What constitutes a weak link? And what can be done to mitigate growing threats via IoT? IoT technology everywhere. No, this is not a vision statement, but a reflection of our reality. From wearables to smart home systems and routers… Devices with sensors that collect data in real time are rapidly expanding. To many they are a blessing, designed to make daily lives easier and improve organizations’ efficiency. Some devices, such as smart medical equipment and alarm systems, can even help save lives. But to IT security teams, they are at best a source of angst, and at worst a security…
ISBuzz Team
A popular chicken restaurant chain with several locations in central North Carolina said a “cyber-attack” by a “hacker” over an 11-month period took customer names and credit card info. PDQ restaurants, which primarily sell chicken, were hit by the “breach” between May 19, 2017, and April 20, 2018, according to a news release from the restaurant chain. Javvad Malik, Security Advocate at AlienVault commented below. Javvad Malik, Security Advocate at AlienVault: “Details are still emerging on this attack, but it appears as if the attacker was able to break in using a providers remote access. It reinforces the importance of vetting…
Check Point has identified a phishing campaign linked to the start of the FIFA World Cup where cyber-criminals attempt to lure would-be victims into downloading a schedule of fixtures and a result tracker. When opened, the attachment uses a malware variant called ‘DownloaderGuide,’ a known downloader of potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) that is most commonly used as an installer for applications such as toolbars, adware or system optimizers. IT security experts commented below. Tim Helming, Director Of Product Management at DomainTools: “There is no limit to the creativity cybercriminals will employ to further their malicious aims. The World Cup wall planner, which has…
Following the news that the voices of millions of taxpayers have been analysed and stored by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) without consent. Big Brother Watch says HMRC’s Voice ID system has collected 5.1 million audio signatures and accuses the department of creating “biometric ID cards by the back door”. The Information Commissioner’s Office has launched an investigation. Beyond the privacy issues, this also raises security concerns about the adequacy of HMRC’s ID system; is it protecting taxpayers from fraud? Tom Harwood, CPO and Co-Founder at Aeriandi commented below. Tom Harwood, CPO and Co-Founder at Aeriandi: “Biometrics technology has been shown…
Researchers have found that the Tick cyberespionage group are weaponizing secure USB drives to target air-gapped critical systems. The group, which largely targets organisations from Japan and South Korea, are known to conduct attack campaigns with various custom malware such as Minzen, Datper, Nioupale (aka Daserf), and HomamDownloader. Javvad Malik, Security Advocate at AlienVault commented below. Javvad Malik, Security Advocate at AlienVault: “This particular attack bears all the signs of a very specific targeted attack designed to infect particular institutes or machines – not too dissimilar to Stuxnet. Employees that work in sensitive organisations that have air-gapped networks should be particularly vigilant against plugging…
It was reported last week that the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) announced a new Digital Key Release 1.0 specification’s publication. The spec is designed so that drivers can download a digital vehicle key onto their smartphones. Travis Biehn, Technical Strategist at Synopsys: “The CCC has ambitious goals and is early in the process of thinking about how to practically achieve them. Mobile devices are, in many ways, more capable of providing secure access to a vehicle than the simple embedded platforms found in car keys today. The CCC will likely run into challenges, at first blush, in protecting against relay-based attacks for interaction-less proximity unlocking. These attacks…
Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 announced that it had discovered that the cyber espionage group, known as Tick, had targeted a specific type of secure USB drive created by a South Korean defence company. The USB drive and its management system have various features to follow security guidelines in South Korea. Ofer Maor, Director of Solutions Management at Synopsys commented below. Ofer Maor, Director Of Solutions Management at Synopsys: “This form of attack is designed to target networks separated from the internet (aka “air gapped” systems), where there is no possibility of hacking through traditional network-based attack vectors. As air gapped systems eventually need to…
When Barracuda first opened shop as an email security company about 15 years ago, spam was the major problem in corporate inboxes. While spam bogged down users, the messages themselves weren’t typically malicious—a lot has changed since then. Today, criminals are using all types of tactics to launch attacks through email, including some clever phishing campaigns where the most effective line of defense is the human firewall. The human what? You know, in a world where organizations have vendors jumping in front of each other to deploy their “best-of-breed” security solutions at HQ and everywhere else—the only thing between your…
News broke yesterday of the compromise of approximately 270,000 patient records after Med Associates suffered a data breach. The firm confirms that the breached data may have included personal details of the patients. However, the investigations are still going on about the matter. Med Associates healthcare service suffered a data breach, which may have left a large number of patients data exposed to hackers. The firm discovered some unusual activity from one of its official workstations on March 22, 2018. Itsik Mantin, Lead Scientist at Imperva: “In both CarePartners and Med Associates incidents, the breach occurred when data was pulled from the databases to…
In response to reports regarding Forcepoint findings that WebAssembly (or WA or Wasm) changes may make Meltdown & Spectre browser patches ineffective, Virsec offers perspective. Satya Gupta, CTO and Co-founder at Virsec: “This latest issue demonstrates that the fundamental chip flaws that have allowed Meltdown & Spectre cannot be fully patched externally – at the browser level. In this case, WebAssembly programming tools can leverage the performance gains – and security vulnerabilities – of chip-level speculative execution, even if the browser has been patched to prevent it. Ultimately, Meltdown & Spectre can only be solved at the process memory level.”