CyberSecure Specialist

15 Sep

Extradited Russian Hacker Behind ‘NLBrute’ Malware Pleads Guilty

Information, News

Russian hacker Dariy Pankov has pleaded guilty to computer fraud and now faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison, according to an announcement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Pankov, who was extradited from the Eastern European country of Georgia earlier this year, was charged with developing and selling a piece of malware called NLBrute that was used in cybercriminal activities. As part of a plea deal, the government said Pankov will forfeit…

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15 Sep

Pentagon’s 2023 Cyber Strategy Focuses on Helping Allies

Information, News

The US Department of Defense (DoD) this week published an unclassified summary of its 2023 Cyber Strategy, outlining plans for both offensive and defensive efforts. One key focus of the 2023 Cyber Strategy is the commitment to boost the cyber capabilities of allies and partners, and to increase collective resilience against cyberattacks. This includes augmenting the capacity of partners and expanding their access to cybersecurity infrastructure, as well as helping them mature their cyber workforce…

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15 Sep

CISA Releases Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation Program: Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) Reference Architecture

Attacks, Insights, Malware

Today, CISA released the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation Program: Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) Reference Architecture to help federal civilian departments and agencies integrate their identity and access management (IDAM) capabilities into their ICAM architectures. Prior to this release, there was no singular, authoritative, and recognized reference for architecting an ICAM capability across an enterprise.  This publication provides: a description of the federal ICAM practice area, including how ICAM services and components implement ICAM use…

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15 Sep

Fortinet Releases Security Updates for Multiple Products

Attacks, Insights, Malware

Fortinet has released security updates to address vulnerabilities (CVE-2023-29183 and CVE-2023-34984) affecting FortiOS, FortiProxy, and FortiWeb. A cyber threat actor can exploit one of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system. CISA encourages users and administrators to review Fortinet security advisories (FG-IR-23-106 and FG-IR-23-068) and apply the necessary updates.

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14 Sep

Read it right! How to spot scams on Reddit

Information

As the world’s 18th most visited website and 7th most frequented social network, it’s no surprise that Reddit also holds great allure for cybercriminals. Besides an endless number of legitimate subreddits, cute alien pictures as well as annual April Fool’s day events, Redditors may also encounter various kinds of fakery on the site, including scams that are after their data and money. In this blogpost, we’ll look at a few common types of fraud that you…

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14 Sep

A Second Major British Police Force Suffers a Cyberattack in Less Than a Month

Data Breaches, Information, News

Personal details of thousands of police officers and staff from Greater Manchester Police have been hacked from a company that makes identity cards, the second such cyberattack to affect a major British police force in less than a month. Details on identity badges and warrant cards, including names, photos and identity numbers or police collar numbers, were stolen in the ransomware attack, Greater Manchester Police said Thursday. The third-party supplier was not identified. The force…

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13 Sep

Tech Industry Leaders Endorse Regulating Artificial Intelligence at Rare Summit in Washington

Information, News

The nation’s biggest technology executives on Wednesday loosely endorsed the idea of government regulations for artificial intelligence at an unusual closed-door meeting in the U.S. Senate. But there is little consensus on what regulation would look like, and the political path for legislation is difficult. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who organized the private forum on Capitol Hill as part of a push to legislate artificial intelligence, said he asked everyone in the room —…

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13 Sep

FBI Hacker Dropped Stolen Airbus Data on 9/11

Data Breaches, Information, Insights

In December 2022, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that a cybercriminal using the handle “USDoD” had infiltrated the FBI‘s vetted information sharing network InfraGard, and was selling the contact information for all 80,000 members. The FBI responded by reverifying InfraGard members and by seizing the cybercrime forum where the data was being sold. But on Sept. 11, 2023, USDoD resurfaced after a lengthy absence to leak sensitive employee data stolen from the aerospace giant Airbus, while…

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13 Sep

CISA Adds Three Known Vulnerabilities to Catalog

Attacks, Insights, Malware

CISA has added three new vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation. CVE-2023-35674 Android Framework Privilege Escalation Vulnerability CVE-2023-20269 Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance and Firepower Threat Defense Unauthorized Access Vulnerability CVE-2023-4863 Google Chrome Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Vulnerability These types of vulnerabilities are frequent attack vectors for malicious cyber actors and pose significant risks to the federal enterprise. Note: To view other newly added vulnerabilities in the catalog, click on the arrow in the “Date Added…

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