Droning On About Cybersecurity
A couple of months ago, a USAF truck traveling between missile silos in Wyoming dropped a box of explosives along the way. Not sure those were ever recovered.
Exposure Of Digital DNA
The latest revelation about consumer-level DNA mapping — the kind advertised on television that track your origin back to exotic and unexpected continents — is the evolution of a database that exposes both the unsuspecting and the suspicious. Adopted children are reacquainted with birth parents seven decades removed and introduced to sisters that look just […]
Light The Candles Of Cybersecurity
As we approach our national birthday, now 242 years in the making, let’s look at the trends and expectations settling out there on the horizon. Threats are up, breaches are increasing in size and scope, ransomware is hitting public and private organizations, and researchers struggle to keep pace with the clever people with bad intentions. […]
All That Glitters Is Not Gold Lowell
The City of Atlanta was recently the victim of a ransomware attack. As reported by Wired and others, Atlanta paid over $2.7 million dollars in consulting and legal fees to settle a $52,000 ransom. The malware used was of the SamSam strain, and experts at SecureWorks, the response firm working with the City,
A Bite Of The Apple
One of Apple’s many selling points, beyond the cool factor and lifestyle connectivity, is the relative security of Apple products, partly because of architecture and partly because their market share of end users remains relatively low. More people, it seems, prefer other hardware and operating systems. The only outlier may be the iPhone, so let’s […]
The Subtle Irony Of Cybersecurity
You are the master of the manor, the king of the castle, and you will deploy the greatest weapons in your vast arsenal to protect your business, your people, and your customers. Back in the day, your would wrap your soldiers in chain mail and the heaviest of protective layers, and you would call it […]
The Real Deal
In a recent television interview, FBI Director Chris Wray reflected on Russian hacking into the American power grid and other vital infrastructure. The breach occurred in early March, and Wray didn’t mince words, calling the invasion “the real deal.” First the elections and now the grid? Wait.
The Dark Side Of Breach Victims
As a part of reconciling interests following a highly publicized breach, victim organizations often apologize with an offer to induce customers to remain or return to the fold. Retailers may reduce prices or offer subscription memberships, while banks may offer credit reporting or monitoring for a year or enhanced rates on accounts.
Stuxnet: The Gift That Keeps On Giving
Remember that time when the Iranian nuclear program was flummoxed by the speeding up or slowing down of their centrifuges? Though the actors have never been formally identified, the special sauce to that enterprise was Stuxnet, and the secret ingredient of that sauce was counterfeit cryptographic certificates from known companies that greased the skids for […]
This Is Only A Test
Imagine a scenario in which one of your employees — Madge in accounting, or Skip in sales, for instance — selects an incorrect option from a drop-down menu and opens your network and data to the world. Working with that set of menu options is part of his daily routine, but for some reason the […]
