Maximizing ROI on cybersecurity training

Most awareness training strategies fail to promote a strong cybersecurity culture and meaningfully influence workers's behavior. It's time to leverage motivation to change attitudes and improve the ROI on training...

End the compliance management blues

Coalfire teamed up with one of the worlds leading security technology engineering firms, anecdotes, to expand Compliance Essentials capabilities - automating compliance workflows and risks, evidence collection, and audit execution. All within one platform...

Part two: Reverse engineering and patching with Ghidra

In the first installment of our three-part blog series we learned how to root the Flashforge Finder 3D printer and acquire its firmware. In this post, we will delve into reverse engineering and patching the software using the new open source NSA tool Ghidra, which rivals its expensive competitors...

Aligning Enterprise Cyber Risk and Business Strategy

Most business leaders have a contextual awareness of cyber risk and the threats facing their organizations. However, this contextual awareness rarely contributes to a clear, consolidated directive that can be applied across the organizations. Further, many organizations struggle to align their...

IoT Discussion at the Leidos Supplier Innovation & Technology Symposium

Coalfire was asked to participate on a technical panel about the Internet of Things IoT at the Leidos Supplier Innovation & Technology Symposium on June 6. This event is a dynamic day enabling Leidos largest suppliers as well as targeted start-ups to showcase their offerings and capabilities to a...

Background Checks on AIs and Other Challenges in the PCI World

Coalfire has noted a number of leading-edge technological challenges for enterprises managing the rapid pace of innovation while also aiming for PCI compliance. Wed like to review our recent experience and offer suggestions for these comparatively novel situations...

Managing Your Vulnerabilities, FedRAMP Style

As a member of Coalfires Cyber Engineering team, I frequently get questions about vulnerability Deviation Requests DRs from Cloud Service Providers CSPs seeking Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program FedRAMP authorizations. In this post, Ill try to answer questions we frequently...

Ransomware: the anatomy of paying a ransom to decrypt hostage files

Ransomware is on the rise and clients seeking to understand the process can learn from this clients story about being a victim of ransomware as to what can be expected and how to handle a ransomware attack. Recently a company facing a malware infection approached us to help them deal with the...

A billion reasons to enhance your penetration testing

There are so many questions regarding those leaked Russian passwords. Is this for real? What sites are on that list? How can you tell if your sites users are in the "Russian Billion"? Isnt this just a matter of changing user passwords? Bottom line: As a company with websites that have user...

The Federal Government in Financial Services' Cybersecurity

Its no secret that the internet has changed the way we do business in nearly every industry. On the other hand, the dangers of limited cyber regulations are quickly becoming a focus for the government due to the frequency and impact of data breaches. Its becoming apparent that convenience comes a...

Target Kill Chain Analysis

Last week, I talked with Wall Street Journal reporter Ben DiPietro about the persistent communications gap between the data center and the board room when it comes to recognizing and tackling security threats: In almost every breach situation after his company completes a forensic analysis, Mr...

Is your HIPAA Security and HITECH audit program in order?

Healthcare organizations have been working towards HIPAA and HITECH compliance for a few years now. "Surprise" HIPAA compliance audits conducted by the OCR have begun and at Coalfire weve come across some gaps that have led organizations to fall short of their compliance initiatives...

Guardians of IoT: Strengthening the security of IoT-connected medical devices in the healthcare industry

The healthcare ecosystem requires stakeholders to have a comprehensive grasp of the industry-specific vulnerabilities, especially in its emerging technology. Coalfire examines key healthcare-specific IoT vulnerabilities, helping healthcare IoT manufacturers and medical facility administrations kn...

Guardians of IoT: Safeguarding connectivity of input and output channels

Ensuring the security of the Internet of Things IoT demands a meticulous examination of industry-specific vulnerabilities and a profound comprehension of data handling. Have you taken the necessary steps to confirm that your chosen third-party security vendor possesses a comprehensive understandi...

Threat-informed defense: The evolution of red teaming in cybersecurity

While there are several approaches to vulnerability management like pen testing and red teaming, adversary emulation is the only method that contributes to a threat-informed defense cybersecurity strategy...

Threat-informed defense: The evolution of red teaming in cybersecurity

While there are several approaches to vulnerability management like pen testing and red teaming, adversary emulation is the only method that contributes to a threat-informed defense cybersecurity strategy...

FedRAMP® CSPs face a new challenge meeting FIPS Compliance

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program FedRAMP requires Cloud Service Providers CSPs to meet federal mandates and achieve or maintain a FedRAMP authorization. One of those mandates require the consistent use of FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic modules everywhere cryptography is...

