On the surface, ransomware – malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid – appears to be off to yet another ruthless start in 2023 as one of the leading types of malware. Recent victims of public attacks in North America include industries such as health care, communication, education, and even government offices and municipalities. While this all...

Traveling abroad, whether for business or leisure, brings plenty of tangible benefits to individuals and organizations. Coupled with the convenience of innovative technology at our fingertips, business professionals can achieve a lot if they spend much of their time on foreign shores. However, despite this digital evolution, traveling abroad can present numerous risks to your data and systems. If...

Back in 2015, we published an article about the apparent perils of driverless cars. At that time, the newness and novelty of sitting back and allowing a car to drive you to your destination created a source of criminal fascination for some, and a nightmare for others. It has been eight years since the original article was published, so perhaps it is time to revisit the topic to see if driverless...

A cloud-native application is specifically created to operate seamlessly within a cloud environment, taking advantage of cloud infrastructure and services to achieve top-notch performance, adaptability, and reliability. They use microservices instead of monolithic structures, allowing independent development and deployment. Microservices are hosted in containers, providing a lightweight and...

Jetpack, an extremely popular WordPress plugin that provides a variety of functions including security features for around five million websites, has received a critical security update following the discovery of a bug that has lurked unnoticed since 2012. Jetpack's maintainers, Automattic, announced on Tuesday that it had worked closely with the WordPress security team to push out an automatic...

We have officially entered the 12-month countdown to the enactment of the new Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). The new version, 4.0, set to go into effect on April 1, 2024, contains some interesting and notable changes. Is your organization ready to meet the new requirements? In this 6-part series, we spoke with specialists who help to break down the changes to make your...

Not all Risks Become Threats Insider threats are an updated version of the wolf in sheep's clothing - the people we rely on to safeguard systems and data can sometimes be the ones who pose the greatest risk. From malicious actors to negligent employees, insider threats come in many forms and can have devastating consequences for organizations of all sizes. Who’s an Insider? An insider is “anyone...

Cybersecurity has risen to become a major concern for nearly every industry. With the constant stream of news about the escalating numbers of breaches, it is understandable that governments have taken a more active role by passing cybersecurity and privacy legislation. Some of the industries are not top of mind to many people. For example, few people are aware of all of the industries that make up...

Most cybersecurity professionals will often try to cybersplain the importance of protection to their friends. In most social circles, many of the businesses that people work in are small businesses. Perhaps you are the owner of a small delicatessen, a dry cleaner, or you run a yoga studio, or some similar individually owned operation. Many of these small business owners will respond to...

While we all know the actual point of PCI is vastly more far-reaching, we can’t deny that the juggernaut of PCI DSS 4.0 compliance is getting past the auditors. However, there is a right way to do it that doesn’t just check the box – it creates the underlying business operations that enable you to pass an audit any day, at any time, with just the processes you have in hand. Here’s how. The PCI 4.0...

How many internet-connected devices do you own? If you took a quick inventory around your house, you may be surprised at exactly how many there are. Have you ever wondered how they all communicate, not only with each other, but with the internet as well? This is, in part the result of technology known as IP addressing. What is an IP address? An IP (Internet Protocol) address is your computer's...

The US healthcare sector continues to be aggressively targeted by ransomware operators. Royal and BlackCat are two of the more recent – and highly sophisticated – ransomware threats. These two new flavors of ransomware pose serious potential impacts on the healthcare sector, but there are appropriate mitigation and defense strategies that organizations can take to protect against them. What is...

Bad enough for your company to be held to ransom after a cyber attack. Worse still to then have one of your own employees exploit the attack in an attempt to steal the ransom for themselves. That's the situation gene and cell therapy firm Oxford BioMedica found itself in. On 27 February 2018, the Oxford-based firm discovered that it had suffered a cyber attack after it received a ransom demand...

Back in 2015, we published an article about the third party risks that are introduced into a home network. Now, eight years later, it is a good time to revisit the landscape of the home network. If we think about the technology in most homes in 2015, it was fairly sparse, consisting only of a router with an internet connection. The speed of most home internet connections was well below 100Mbps. It...

Polymorphic and metamorphic malware constantly changes itself in order to avoid detection and persistently remain on the system. This adaptive behavior is the main distinctive attribute of these types of malware, which is also why they are harder to detect; it is also why they pose a great threat to systems. On the surface, the functionality of this sort of changing and mutating malware appears...

Cybersecurity awareness is on the rise as more organizations adopt security awareness training programs. Why the hype? In several recent reports, we break down our findings around why SAT is on the rise—and why companies need it now more than ever. Employees are discovering cyberattacks the hard way Recent study by Fortra's Terranova Security in collaboration with Ipsos revealed employees'...

This one took a bit longer to read than most of the books we review, but that’s entirely on me… everyone else finished it a while ago. This time around, we’re looking at How to Hack Like a Legend: Breaking Windows by Sparc Flow. The No Starch Press page says that the book is “packed with interesting tricks, ingenious tips, and links to useful resources to give you a fast-paced, hands-on guide to...

I’m going to jump on board the Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) bandwagon in this blog and talk about why I’m excited about some of the prospects for this being applied to the compliance and file integrity monitoring data that Tripwire has been specialising in for many years. An Analyst’s Ally A problem faced by many security teams is understanding all the signal data collected...

The Tripwire Vulnerability Exposure and Research Team (VERT) keeps its finger on the cybersecurity pulse. Check out some of the stories that stood out for us recently: Multiple Vulnerabilities in Netgear Routers Netgear RAX30 routers are subject to multiple vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities could be chained together to achieve an authentication bypass and code execution. It is advised that...

The Artificial intelligence (AI) based language model, ChatGPT, has gained a lot of attention recently, and rightfully so. It is arguably the most widely popular technical innovation since the introduction of the now ubiquitous smart speakers in our homes that enable us to call out a question and receive an instant answer. But what is it, and why is it relevant to cyber security and data...