Tag: Help Net Security

CERT-UA warns against “security audit” requests via AnyDesk

Attackers are impersonating the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) via AnyDesk to gain access to target computers. The request (Source: CERT-UA) “Unidentified individuals are sending connection requests via AnyDesk under the pretext of conducting a ‘security audit to…

AI-driven insights transform security preparedness and recovery

In this Help Net Security interview, Arunava Bag, CTO at Digitate, discusses how organizations can recover digital operations after an incident, prioritize cybersecurity strategies, and secure digital operations with effective frameworks. What measures should organizations take to recover digital operations…

NDR’s role in a modern cybersecurity stack

Attacks happen frequently on the security stack or within an enterprise. Often, they’re carried out by some unknown entity on the other side of the globe. You don’t know who you’re dealing with. You don’t know who they are. In…

One in ten GenAI prompts puts sensitive data at risk

Despite their potential, many organizations hesitate to fully adopt GenAI tools due to concerns about sensitive data being inadvertently shared and possibly used to train these systems, according to Harmonic. Sensitive data exposure in GenAI prompts A new study, based…

How Russian hackers went after NGOs’ WhatsApp accounts

Star Blizzard, a threat actor tied to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), was spotted attempting to compromise targets’ WhatsApp accounts through a clever phishing campaign. The campaign The campaign started with a spear-phishing email that was made to look…

1touch.io’s SaaS offering delivers enterprise-grade security

In an exciting development for organizations struggling with data security, 1touch.io has announced its Sensitive Data Intelligence platform as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution. This release extends 1touch.io’s powerful Contextual AI-driven data discovery and classification capabilities to a wider range of…

Bitwarden unveils native mobile applications for iOS and Android

Bitwarden announced Bitwarden native mobile applications for iOS and Android. These new apps provide significant performance improvements, a smoother user experience, and deeper integration with platform-specific features such as biometric authentication. Elevating the mobile user experience The evolution to native…

MSSqlPwner: Open-source tool for pentesting MSSQL servers

MSSqlPwner is an open-source pentesting tool tailored to interact with and exploit MSSQL servers. Built on Impacket, it enables users to authenticate with databases using various credentials, including clear-text passwords, NTLM hashes, and Kerberos tickets. The tool offers multiple methods…

EU takes decisive action on healthcare cybersecurity

The Commission has presented an EU action plan aimed at strengthening the cybersecurity of hospitals and healthcare providers. The initiative is an essential step in shielding the healthcare sector from cyber threats. Digitalization is revolutionizing healthcare, enabling better patient services…

New infosec products of the week: January 17, 2025

Here’s a look at the most interesting products from the past week, featuring releases from Atsign, Cisco, Commvault, and IT-Harvest. Cisco AI Defense safeguards against the misuse of AI tools Cisco AI Defense is purpose-built for enterprises to develop, deploy…

New UEFI Secure Boot bypass vulnerability discovered (CVE-2024-7344)

ESET researchers have identified a vulnerability (CVE-2024-7344) impacting most UEFI-based systems, which allows attackers to bypass UEFI Secure Boot. The issue was found in a UEFI application signed with Microsoft’s “Microsoft Corporation UEFI CA 2011” third-party certificate. Exploiting this vulnerability…

Cisco AI Defense safeguards against the misuse of AI tools

Cisco announced Cisco AI Defense, a pioneering solution to enable and safeguard AI transformation within enterprises. As AI technology advances, new safety concerns and security threats are emerging at an unprecedented speed which existing security solutions are unprepared to protect…

Webinar: Amplifying SIEM with AI-driven NDR for IT/OT convergence

Join cybersecurity leader Erwin Eimers from Sumitomo Chemicals Americas to explore how AI-driven Network Detection and Response (NDR) enhances SIEM capabilities, bridging critical visibility gaps in converged IT/OT environments. Learn how NDR provides enriched telemetry, real-time insights, and faster threat…

A humble proposal: The InfoSec CIA triad should be expanded

The inconsistent and incomplete definitions of essential properties in information security create confusion within the InfoSec community, gaps in security controls, and may elevate the costs of incidents. In this article, I will analyze the CIA triad, point out its…

Critical vulnerabilities remain unresolved due to prioritization gaps

Fragmented data from multiple scanners, siloed risk scoring and poor cross-team collaboration are leaving organizations increasingly exposed to breaches, compliance failures and costly penalties, according to Swimlane. The relentless surge of vulnerabilities is pushing security teams to their limits, forcing…

