Want to bolster your security program? Keep users from making decisions.

How many times have you witnessed security problems caused by a user making bad decisions? I'd venture to guess at least a few dozen if not hundreds. We've all seen where the perfect storm forms through weaknesses in technical controls, user training, and - most often - common sense and the outco...

Transforming the Cyber Health of Small HCOs Across the US

When we talk about healthcare breaches, there are some big-name incidents. Yet in reality there’s a huge number of smaller providers who are in the hackers’ sights and maybe don’t have the resources or expertise to adequately defend themselves. With ransomware threatening to shut down systems and...

Android Permissions Flaw Will Linger Until O Release

Google said Tuesday that a permissions flaw that puts Android users at a heightened risk for malware, ransomware and adware attacks will not be fixed until the release of its next mobile OS, Android O. The vulnerability impacts an undisclosed number of apps hosted on Google Play, researchers at...

Google Won't Patch A Critical Android Flaw Before ‘Android O’ Release

Millions of Android smartphones are at serious risk of "screen hijack" vulnerability that allows hackers to steal your passwords, bank details, as well as helps ransomware apps extort money from victims. The worse thing is that Google says it won't be patched until the release of 'Android O'...

Leading by Example at the HITRUST Annual Healthcare Cybersecurity Conference

If we’ve learned anything from the past year in cybersecurity, it’s that cybercriminals do not discriminate when it comes to their victims. Hospital systems have been forced to shut down for crucial periods, denying patients vital treatment as healthcare organizations struggle to contain the...

Trend Micro Smart Protection Complete Receives 5-Star Review from SC Magazine

The best days are the ones you wake up to good news you weren’t expecting, right? Well, earlier this month we woke up to find out the Trend Micro Smart Protection Complete had received a five-star rating and “Best Buy” recommendation from one of the security industries leading publications at SC...

How organizations can protect against new CERBER variations

TrendMicro Ransomware hit hard in 2016, with big attacks, large payouts and many new strains developed to thwart security measures. At the end of last year, Locky and CERBER ransomware families seemed to be neck and neck for market dominance. But that changed as CERBER evolved to offer new...

Ransomware, Cyberespionage Dominate Verizon DBIR

Ransomware dominated malware-related data breaches investigated by Verizon last year, appearing in 71 percent of cases, according to the annual Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report DBIR released Thursday. Compared to last year’s DBIR report, ransomware attacks are up 50 percent. Still, Veriz...

Lack of Communication Achilles' Heel for Ransomware Fighters

BOSTON—Collaboration is important when it comes to fighting ransomware, but the lack of communication around the issue remains a serious impediment, law enforcement says. “If we don’t know about it and no one keeps track of it, then no one cares,” Frank McLaughlin, a detective with the Boston...

Recursive DNS - The Achilles Heel Of Advanced Threats

We all know what happens whenever anyone or anything tries to access a resource on the Internet. It all starts with a DNS request that translates a URL www.akamai.com into an IP address 104.97.77.24: Now if we dive a little deeper into the DNS request flow we can see the requester make a request ...

Machine learning and the fight against ransomware

Ransomware is now everywhere. The number of emails containing ransomware rose 6,000 percent since 2015, and in 2016, 40 percent of all spam emails had one of these malicious programs hidden within, according to IBM. Other reports highlight the sophistication of ransomware nowadays and it's...

Lack of Security Talent Afflicts Health Care

BOSTON—Reality has bitten healthcare hard in the last year, with dire vulnerabilities in medical devices bubbling to the surface, malware infections affecting patient care at a number of facilities, and the realization that nowhere is the lack of information security professionals more pressing...

Original XPan Ransomware Returns, Targets Brazilian SMBs

Brazilian cybercriminals are using the original version of the XPan ransomware, targeting small to medium-sized business based in Brazil with the malware. XPan works by penetrating poorly protected remote desktop protocol RDP connections. Hackers use those connections to manually install the...

NSA's DoublePulsar Kernel Exploit In Use Internet-Wide

If you’re on a red team or have been on the receiving end of a pen-test report from one, then you’ve almost certainly encountered reports of Windows servers vulnerable to Conficker MS08-067, which has been in the wild now for nearly 10 years since the bug was patched. A little more than two weeks...

Locky Ransomware Roars Back to Life Via Necurs Botnet

Cybercriminals behind the Locky ransomware and Necurs botnet are back in business. Last Friday researchers spotted both delivering nearly 35,000 emails in just a few hours, the first major Locky campaign researchers have seen in months, according to Cisco Talos. Researchers warn the latest Locky...

Low-Cost Ransomware Service Discovered

A new ransomware as a service RaaS called Karmen has been discovered by security researchers at Recorded Future. This service allows anyone, including novices, to set up an account and customize their own ransomware campaign. The Karmen RaaS costs $175 and lets buyers set ransom prices, determine...

Russian Hacker Selling Cheap Ransomware-as-a-Service On Dark Web

Ransomware has been around for a few years, but it has become an albatross around everyone's neck, targeting businesses, hospitals, financial institutions and individuals worldwide and extorting millions of dollars. Forget about developing sophisticated banking trojans and malware to steal money...

Ransomware Response: To Pay or Not to pay

Recently, I was speaking with a CISO friend of mine and he mentioned that his company suffered a breach. I asked if it was a ransomware attack, and sadly, that was the case. Malware had infected nearly every connected computer. Clearly there was a breakdown in protective controls, but Ill get to...

Google Making Life Difficult for Ransomware to Thrive on Android

SINT MAARTEN—Google has never been shy about sharing security enhancements and victories in Android. The mobile operating system is tweaked at every iteration to fend off threats posed by potentially harmful apps and attacks against devices. At the recent Kaspersky Lab Security Analyst Summit,...

Exploit Kit Activity Quiets, But is Far From Silent

Over the past six months, the roar of exploit kits has quieted to a whimper. But that doesn’t mean exploit kit threats are nonexistent. According to security experts, gangs behind them are regrouping, tweaking code and finding fresh software exploits to target. Here are the exploit kits and explo...