of the infamous Lemon_Duck cryptomining malware has been updated to targets Linux devices. Security researchers from Sophos have spotted a new variant of the Lemon_Duck cryptomining malware that has been updated to compromise Linux machines via SSH brute force attacks. The new variant also exploits SMBGhost bug in Windows systems, and is also able to target servers running Redis and Hadoop instances.

Malware 145
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Top 5 programming languages for security admins to learn

Tech Republic Security

SecAdmins working to protect infrastructure, whether in a defensively or offensively, may find these programming languages helpful in safeguarding apps, systems, and hardware from threats.

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Microsoft Patch Tuesday, August 2020 Edition

Krebs on Security

Microsoft today released updates to plug at least 120 security holes in its Windows operating systems and supported software, including two newly discovered vulnerabilities that are actively being exploited. Yes, good people of the Windows world, it’s time once again to backup and patch up! At least 17 of the bugs squashed in August’s patch batch address vulnerabilities Microsoft rates as “critical,” meaning they can be exploited by miscreants or malware to gain complete,

Backups 363
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Next-Level Fraud Prevention: Strategies for Today’s Threat Landscape

Speaker: Sierre Lindgren

Fraud is a battle that every organization must face – it’s no longer a question of “if” but “when.” Every organization is a potential target for fraud, and the finance department is often the bullseye. From cleverly disguised emails to fraudulent payment requests, the tactics of cybercriminals are advancing rapidly. Drawing insights from real-world cases and industry expertise, we’ll explore the vulnerabilities in your processes and how to fortify them effectively.