FBI removed PlugX malware from U.S. computers

The Justice Department announced on Tuesday that, alongside international partners, the FBI deleted “PlugX” malware from thousands of infected computers worldwide. As described in court documents unsealed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a group of hackers sponsored by the…

Contextal Platform: Open-source threat detection and intelligence

Contextal Platform is an open-source cybersecurity solution for contextual threat detection and intelligence. Developed by the original authors of ClamAV, it offers advanced features such as contextual threat analysis, custom detection scenarios through the ContexQL language, and AI-powered data processing—all…

Using cognitive diversity for stronger, smarter cyber defense

In this Help Net Security interview, Mel Morris, CEO of Corpora.ai, discusses how cognitive biases affect decision-making during cybersecurity incidents. Morris shares insights on the challenges of designing user-friendly cybersecurity tools that consider human cognitive processes. How do cognitive biases…

Cybersecurity is stepping into a new era of complexity

Cybersecurity is entering a new era of complexity, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025 report. Growing complexity intensifies cyber inequity This complexity arises from the rapid growth of emerging technologies, prevailing geopolitical uncertainty, the evolution of…

Malicious actors’ GenAI use has yet to match the hype

Generative AI has helped lower the barrier for entry for malicious actors and has made them more efficient, i.e., quicker at creating convincing deepfakes, mounting phishing campaigns and investment scams, the most recent report by the Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA)…

Commvault strengthens Microsoft Active Directory protection

Commvault introduced an expansion of its platform to provide full and automated forest recovery for the world’s most widely used enterprise identity and access solution, Microsoft Active Directory. As organizations continue to combat non-stop cyberattacks and threats, Commvault Cloud Backup…

How AI and ML are transforming digital banking security

In this Help Net Security interview, Nuno Martins da Silveira Teodoro, VP of Group Cybersecurity at Solaris, discusses the latest advancements in digital banking security. He talks about how AI and ML are reshaping fraud detection, the growing trend of…

This is the year CISOs unlock AI’s full potential

In 2025, CISOs will have powerful new capabilities as generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) continues to mature. Evolving beyond providing answers to questions, GenAI will provide proactive recommendations, take action, and communicate in a personalized manner. This transition will enable CISOs…

What 2024 taught us about security vulnerabilties

From zero-day exploits to weaknesses in widely used software and hardware, the vulnerabilities uncovered last year underscore threat actors’ tactics and the critical gaps in organizational defenses. This roundup showcases the standout findings from 2024’s cybersecurity reports, highlighting critical risks…

Cybersecurity jobs available right now: January 14, 2025

Application Security Engineer ENOC | UAE | On-site – View job details As an Application Security Engineer, you will establish and maintain DLP policies to prevent unauthorized access, transmission, or disclosure of sensitive data, focusing on both on-premises and cloud…

UK domain registry Nominet breached via Ivanti zero-day

The number of internet-facing Ivanti Connect Secure instances vulnerable to attack via CVE-2025-0282 has fallen from 2,048 to 800 in the last four days, the Shadowserver Foundation shared today. In the meantime, UK domain registry Nominet became the first publicly…

Alleged Blender, Sinbad cryptomixer operators arrested, indicted

Three Russian nationals have been indicted in the Northern District of Georgia for their alleged role as operators of cryptocurrency mixing (cryptomixer) services Blender.io and Sinbad.io. Roman Vitalyevich Ostapenko and Alexander Evgenievich Oleynik were arrested on Dec. 1, 2024, roughly…

New infosec products of the week: January 10, 2025

Here’s a look at the most interesting products from the past week, featuring releases from BioConnect, BreachLock, McAfee, Netgear, and Swimlane. NETGEAR Armor, powered by Bitdefender, protects home networks against cyber threats Armor is a security and privacy solution available…

Code Intelligence Spark automates software testing

Code Intelligence announced Spark, an AI test agent that autonomously identifies bugs in unknown code without human interaction. It’s the first AI Agent to find a real-world vulnerability by automatically generating and running a test for a widely used open-source…

Wireshark 4.4.3 released: Updated protocol support, bug fixes

Wireshark, the popular network protocol analyzer, has reached version 4.4.3. Wireshark offers deep inspection across hundreds of protocols, live and offline analysis, and display filters. With multi-platform support, VoIP analysis, and capture file compatibility, it’s perfect for professionals seeking intuitive…

