Data Breaches

A group of attackers, likely based in Vietnam, that specializes in targeting employees with potential access to Facebook business and ads management accounts, has re-emerged with changes to its infrastructure, malware, and modus operandi after being initially outed a few months ago. Dubbed DUCKTAIL by researchers from WithSecure, the group uses spear phishing to target individuals on LinkedIn who have job descriptions that could suggest they have access to manage Facebook business accounts. More recently,…

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The Common Vulnerability Scanning System (CVSS) is the most frequently cited rating system to assess the severity of security vulnerabilities. It has been criticized, however, as not being appropriate to assess and prioritize risk from those vulnerabilities. For this reason, some have called for using the Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS) or combining CVSS and EPSS to make vulnerability metrics more actionable and efficient. Like CVSS, EPSS is governed by the Forum of Incident Response…

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A report released by Meta’s security team describes the company’s shutdown of a network of Facebook and Instagram accounts participating in what it calls coordinated inauthentic behavior, and linking some of those accounts to the US military. “Coordinated inauthentic behavior” is Meta’s term for misinformation activity performed by groups of social media accounts on its platforms that target particular groups or demographics. CIB groups, the company said in a 2018 official blog post, are targeted…

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When it comes to hitting the ground running on cybersecurity, the Biden administration has engaged in an extensive set of initiatives that far outstrip those of the Trump administration – and even those of the Obama administration, which established the previous highwater mark for cybersecurity actions. In mid-October, the White House issued a fact sheet about the Biden-Harris administration’s “relentless focus” on improving the nation’s cybersecurity to tout its impressive sprint. The document outlined the…

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The UK has finalized its first independent data adequacy decision since leaving the European Union (EU) which will allow UK organisations to securely transfer personal data to the Republic of Korea without restrictions by the end of the year. The UK government stated that the new legislation, first agreed upon in principle in July, will allow businesses in both countries to share data more easily, enhancing opportunities for cooperation and growth. The decision comes following…

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With the holiday shopping season in full swing, retail websites can expect a spike in account takeover fraud, DDoS, and other attacks, including attacks via APIs, which now represent almost half of e-commerce traffic. According to a recent report from application and data security company Imperva, bots account for more than 40% of traffic to online retail websites on average, with around 24% of traffic coming from “bad bots” that engage in various forms of…

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Do you recall when you last reset your Kerberos password? Hopefully that was not the last time I suggested you change it, back in April of 2021, when I urged you to do a regular reset of the KRBTGT account password. If you’ve followed my advice, you are already one step ahead of the side effects caused by the November updates that introduced Kerberos changes. While many of you may be waiting to install the…

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Microsoft is extending the Azure DDoS Protection family with a new product focusing on small and medium-size businesses (SMBs). The product, DDoS IP Protection for SMBs, was announced at Microsoft’s Ignite conference and is now in public preview. DDoS IP Protection for SMBs is designed to provide enterprise-grade DDoS (distributed denial of service) protection at a price that’s attractive to SMBs, Microsoft said. With the new product, Microsoft’s Azure DDoS Protection family now has two…

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As group leader for Cyber Adversary Engagement at MITRE Corp., Maretta Morovitz sees value in getting to know the enemy – she can use knowledge about cyber adversaries to distract, trick, and deflect them and develop strategies to help keep threat actors from getting whatever they’re after. That could mean placing decoys and lures that exploit their expectations for what an attacker will find when they first hack into an environment, she says. Or it…

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