January, 2020

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Iowa Prosecutors Drop Charges Against Men Hired to Test Their Security

Krebs on Security

On Sept. 11, 2019, two security experts at a company that had been hired by the state of Iowa to test the physical and network security of its judicial system were arrested while probing the security of an Iowa county courthouse, jailed in orange jumpsuits, charged with burglary, and held on $100,000 bail. On Thursday Jan. 30, prosecutors in Iowa announced they had dropped the criminal charges.

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Kids and Code: Object Oriented Programming with Code Combat

Troy Hunt

Geez time flies. It's just a tad under 4 years ago that I wrote about teaching kids to code with code.org which is an amazing resource for young ones to start learning programming basics. In that post I shared a photo of my then 6-year-old son Ari holding a Lenovo Yoga 900 I gifted him as part of the Insiders program I'm involved in: He got a lot of mileage out of that machine and learned a lot about the basics of both code and using a PC.

Backups 356
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NSA Security Awareness Posters

Schneier on Security

From a FOIA request, over a hundred old NSA security awareness posters. Here are the BBC's favorites. Here are Motherboard's favorites. I have a related personal story. Back in 1993, during the first Crypto Wars, I and a handful of other academic cryptographers visited the NSA for some meeting or another. These sorts of security awareness posters were everywhere, but there was one I especially liked -- and I asked for a copy.

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Avast Subsidiary Sells User Browsing History

Adam Levin

A subsidiary of Avast antivirus is selling sensitive user browsing data to many companies, including Revlon, Microsoft, Google, Yelp, Condé Nast, and TripAdvisor. According to a recent joint investigation by Vice’s Motherboard and PCMag, highly granular and sensitive user data from users of Avast antivirus is being repackaged and sold to companies via a subsidiary called Jumpshot which promises buyers of the data information on “Every search.

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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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GUEST ESSAY: Cyber insurance 101 — for any business operating in today’s digital environment

The Last Watchdog

Cyberattacks are becoming more prevalent, and their effects are becoming more disastrous. To help mitigate the risk of financial losses, more companies are turning to cyber insurance. Related: Bots attack business logic Cyber insurance, like other forms of business insurance, is a way for companies to transfer some of numerous potential liability hits associated specifically with IT infrastructure and IT activities.

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How to enable facial recognition in the BitWarden mobile password manager

Tech Republic Security

The latest version of the BitWarden Android client supports facial recognition. Find out how to enable it.

LifeWorks

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Weekly Update 175

Troy Hunt

Alright, let me get this off my chest first - I've totally lost it with these bloody Instamics. I've had heaps of dramas in the past with recordings being lost and the first time I do a 3-person weekly update only 2 of them recorded (mine being the exception). I was left with a zero-byte file on my unit which we tried to recover to no avail. It's not just that; the mobile app is clunky AF (Scott was demonstrating how many times he had to mash a button on his just to get it to connect to a mic),

Firmware 266
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5G Security

Schneier on Security

The security risks inherent in Chinese-made 5G networking equipment are easy to understand. Because the companies that make the equipment are subservient to the Chinese government, they could be forced to include backdoors in the hardware or software to give Beijing remote access. Eavesdropping is also a risk, although efforts to listen in would almost certainly be detectable.

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Baby App “Peekaboo” Leaks Photos, Videos and Personal Data

Adam Levin

An unsecured database discovered online has leaked thousands of baby photos and videos. . Bithouse, Inc. left unprotected and accessible online an Elasticsearch database containing nearly 100GB of information associated with its app Peekabo Moments. The leaked data includes photos, videos, and birthdates of babies, as well as 800,000 email addresses, location data as well as detailed device information. .

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GUEST ESSAY: Strategic tactics are key to a robust Cloud Security Posture Management regime

The Last Watchdog

A cyber strategy is a documented approach to handling various aspects of cyberspace. It is mostly developed to address the cybersecurity needs of an entity by focusing on how data, networks, technical systems, and people are protected. An effective cyber strategy is normally on par with the cybersecurity risk exposure of an entity. It covers all possible attack landscapes that can be targeted by malicious parties.

