Latest

Cyberwarfare / Nation-State Attacks

Former DHS Leader Shares Details on SolarWinds Attack

Scott Ferguson  •  April 13, 2021

Chad Wolf, the former acting secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, has confirmed the accuracy of an earlier news report saying that the SolarWinds supply chain attackers gained access to his unclassified DHS email accounts, which included calendar details.

Cyberwarfare / Nation-State Attacks

Intelligence Report: 4 Nations Pose Serious Cyberthreat to US

Scott Ferguson  •  April 13, 2021

China, Russia, North Korea and Iran continue to pose significant cybersecurity threats to the U.S. because each is capable of launching disruptive attacks, according to a report published Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Cybercrime

Initial Access Brokers: Credential Glut Weakening Prices?

Mathew J. Schwartz  •  April 13, 2021

Initial access brokers continue to ply their trade, selling immediate access to hacked sites to make it easier for gangs to steal data and crypto-lock systems. But researchers say an overabundant supply of access credentials appears to be driving down the prices being commanded on cybercrime forums and markets.

DDoS Protection

Millions of Devices Potentially Vulnerable to DNS Flaws

Doug Olenick  •  April 13, 2021

Forescout Research Labs and the Israeli security firm JSOF have found nine Domain Name System vulnerabilities affecting four TCP/IP stacks that, if exploited, could lead to remote code execution or denial-of-service attacks - potentially on millions of devices.

Anti-Phishing, DMARC

A Tale of 3 Data 'Leaks': Clubhouse, LinkedIn, Facebook

Jeremy Kirk , Mathew J. Schwartz  •  April 13, 2021

Criminals love to amass and sell vast quantities of user data, but not all data leaks necessarily pose a risk to users. Even so, the ease with which would-be attackers can amass user data is a reminder to organizations to lock down inappropriate access as much as possible.

Cybercrime

Texas Man Charged With Planning to Bomb AWS Data Center

Scott Ferguson  •  April 12, 2021

A Texas man is facing a federal charge after he allegedly tried to buy explosives from an undercover FBI agent to bomb an AWS data center in Virginia, according to the Justice Department. The suspect believed the bombing could interrupt 70% of internet traffic, prosecutors say.

Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

Microsoft to Buy Nuance Communications for $19.7 Billion

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  April 12, 2021

Microsoft Corp. on Monday announced it will acquire cloud-based speech technology and artificial intelligence vendor Nuance Communications in an all-cash transaction valued at $19.7 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of this year.

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Governance & Risk Management

Why Is Mastercard Working on Digital ID Assurance?

Nick Holland  •  April 12, 2021

Sarah Clark of Mastercard discusses why the card payment network is expanding its focus to include digital identity assurance.

Breach Notification

Facebook Tries to 'Scrape' Its Way Through Another Breach

Mathew J. Schwartz  •  April 12, 2021

Facebook has been attempting to dismiss the appearance of a massive trove of user data by claiming it wasn't hacked, but scraped. No matter how the theft is characterized, 533 million users have just learned that their nonpublic profile details were stolen and sold to fraudsters.

3rd Party Risk Management

Biden Seeks to Boost CISA's Budget by $110 Million

Akshaya Asokan  •  April 11, 2021

President Joe Biden is asking Congress to boost CISA's budget by $110 million to help enable the agency to address a range of cybersecurity issues following several high-profile incidents in the past six months.

Cyberwarfare / Nation-State Attacks

US Blacklists 7 Chinese Supercomputer Entities

Scott Ferguson  •  April 9, 2021

Citing national security concerns, the U.S. Commerce Department has placed seven Chinese supercomputer organizations on the Entity List, which effectively bars them from receiving supplies or components from U.S. companies.

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Anti-Money Laundering (AML)

The Role of Predictive KYC in Fighting Money Laundering

Suparna Goswami  •  April 9, 2021

How can automation help to reduce money laundering fraud? Larry Gordon and Kathleen Gowin of the consultancy Endurance Advisory Partners describe how predictive KYC can help mitigate risks.