hacking

Verizon Data Breach Report Highlights Insider Vulnerabilities

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A new report on data breaches and cyber crimes highlights a disturbing rate of intellectual property theft, much of which happens from within organizations, making it increasingly difficult to protect against across a range of industries.

The “Verizon 2012 Data Breach Investigations Report,” due to be released by Verizon on Wednesday, pulls together analysis from the U.S. Secret Service, the Dutch National High Tech Crime Unit, the Australian Federal Police, the Irish Reporting & Information Security Service and the Police Central e-Crime Unit of the London Metropolitan Police. Keep reading →

Published October 23, 2012 at 10:00 PM

Cyber Intelligence: Acts Of Aggression Are Familiar, Yet Disturbing

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It is getting to the point that those reporting acts of cyber aggression, particularly in the area of cyber espionage, think they are in a repetitive do-loop. It is the same story over and over again with the only difference being the list of victims.

The news of late has been the discovery of yet another sophisticated cyber attack that resulted in the collection of untold information, some general some sensitive, from the business community as well as defense contractors and government officials. Keep reading →

Published December 19, 2011 at 11:26 AM

Cyber Intelligence: Bring It On – Iran Says They Are Ready!

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Ever since the discovery of the Stuxnet cyber attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and the assignation of Iran’s chief Stuxnet Investigator, Iran has been hell-bent on developing offensive and defensive cyber capabilities.

Over this past year or so numerous comments about the cyber domain that have come out of Tehran and recently the leader of Iran’s Cyber Defense Organization, Brigadier General Gholam-Reza Jalali stated that Iranian computer experts are adequately prepared to defend the country against any possible cyber attack. Based on open sources they seem to have put cyber intelligence secondary to attack and defensive capabilities. Keep reading →

Published December 5, 2011 at 7:29 AM

Cyber Intelligence: British Intelligence Picks Up Cyber Attack Chatter

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Terrorist groups have primarily used physical attack modalities in their efforts to undermine society. Those methods now include cyber attacks.

International sources have released information that British intelligence services have intercepted communications–that they term chatter–that suggest terrorist may be planning a cyber attack on British infrastructure.

As Britain has modernized over the years they have become much more reliant on computer, digital communications and networks. That reliance is very tempting to adversaries. The face of terrorism has continued to change year after year. They adapt, innovate and morph their strategies and tactics. Keep reading →

Published November 28, 2011 at 10:02 AM

Cyber Intelligence: Not One, But Two Worrisome Cyber Events In Past Week

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Last week word began filtering out about a suspected cyber attack on a water treatment system in Illinois. After a preliminary investigation into a pump failure, the issue quickly became a cyber incident.

Further analysis suggests that the actual breach and malicious activities began a couple of months ago. Workers at the water treatment facility determined the system had been hacked and the IP address used to carry out the cyber sabotage was tracked back to a computer in Russia. Keep reading →

Published November 21, 2011 at 10:52 AM

Cyber Intelligence: Meeting The Challenge Of Cyber Defense

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Day after day the threats we are exposed to in cyber space grow. Just recently Panda Security announced they processed their 200 millionth malware file. Just think about that for a moment, 200 million individual pieces of malware.

The company went on to say that cyber intelligence automatically detects, analyzes and classifies more than 73,000 new malware strains a day. That clearly illustrates the continuous change that goes on in the cyber threat environment. Keep reading →

Published November 14, 2011 at 7:38 AM

The Weak Link: User Authentication and Security Awareness

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If I were a betting man, I’d place a wager that some of you reading this article re-use the same password for multiple online services: online banking, enterprise email, your personal Gmail account, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Skype (to name but a few).

Don’t worry, you’re not alone: you share an affliction with many millions of people around the world – and even as a security professional, I’ll admit that until a few years ago, I was guilty of the same. Why do we do it? Well, that’s simple: it makes it easy to remember. Unfortunately, it also makes the job of the hacker much easier than if we had different passwords for each account. Keep reading →

Published September 8, 2011 at 10:17 AM