Social Engineering

President Biden released his FY 2024 budget proposal that seeks a bigger budget for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and greater cyber investigative capabilities for the FBI. The budget also calls for increasing the federal government’s IT modernization efforts, exploring cybersecurity efforts surrounding gender-based cybercrimes, expanding efforts to counter China’s problematic behaviors, and helping Ukraine better defend itself on the digital front. “The Budget continues to invest in cybersecurity programs recognizing that cybersecurity…

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A persistent malware targeting unpatched SonicWall Secure Mobile Access (SMA) appliances has been linked to a Chinese campaign dating back to 2021, according to a Mandiant research done in partnership with SonicWall’s in-house research team. The responsible malware, dubbed UNC4540, has been found to be stealing user credentials, providing shell access, and persisting through firmware upgrades. “This is not a new vulnerability, so a patch was not published,” a Mandiant spokesperson said. “The findings are…

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The cybercrime underground has long functioned as an open market where sellers of products and services are paired with buyers and contractors. One of the most valuable commodities on this market are stolen credentials since they can provide attackers with access into networks, databases, and other assets owned by organizations. It’s no surprise to see cybercriminals focused on this valuable commodity. “Last year, 4,518 data breaches were reported,” researchers from Flashpoint said in a new…

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A new data regulation body that China is reportedly set to create is expected to clarify and establish new data sovereigny rules for multinational companies and accelerate tech-based initatives such as public administration services built on anonymized citizen data. The new governent body will streamline data governance policies in the country, amid increasing confusion from businesses that deal with multiple bodies presiding over different aspects of data governance within the country’s borders, according to a…

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A health insurance marketplace that provides coverage for members of the US Congress and congressional staffers was found to be compromised on Wednesday, according to a letter apparently sent from House Chief Administrative Officer Catherine L. Szpindor to members of that chamber. Szpindor’s office would not directly confirm or deny the authenticity of the letter, which was first published on Twitter by a reporter for the right-wing Daily Caller news site. However, a spokesperson for…

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GitHub has begun its official rollout of two-factor authentication (2FA) for developers who contribute code to the platform to enhance the security of accounts and the software supply chain. GitHub first announced its intention to mandate 2FA for all code contributors in May 2022, and will begin the first group’s enrolment on Monday, March 13. GitHub is allowing users to choose their preferred 2FA method – SMS, TOTP, security keys, or GitHub mobile. The rollout…

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Lazarus group was spotted exploiting flaws in unnamed software to gain access to a South Korean finance firm twice last year.  The North Korea-linked group had infiltrated the affected company in May 2022 and again in October through the same software’s zero-day vulnerability, according to a research by AhnLab Security Emergency Response Center (ASEC).  ASEC reported the software in question to the Korean Internet and Security Agency since the vulnerability has not been fully verified…

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SANS Institute has launched the SANS Cloud Diversity Academy (SCDA) in partnership with Google, to help provide training and certifications to women, ethnic minorities, Indigenous people and other groups that are currently underrepresented in the cybersecurity sector. A 2022 report by Cybersecurity Ventures found that women make up only 25% of the cybersecurity workforce globally, while an Aspen Digital Tech Policy report from the same year found that only 9% of cybersecurity experts are Black,…

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The number of detected hard-coded secrets increased by 67% last year compared to 2021, with 10 million new secrets discovered in public GitHub commits in 2022. That’s according to GitGuardian’s State of Secrets Sprawl 2023 report. It found that hard-coded secrets and accelerating secrets sprawl (storing secrets in many different places) are threatening the security of software supply chains. Hard-coded secrets pose significant security risks because they are often stored in plain text, making it…

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CISO Nicole Darden Ford has become accustomed to doing more with less since the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly upended her company’s workforce. “I got off a plane from India and saw all these people with masks at the airport in Washington, DC, and I wondered what was going on. I went straight to the office where my CEO and CIO explained our new reality: We were going into quarantine and we had less than a week…

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