Risk 203
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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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Data Privacy: Top trends to watch in 2020

Tech Republic Security

Data privacy is an increasing concern for companies and individuals. Learn more about what's on the landscape for 2020.

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Does Your Domain Have a Registry Lock?

Krebs on Security

If you’re running a business online, few things can be as disruptive or destructive to your brand as someone stealing your company’s domain name and doing whatever they wish with it. Even so, most major Web site owners aren’t taking full advantage of the security tools available to protect their domains from being hijacked. Here’s the story of one recent victim who was doing almost everything possible to avoid such a situation and still had a key domain stolen by scammers

DNS 330
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Welcoming the Danish Government to Have I Been Pwned

Troy Hunt

In a continued bid to make breach data available to the government departments around the world tasked with protecting their citizens, I'm very happy to welcome the first country onto Have I Been Pwned for 2020 - Denmark! The Danish Centre for Cyber Security (CFCS) joins the existing 7 governments who have free and unbridled API access to query and monitor their gov domains.

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Modern Mass Surveillance: Identify, Correlate, Discriminate

Schneier on Security

Communities across the United States are starting to ban facial recognition technologies. In May of last year, San Francisco banned facial recognition; the neighboring city of Oakland soon followed, as did Somerville and Brookline in Massachusetts (a statewide ban may follow). In December, San Diego suspended a facial recognition program in advance of a new statewide law, which declared it illegal, coming into effect.

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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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FBI Shuts Down Website Trafficking in Breached Data

Adam Levin

The FBI has seized the domain of WeLeakInfo.com, an online service that sold data from hacked and breached websites. The domain seizure and termination of WeLeakInfo’s services was the result of a joint operation with the UK National Crime Agency, the Netherlands National Police Corps, the German Bundeskriminalamt (the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany), and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. . “The website had claimed to provide its users a search engine to review and obtain

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Threat Model Thursday: Files

Adam Shostack

There’s a fascinating talk by Dan Luu, “ Files are Fraught With Peril. ” The talk itself is fascinating, in a horrifying, nothing works, we’re going to give up and raise goats now sort of way. He starts from the startling decision of Dropbox to drop support for all Linux filesystems except Ext4. This surprising decision stems from the fact that a filesystem is a leaky abstraction, The interaction between performance and reliability means that fsync behaves strangely.

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Security admins checklist: 10 tasks to perform every year

Tech Republic Security

Here are 10 important tasks security administrators should perform to keep devices protected and secure.

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Wawa Breach May Have Compromised More Than 30 Million Payment Cards

Krebs on Security

In late December 2019, fuel and convenience store chain Wawa Inc. said a nine-month-long breach of its payment card processing systems may have led to the theft of card data from customers who visited any of its 850 locations nationwide. Now, fraud experts say the first batch of card data stolen from Wawa customers is being sold at one of the underground’s most popular crime shops, which claims to have 30 million records to peddle from a new nationwide breach.

Retail 330
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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 174

Troy Hunt

We're in Norway! More specifically, Scott Helme and I are in Hafjell and recording this after a day on the snow before heading back to Oslo and the NDC Security conference next week. For now though, we're talking about some really screwy global roaming behaviour with telcos, the Danish gov coming onto HIBP, babies in data breaches and the takedown of We Leak Info.

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Critical Windows Vulnerability Discovered by NSA

Schneier on Security

Yesterday's Microsoft Windows patches included a fix for a critical vulnerability in the system's crypto library. A spoofing vulnerability exists in the way Windows CryptoAPI (Crypt32.dll) validates Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) certificates. An attacker could exploit the vulnerability by using a spoofed code-signing certificate to sign a malicious executable, making it appear the file was from a trusted, legitimate source.

