Information

National Public Data Published Its Own Passwords

New details are emerging about a breach at National Public Data (NPD), a consumer data broker that recently spilled hundreds of millions of Americans’ Social Security Numbers, addresses, and phone numbers online. KrebsOnSecurity has learned that another NPD data broker which shares access to the same consumer records inadvertently published the passwords to its back-end database in a file that was freely available from its homepage until today. In April, a cybercriminal named USDoD began…

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How a BEC scam cost a company $60 Million – Week in security with Tony Anscombe

Video Business email compromise (BEC) has once again proven to be a costly issue, with a company losing $60 million in a wire transfer fraud scheme 16 Aug 2024 A Luxembourg-based chemicals and manufacturing company has recently suffered one of the largest-ever business email compromise (BEC) attacks. According to a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC), an employee was tricked into making multiple wire transfers to cybercriminals, losing the company $60 million. …

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NationalPublicData.com Hack Exposes a Nation’s Data

A great many readers this month reported receiving alerts that their Social Security Number, name, address and other personal information were exposed in a breach at a little-known but aptly-named consumer data broker called NationalPublicData.com. This post examines what we know about a breach that has exposed hundreds of millions of consumer records. We’ll also take a closer look at the data broker that got hacked — a background check company founded by an actor…

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Why scammers want your phone number

Scams Your phone number is more than just a way to contact you – scammers can use it to target you with malicious messages and even exploit it to gain access to your bank account or steal corporate data Márk Szabó 13 Aug 2024  •  , 5 min. read Last month, we looked at how scammers can gain access to your phone number and how data breaches and phishing campaigns could make obtaining it easy.…

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Top 6 Craigslist scams: Don’t fall for these tricks

Scams Here’s how to spot and dodge scams when searching for stuff on the classified ads website that offers almost everything under the sun Phil Muncaster 12 Aug 2024  •  , 5 min. read People have been buying and selling items on Craigslist for nearly three decades. As a platform for digital classified ads, its utility is still second to none for many people. But its simplicity (and anonymity) can also create risks that are,…

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The great location leak: Privacy risks in dating apps

Privacy What if your favorite dating, social media or gaming app revealed your exact coordinates to someone you’d rather keep at a distance? Tony Anscombe 12 Aug 2024  •  , 3 min. read In today’s digital age, geolocation features in many apps offer undeniable convenience. Just before writing this blog, I needed to locate some materials for a DIY project, and using the ‘click and collect’ feature I immediately established the closest store that has…

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Six 0-Days Lead Microsoft’s August 2024 Patch Push

Microsoft today released updates to fix at least 90 security vulnerabilities in Windows and related software, including a whopping six zero-day flaws that are already being actively exploited by attackers. Image: Shutterstock. This month’s bundle of update joy from Redmond includes patches for security holes in Office, .NET, Visual Studio, Azure, Co-Pilot, Microsoft Dynamics, Teams, Secure Boot, and of course Windows itself. Of the six zero-day weaknesses Microsoft addressed this month, half are local privilege…

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Black Hat USA 2024: All eyes on election security

Critical Infrastructure In this high-stakes year for democracy, the importance of robust election safeguards and national cybersecurity strategies cannot be understated Tony Anscombe 09 Aug 2024  •  , 3 min. read The mention of election security, especially in a year where the majority of the world is destined to vote, brings to mind images of a voting machine or even some form of subversion of online voting or counting processes. So it was not a…

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Black Hat USA 2024 recap – Week in security with Tony Anscombe

Video Unsurprisingly, many discussions focused on the implications of the recent CrowdStrike outage, including the lessons it may have offered for bad actors 09 Aug 2024 This week was that time of the year when thousands of cybersecurity experts descended on Las Vegas to attend Black Hat USA, one of the world’s top cybersecurity conferences. With a large proportion of the world’s population going to the polls this year, one of the keynotes focused on…

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Black Hat USA 2024: How cyber insurance is shaping cybersecurity strategies

Business Security Cyber insurance is not only a safety net, but it can also be a catalyst for advancing security practices and standards Tony Anscombe 08 Aug 2024  •  , 3 min. read If there was ever any doubt about the relationship between cybersecurity and the cyber insurance industry, then Black Hat USA 2024 dispelled it. A full afternoon on a main stage was dedicated to the cyber insurance industry, allowing them to share their…

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