Cyber insurance: Is it worth the investment?
Last year, Aon Inpoint reported about 80 percent of buyers of stand-alone cyber premiums were medium-sized to large companies. However, smaller firms are increasingly assessing their cyber exposure risk as concerns about the potential impact of a cyber incident continue to rise. “The majority of breaches worldwide occur at companies with 1,000 employees or less…
A Letter From the Future: It’s January 2019 and Hackers Are Stealing Your Data
In my first LinkedIn article, I’d like to welcome you to the future. Not too far in to the future. But, it’s January 2019 and unfortunately cyber criminals are stealing your data. You’re scrambling to respond, hustling to contain, scurrying to an emergency board meeting. It’s a bad day. You may be thinking that this…
Hackers Can Abuse Text Editors for Privilege Escalation
Several popular text editors can be leveraged for privilege escalation and their developers do not plan on taking any action to prevent abuse, according to SafeBreach, a company that specializes in simulating attacks and breaches. Some text editors allow users to run third-party code and extend the application’s functionality through extensions. While this provides some…
Hackers breached German government’s secure computer networks
The Russia-linked Sofacy hacking group has breached the secure computer networks of a number of German federal agencies. The group – also known as APT28, Fancy Bear, and Pawn Storm – has been targeting government institutions, political organizations and military/defense companies around the world for over a decade. Confirmation of the breach The confirmation of…
Chip Cards Lead to 70% Drop in Counterfeit Fraud: Visa
The adoption of chip-and-PIN card technology by an increasing number of merchants in the United States has led to a significant drop in cases of counterfeit card fraud, according to Visa. The financial industry has been pushing for the adoption of EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) card technology in the United States since 2011, and efforts…
Insights from 700M thwarted cyberattacks show how the fight against cybercrime has intensified
2017 was a record-setting year in the fight against cybercrime. Based on analysis of real world cybercrime attacks, ThreatMetrix confirmed a 100 percent increase in volume of attacks over the last two years. The good news is that record numbers of these attacks are thwarted by organizations investing in innovative, digital-first strategies to protect consumers facing downstream attacks…
Database of 1.4 Billion Credentials Found on Dark Web
Researchers have found a database of 1.4 billion clear text credentials in what appears to be the single largest aggregate database yet found on the dark web. These are not from a new breach, but a compilation of 252 previous breaches, including the previous largest combo list, Exploit.in. The database was found by 4iQ on 5…
Imgur confirms breach, 1.7 million users affected
Popular image hosting website Imgur has announced on Friday that hackers stole usernames and passwords of 1.7 million of its users. The breach dates back to 2014, when Imgur still encrypted the stored passwords with the SHA-256 algorithm, which has since been found too weak to withstand brute forcing.
Uber in Legal Crosshairs Over Hack Cover-up
Two US states on Wednesday confirmed they are investigating Uber’s cover-up of a hack at the ride-sharing giant that compromised the personal information of 57 million users and drivers. Uber purportedly paid data thieves $100,000 to destroy the swiped information — and remained quiet about the breach for a year. That decision evidently came despite…
This Week in Security News
Welcome to our weekly roundup, where we share what you need to know about the cybersecurity news and events that happened over the past few days. Below you’ll find a quick recap of topics followed by links to news articles and/or our blog posts providing additional insight. Be sure to check back each Friday for…