Properties of secure hash functions

The news of NIST and their SHA-3 algorithm competition and a recent lunch and learn at Denim Group reminded me of the Cryptographic lectures I gave at UTSA. One of the hardest concepts my students had grasping was secure cryptographic hash functions, partially because of the number theory, but al...

Mining Splunk's Internal Logs

Splunk is great about logging its warnings and errors, but it wont tell you about them - you have to ask! As the leading machine-generated data analysis software, its not surprising that Splunk excels at creating robust logs. The current version of Splunk Enterprise v 8.05 generates 22 different...

Please Stop Managing Vulnerabilities in Excel Spreadsheets

Do your best Excel users work in application security? Are you trying to manage thousands of vulnerabilities across hundreds of applications in an increasingly elaborate series of Excel spreadsheets? Most companies are using multiple scanning technologies as well as a variety of manual testing...

Will ISO 27701 Be the New GDPR Certification?

On August 6, ISO published the ISO/IEC 27701:2019 "ISO 27701" standard, which lays out the requirements for implementing an organizational program to govern the handling of personally identifiable information PII, known as a Privacy Information Management System PIMS. In many ways, the new standa...

Icebreaker: Chip Away at Active Directory Passwords, Automatically

To break the ice with Active Directory and shorten the cycles penetration testers spend on cracking passwords, I developed Icebreaker, a tool that automates network attacks against Active Directory and provides plaintext credentials. Icebreaker performs five network attacks in order...

Highlights from the HITRUST Third-Party Assurance Summit

The HITRUST TPA Summit brought together experts representing customers, vendors, and assessor firms in various aspects of risk management to share best practices, lessons learned and effective third-party risk management strategies leveraging the HITRUST CSF Assurance Program and HITRUST Assessme...

Accelerating Point-to-Point (P2PE) Adoption

How Coalfire is Helping Increase Access to PCI-listed P2PE Solutions - Use of a PCI-listed P2PE solution offers significant security and compliance benefits. However, merchants and service providers are still challenged to take full advantage of this opportunity. Coalfire has invested in solving...

New York State Implements Cybersecurity Regulation 23 NYCRR 500

On March 1st, 2017, sweeping new cybersecurity requirements were placed on organizations regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services. The law applies to a broad set of covered entities that are supervised by the NYDFS, including banks, trusts, budget planners, check cashers,...

What’s Your Computer Thinking About? Examining Random Access Memory (RAM)

How valuable would it be to be able to read another persons mind? To know what theyre thinking or planning to do would be invaluable. Or, how valuable would it be to know what they have done in the recent past, especially if you believed they were involved in some criminal activity? Who they were...

Heartbleed Aftershocks: Community Health Systems Breach, 4.5 Million Records Lost

The news this week that hackers from China compromised 4.5 million customer records held by Community Health Systems is just the latest indication that companies are not adequately protecting the information of the consumers they serve...

Is the “Day of Reckoning” getting closer for a large scale cyber-attack?

The "Phony War" is how commentators described the seven-month period of eerie quiet that prevailed in Western Europe between Germanys 1939 invasion of Poland and its later move into the Benelux countries, when erstwhile allies Britain and France avoided offensive operations and simply waited for...

PCI DSS 3.0 ROC Reporting Template Released

Heads up for our PCI customers: the PCI SSC released the "ROC Reporting Template for v3.0" this last weekend and it is available here. This document supports the PCI DSS 3.0 standard and must be used by all QSA organizations to create and submit a Report on Compliance ROC. What does this mean?...

Cyber Security Awareness - Are you Doing All You Can to Stay Safe?

Every company has vulnerabilities and must learn to protect themselves from fast-moving cyber threats. Below are a few tips to keep in mind as you examine your network security:...

Phishing Season: Spam on the rise

Within the past two weeks there have been several reports on the increase in email spam, which can be directly correlated to an increase in phishing schemes and malware attacks. These attacks are frequently being delivered under the guise of legitimate business: they come in the form of shipment...

Improving compliance management with mappings and automation

Based on the research in Coalfires 2023 Securealities Compliance Report, the third blog in this series examines one of the top concerns of CISOs and compliance program managers: realizing the value of a platform to simplify compliance...

Guardians of IoT: Fortifying the financial sector in the age of IoT

The Internet of Things IoT has revolutionized the financial industry, but its associated security vulnerabilities and risks must be addressed to protect sensitive data...