Media 275
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Avast Announces Termination of Data Collection Subsidiary

Adam Levin

Avast will phase out Jumpshot, a subsidiary that sells user browsing data gleaned from its antivirus and security products. . “I – together with our board of directors – have decided to terminate the Jumpshot data collection and wind down Jumpshot’s operations, with immediate effect,” Avast CEO Ondrej Vlcek announced in a blog , going on to say “that the data collection business is not inline with our privacy priorities in a company in 2020 and beyond.”.

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Cryptographic Excitement

Adam Shostack

In the last few days, we’ve seen two big stories in the realm of cryptography. The first is that SHA-1 breaks are now practical , and those practical breaks impact things like PGP and git. If you have code that depends on SHA-1, its time to fix that. If you have a protocol that uses SHA1, you need to rapidly version cycle. Thinking a bit more strategically, SHA-1 was designed by the NSA, and published in 1993.

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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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Windows 7 remains an albatross at many large organizations

Tech Republic Security

Among 60,000 large companies analyzed by security ratings company BitSight, almost 90% still have Windows 7 PCs in their environment.

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Sprint Exposed Customer Support Site to Web

Krebs on Security

Fresh on the heels of a disclosure that Microsoft Corp. leaked internal customer support data to the Internet, mobile provider Sprint has addressed a mix-up in which posts to a private customer support community were exposed to the Web. KrebsOnSecurity recently contacted Sprint to let the company know that an internal customer support forum called “Social Care” was being indexed by search engines, and that several months worth of postings about customer complaints and other issues w

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Weekly Update 176

Troy Hunt

Well that's the audio issues fixed - mostly. The Zoom H6 is an awesome recorder, I just can't quite work out the right adaptors for the mic. I've got a couple of Saramonic SR-XLM1 lav mics and the guy at the DJ store I bought the Zoom from was convinced we'd be fine with just with 3.5mm to 6.35mm jack converters which appears to be incorrect. Someone else hen said we'd need a TRRS to TRS adaptor so we grabbed a couple of Rode SC3s which also didn't solve the problem.

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Apple Abandoned Plans for Encrypted iCloud Backup after FBI Complained

Schneier on Security

This is new from Reuters: More than two years ago, Apple told the FBI that it planned to offer users end-to-end encryption when storing their phone data on iCloud, according to one current and three former FBI officials and one current and one former Apple employee. Under that plan, primarily designed to thwart hackers, Apple would no longer have a key to unlock the encrypted data, meaning it would not be able to turn material over to authorities in a readable form even under court order.

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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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Currency Exchange Company Travelex Hit By Ransomware Attack

Adam Levin

Currency exchange giant Travelex has effectively been taken offline by a ransomware attack. . The attack was first detected the night of December 31. Soon after, the company took its systems offline. A week later, Travelex is processing transactions with pen and paper at its 1,200 branches located in more than 70 countries. . “To date, the company can confirm that whilst there has been some data encryption, there is no evidence that structured personal customer data has been encrypted.

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How to Keep Your Information Safe for Data Privacy Day 2020

Thales Cloud Protection & Licensing

January 28, 2020 marks the 13th iteration of Data Privacy Day. An extension of the celebration for Data Protection Day in Europe, Data Privacy Day functions as the signature event of the National Cyber Security Centre’s ongoing education and awareness efforts surrounding online privacy. Its aim is to foster dialogue around the importance of privacy.

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Why blockchain-based cybersecurity may be the answer for vulnerable IoT networks

Tech Republic Security

CES 2020: A "hacked" robot was on display to demonstrate how SigmaDots serverless architecture is poised to fend off IoT security threats.

IoT 218
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Tricky Phish Angles for Persistence, Not Passwords

Krebs on Security

Late last year saw the re-emergence of a nasty phishing tactic that allows the attacker to gain full access to a user’s data stored in the cloud without actually stealing the account password. The phishing lure starts with a link that leads to the real login page for a cloud email and/or file storage service. Anyone who takes the bait will inadvertently forward a digital token to the attackers that gives them indefinite access to the victim’s email, files and contacts — even af

Phishing 292
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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.