Untitled

The Army National Guard officially announced that it suffered a data breach that might have put former and current members’ sensitive information at risk. In a statement on its website, the Army National Guard claims that this incident is unrelated to the recent data breach at the Office of Personnel Management. In fact, this data breach has been confirmed to not be the result of a cyberattack,…

The 10 Costliest Cyber Attacks in the History of Internet

Cyberattacks aren’t merely a menace that can be absolved or forgotten like a teenager’s prank anymore. These days, cyberattacks occur more often than ever before, with dire real-world consequences for individuals, companies, and even countries as a whole. A recent survey conducted by the Ponemon Institute among 257 benchmarked organizations showed that the average annual cost in damages from…

There is a new project underway that is “trying to make the Internet a little bit safer.” Called CrypTech, it is a hardware security model that aims to greatly increase the security on the Internet.   The effort was started by Russ Housley, Jari Arkko, and Stephen Farell – all of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in pursuit of meeting the “assurance needs of supporting IETF protocols in…

Google's Project Vault: A Tiny Secure Computer Inside a MicroSD Card

Google has recently presented a new project it has been working on at the Google I/O developers’ conference. The project carries the name Project Vault and is aimed at increasing the security through a rather unconventional approach.  To achieve that, Google took an unusual approach – instead of securing the host devices directly, Google decided to create a new device altogether. A tiny…

Lenovo Pre-Installs Malware on Its Laptops

Lenovo, one of the world’s largest laptop makers, has shocked the world recently in a very unpleasant way: it was caught pre-installing the “Superfish” malware on its brand new laptops. I almost didn’t believe it at first, are we talking about the same brand? Sadly, we are. In a rush to make a few extra bucks, the company took a really bold move and bundled adware with its laptops. The adware…

Friend or Foe? Prevent House Guest from Stealing your Identity

Having a gathering with friends and family is usually a great time to catch up on life stories, what it shouldn’t end up is Identity Theft. For most of us, the last person we would suspect of stealing our identity is a family friend, roommate or worse, a family member.

Friendly Fraud is when the fraud committed against you is from someone known to you. Along with the disappointment of finding out…

Weird Security Term of the Week: “Spear-Phishing”

The Problem: Your organization is 3 months away from completing a massive 5 year project- the results of which will catapult the organization into the public consciousness and make huge sweeping changes to the way the organization functions for the better.

Over the past several days though, there has been talk of a large number of people being phoned repeatedly by persons claiming to be from a…

Hackers Figure a Way into Starbucks App

Credit card hackers are targeting the Starbucks gift card and mobile payment users and stealing from customers’ credit cards easily.

The Starbucks app is making it effortlessly easy for hackersto siphon money from customers’ credit cards as well as bank and PayPal accounts. The Starbucks app is a hugely popular application with roughly 16 million users and it allows customers to link their bank…

17% of Android Apps Are Malware: Study

“17 percent of all Android apps (nearly one million total) are actually malware in disguise“ – according to Symantec’s latest Internet Security Threat Report.

Back in 2013, Symantec noted that 700,000 apps were infected with vulnerabilitiesand viruses. These extraordinary figures aren’t showing any sign of slowing down. With Symantec’s latest comprehensive security report, research shows that a…

Security through Obscurity Is Not a Workable Model Anymore

For quite a long time now, a great number of CEOs and C-level executives were viewing the spending on IT infrastructure and cybersecurity as a necessary evil. They were trying to minimize the IT budget as much as possible to avoid unnecessary spending. Even the IT security was on the sidelines because the thinking many times was that the danger is not really real. And that it does not really…

With technology being an essential part of any successful business, the importance and need for a Chief Information Officer is at all-time high. Many new CIOs, however, struggle with adapting to this constantly evolving role and have difficulty communicating the importance of their contribution to the rest of the company leadership. Below are some of the challenges every CIO must be prepared to…

The Problem:  You have a very upset employee that has been passed over for a number of promotions and pay raises over the past several years.  They have been very vocal regarding their opinions and have been in general creating a hostile atmosphere.  Eventually, management has no choice but to terminate his employment with the organization. Three weeks later, an email is sent out regarding a…

Phishing is an email based attack similar to spam but designed for deception and impersonation rather than quick sales or gullibility. This makes this attack dangerous if the enemy has done enough research. They can get large amounts of data off the web, by calling employees, or having worked there previously (or presently). With all the gathered information they can create a campaign that does…

I was conducting a spear phishingcampaign some time ago for a client here at LIFARS, and as suspected, it was a success. For a quick catch up, spear phishing is when emails are targeted specifically to individuals and done with high quality messages and exploits. The victims are usually C-Level, directors, HR, accountants, IT admins, or anyone else with higher than average privilege. The reason…

Facebook Turns internet.org into a Platform

Facebook is turning Internet.org, its project to provide free internet to new users, into a platform. The move comes amid criticism of the program’s “walled garden” approach to hand-picking services, and claims that it violates the principles of net neutrality.

Mark Zuckerberg says he is no enemy of net neutrality – and to prove it, he’s making a few changes to Internet.org, a Facebook-led effort…

Microsoft Announces Advanced Threat Analytics

On the first day of its Ignite Conference 2015, Microsoft announced a raft of their new data protection software.

“Here at Microsoft, we take our responsibility to keep Windows secure seriously,” saidTerry Myerson, executive VP of Microsoft operating systems. “This level of commitment and support is far different than Android, for example, where Google refuses to take responsibility for updating…

Twin Brothers Indicted for Hacking, Wire Fraud, and ID Theft

The Department of Justice announced the indictment of twin brothers Muneeb and Sohaib Akhter, of Springfield, Virginia on multiple charges.

On April 30, the Department of Justice indicted the Akhter brothers. They were charged with aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to access a protected computer without authorization, access of a protected computer without…