Organizational Challenges in the Internet of Things
As a result of the increase in cyber-attacks launched by nation-states, cybercriminals, hacktivist groups and other entities, it has become increasingly important to understand the ecosystem of hardware, O/S, software, and services that are used in each organization’s network, including the data/telemetry that is collected and sent outside the organization’s network. This problem is especially magnified with […] more…More than 22 Thousand Finns Clicked WhatsApp Spam Today
Daavid, a senior researcher on our Threat Intelligence team, received two “Samsung Galaxy Pro” themed spam messages to his WhatsApp account this morning. “Onneksi olkoon! Olet voittanut Samsung Galaxy Pro Tableting.” Which translates as: Congraulations! You’ve won a Samsung Galaxy Pro Tablet. The message includes a link with a location from where you can supposedly […] more…Enterprises Hit by BARTALEX Macro Malware in Recent Spam Outbreak
Enterprises are currently being targeted by the macro malware BARTALEX in a recent outbreak of thousands of spammed emails. The infection routine for BARTALEX uses a Microsoft Word document and social engineering lure that is widely recognized by enterprises—making infection all too possible. This attack highlights how macro malware in Microsoft Office files is fast becoming […] more…Throwing money at bug bounties won’t beat zero-day dark markets
The first academic study into the market for zero-day flaws has shown some surprising results, not least that throwing money at ever-larger bug bounty payouts might well be counterproductive. The research – which was carried out by MIT principal research scientist Michael Siegel and Katie Moussouris, chief policy officer of bug bounty organizer HackerOne – […] more…Twitter Now Tracking User IP Addresses
On Monday, I was testing our Freedome VPN for Windows and eventually… I forgot that I was using our London exit node. And then I attempted to log in to Twitter. This was the result: And then I received this message via e-mail: An unusual device or location? In order to determine that I was […] more…Update: Planned service disruption to the Data Center Firewall service
This is a reminder announcement. Between 5:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. on Wednesday, March 11, ITS will perform a network upgrade for the Data Center Firewall (DCFW) that will result in a brief outage (lasting only a few minutes). This upgrade will be followed by a redundancy test and the relocation of DCFW redundant equipment, […] more…BEDEP: Backdoors Brought Into The Light By Flash Zero-Days
The earlier Flash zero-days of the year have brought a new malware threat to the forefront: the BEDEP malware family. It has been the payload of two zero-day exploits in recent weeks: CVE-2015-0311 in late January, and CVE-2015-0313 in early February. While these attacks made BEDEP far more widespread, it was not exactly a new malware family […] more…Zero-Day Vulnerability Found in MongoDB Administration Tool phpMoAdmin
phpMoAdmin (short for PHP MongoDB administration tool) is a free and open source MongoDB GUI tool. phpMoAdmin is written in PHP and is a popular administration tool to manage the noSQL database MongoDB. A zero-day remote code execution vulnerability was seen in phpMoAdmin which allows an attacker to execute arbitrary code without requiring any authentication. The […] more…Twitter adds more reporting tools to curb abuse and improve safety
Twitter has added new reporting tools to help it fight abuse and protect users on its site. The company took some steps in this direction late last year, when it made it easier to report harassment in tweets. Now it’s making it easier to report other behaviors including impersonation, self-harm and the sharing of private […] more…The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Tuesday, February 24
As HP reports numbers, questions will be on its split Hewlett-Packard is due to report its first-quarter results on Tuesday afternoon, but analysts will be more interested in hearing updates from CEO Meg Whitman on plans for the company’s split into two, says re/code. The company’s earnings are expected to hit $27.4 billion. GOPers on […] more…Planned service disruption to the Data Center Firewall service
Between 5:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. on Wednesday, March 11, ITS will perform a network upgrade for the Data Center Firewall (DCFW) that will result in a brief outage (lasting only a few minutes). This upgrade will be followed by a redundancy test and the relocation of DCFW redundant equipment, which will result in a […] more…Samsung and Good combine products to boost Android enterprise credibility
Samsung Electronics and Good Technology hope to convince more enterprises to use Android-based smartphones and tablets, with the help of a joint offering designed to protect the OS, applications and data. Samsung has struggled to make a dent in the enterprise market with Knox, but is hoping that a string of partnerships will help boost […] more…Google will motivate bug hunters to keep probing its products with research grants
Google has expanded its bug bounty programs to cover the company’s official mobile applications, and is seeking to stimulate vulnerability research on particular products by offering money in advance to bug hunters. The company launched an experimental Vulnerability Research Grants program Friday, through which it will pay researchers to look at specific categories of products […] more…The Pirate Bay comes back from the dead after two-month outage
About two months ago, The Pirate Bay went offline after a police raid on its servers. Apparently, not even police action against the site can kill it off, as the original site is now back online. According to TorrentFreak, the site had been teasing a countdown to February 1, presumably to promote the site’s return, […] more…CVE-2015-0016: Escaping the Internet Explorer Sandbox
Part of this January’s Patch Tuesday releases was MS15-004, which fixed a vulnerability that could be used in escalation of privilege attacks. I analyzed this vulnerability (designated as CVE-2015-0016) because it may be the first vulnerability in the wild that showed the capability to escape the Internet Explorer sandbox. As sandboxing represents a key part […] more…Analyzing CVE-2015-0311: Flash Zero Day Vulnerability
Last week a major zero-day vulnerability (was found in Adobe Flash Player. Over the weekend, Adobe started releasing an update to fix the vulnerability: users who have enabled auto-update have already received the newest version (16.0.0.296). Our analysis has confirmed that the vulnerable code has been modified. The update will be available for manual download later this […] more…More information
- HIV researchers edge closer to a cure
- DNSChanger Wrap Up
- U.S. Coast Guard Issues Cybersecurity Warnings for Commercial Vessels
- Data security concerns to see Macquarie Uni migrate from Gmail to Office 365
- Facing the Fear of Public Speaking with Toastmasters
- 1.3 Million Maine Residents Impacted by MOVEit Hack
- Defending Against Tor-Using Malware, Part 1
- 38 Million Allegedly Impacted by ManoMano Data Breach
- Microsoft Windows Kernel CVE-2018-0830 Local Information Disclosure Vulnerability
- Android security: Analysis, advice, and next-level knowledge