How medical device manufacturers can address new FDA cybersecurity guidelines

Advancements in technology in the healthcare industry have made medical devices increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks. To embed better security practices into the manufacturing and implementation of medical devices, the FDA released a new mandate requiring a comprehensive cybersecurity plan fo...

What are the impacts of FedRAMP® Rev. 5?

The FedRAMP PMO released the final Rev. 5 security control baselines and transition guidance for cloud service providers CSPs who have achieved authorization to operate ATO and those still in the planning stages. All CSPs should review the guidance as soon as possible and start developing a plan...

Insider threats to the healthcare industry

A discussion of insider threats faced by the U.S. healthcare industry highlighting the types of threats and recommendations on how organizations can mitigate the risks...

Top 10 challenges of building an in-house application security program

Building a successful application security program can be a daunting task, as it involves many different skill sets. Resource constraints, lack of expertise, and cultural resistance are among the many challenges preventing organizations from reaping the full benefits of an in-house AppSec program...

FAQ: Transitioning to the highly anticipated new revision of ISO 27001

For a group like Coalfire Certification that lives and breathes these standards daily, it has been an exciting few months monitoring the progress of this publication and its review through the various ISO working groups...

Highlights from FedRAMP®’s new Penetration Test Guidance

In an effort to stay on top of the evolving threats being faced by the cloud community, the FedRAMP PMO released Version 3.0 of their Penetration Test Guidance, dated June 30, 2022. 3PAOs and CSPs should begin using the updated pen test guide for pen tests beginning shortly after June 5, 2022,...

How to strengthen your cybersecurity program

The first step toward becoming physically fit is looking in the mirror, acknowledging your weaknesses, and making a commitment that youll do whatever it takes to improve yourself. This is true for personal fitness, but can this approach also apply to the cybersecurity program at your growing...

Deserialized Double Dirty

Recently I was able to fully root a NetApp OnCommand Performance Manager appliance using a Java Deserialization vulnerability and Dirty COW...

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner: A Valuable Certification for Professionals in Non-Technical Roles

Within the past year, AWS unveiled what is arguably one of the best programs they have ever offered to non-technical professionals in the AWS Partner Network APN: the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certification. The program, which is especially valuable for those in sales or marketing roles,...

Microsoft Word Document Upload to Stored XSS: A Case Study

Anytime I see a file upload form during an application test, my attention is piqued. In a best-case scenario, I can upload a reverse shell in a scripting language available on the webserver. If the application is running in PHP or ASP for example, it becomes quite easy. If I cant get a backdoor...

Cooking Up Shells with Chef

I was able to compromise a Chef server on one of my recent engagements. Owning a Chef server means having the keys to the castle. I wasnt quite sure how to go about using this tool. Im familiar with Puppet as Ive spent the majority of my career on the systems side. Having never run into Chef, I...

DFARS 7012 Compliance

At Coalfire, we field a lot of questions from government contractors about compliance with National Institute of Science and Technology NIST Special Publication SP 800-171. We also address requests for help with "DFARS 7012," which is a commonly used shorthand for Defense Acquisition Regulation...

The Archimedes Medical Device Security 101 Conference - A Secure Forum for Security Issues

The University of Michigans Archimedes Center for Medical Device Security hosted its second annual MDS 101 conference in Orlando this month. The conference provides a secure forum for attendees to speak freely about cybersecurity issues with respected professionals who can help establish best...

Healthcare Security Pros Prioritize Sharing and Caring in the Wild, Wild West of Healthcare

Security professionals from healthcare delivery organizations HDOs, medical device manufacturers, and pharmaceutical companies gathered in Scottsdale, Arizona for the NH-ISAC Cyber Rodeo Summit last month. The big topics were how to share more threat intelligence, while at the same time ensuring...

Look Out! Risk Is on the Move, According to IoT Thought Leaders from Across the Globe

The IoT Security Summit 2017 in New York City in late October and the Security of Things World USA 2017 in San Diego last month were both packed with thought leaders from all parts of the IoT ecosystem - device manufacturers, telecom carriers, cloud providers, and early-adopter end users from...

Deploying and Troubleshooting Compliance Baselines

If you are in the IT space, youve most likely encountered or are bound by some form of regulation/framework such as PCI, HIPAA, FISMA, and/or CGIS. Most of these compliance programs require a hardened baseline to be implemented within your information systems to reduce the risk and impact of an...

News and Updates from the PCI Europe Community Meeting

In September, Hurricane Irma forced the PCI SSC to cancel the North America Community Meeting; and the uncertainty of Catalonian independence from Spain may have led some to stay home from the Europe Community Meeting held in Barcelona last week. Nevertheless, the Coalfire team was well-represent...