The ongoing evolution of the CIS Critical Security Controls

For decades, the CIS Critical Security Controls (CIS Controls) have simplified enterprises’ efforts to strengthen their cybersecurity posture by prescribing prioritized security measures for defending against common cyber threats. In this article, we’ll review the story of the CIS Controls…

Synology ActiveProtect boosts enterprise data protection

Synology releases ActiveProtect, a new line of data protection appliances designed to provide enterprises a unified backup solution with simplicity, security and scalability. ActiveProtect integrates backup software, servers, and backup repositories into a seamless, unified platform. This streamlined solution enables…

Sara: Open-source RouterOS security inspector

Sara is an open-source tool designed to analyze RouterOS configurations and identify security vulnerabilities on MikroTik hardware. Sara’s main feature is using regular expressions as the primary analysis mechanism. This allows you to quickly and accurately process RouterOS configuration text…

Swimlane Hero helps solve complex security operations problems

Swimlane unveiled Hero, a private agentic AI security operations (SecOps) companion. Built on the foundation of Swimlane’s Hero AI innovations, Hero empowers security teams to work smarter and faster by suggesting next steps and answering complex questions privately to speed…

The U.S. Cyber Trust Mark set to launch

The White House has announced the launch of the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark, a voluntary cybersecurity labeling program for consumer-grade internet-connected devices. “The White House launched this bipartisan effort to educate American consumers and give them an easy way to…

BioConnect unveils biometric devices for secure access control

BioConnect introduced its Arc Series biometric devices. Designed to address the evolving security, compliance, and scalability needs of enterprises and data centers, the Arc Series sets a new standard in modern access control. The launch includes three innovative devices: Arc…

Mitel MiCollab, Oracle WebLogic Server vulnerabilities exploited by attackers

CISA has added Mitel MiCollab (CVE-2024-41713, CVE-2024-55550) and Oracle WebLogic Server (CVE-2020-2883) vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. The Mitel MiCollab vulnerabilities exploited Mitel MiCollab is a popular enterprise collaboration suite. CVE-2024-41713 and CVE-2024-55550 are both path traversal…

Scaling penetration testing through smart automation

In this Help Net Security interview, Marko Simeonov, CEO of Plainsea, discusses how organizations can move beyond compliance-driven penetration testing toward a more strategic, risk-based approach. He explains how automation, human expertise, and continuous monitoring can transform penetration testing into…

The top target for phishing campaigns

Despite organizations’ repeated attempts at security awareness training, with a particular emphasis on how employees can avoid being phished, in 2024 enterprise users clicked on phishing lures at a rate nearly three times higher than in 2023, according to Netskope.…

Cybersecurity jobs available right now: January 8, 2025

AI Penetration Tester Microsoft | Canada | Remote – View job details As an AI Penetration Tester, you will discover and exploit vulnerabilities end-to-end in order to assess the security of AI systems. Execute offensive operations on production AI systems…

UN aviation agency investigating possible data breach

The United Nation’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) confirmed on Monday that it’s “actively investigating reports of a potential information security incident allegedly linked to a threat actor known for targeting international organizations.” The statement came a few days after…

eBay CISO on managing long-term cybersecurity planning and ROI

In this Help Net Security interview, Sean Embry, CISO at eBay, discusses key aspects of cybersecurity leadership. He shares insights on balancing long-term strategic planning with immediate threat response, evaluating the ROI of new technologies, and addressing employee cybersecurity fatigue.…

Making the most of cryptography, now and in the future

Enterprise cryptography faces risks beyond just the advent of quantum computers. For starters, there is no guarantee that the traditional algorithms have not been broken. Though we believe that it is “unlikely” they can be, the reality is that in…

Open source worldwide: Critical maintenance gaps exposed

Lineaje recently released a report identifying the US and Russia as the leading generators of open-source projects, with both countries also having the highest numbers of anonymous open-source contributions. In this Help Net Security video, Nick Mistry, SVP and CISO…

How AI and deepfakes are redefining social engineering threats

This article presents key insights from 2024 reports on the rise of phishing attacks, focusing on how advancements in AI and deepfake technology are making social engineering tactics more sophisticated. Cybercriminals exploit file sharing services to advance phishing attacks Examining…

Balancing proprietary and open-source tools in cyber threat research

In this Help Net Security interview, Thomas Roccia, Senior Security Researcher at Microsoft, discusses how threat research drives faster, better decision-making in cybersecurity operations. Roccia provides insights into balancing internal and external research strategies, the influence of AI and geopolitical…

Users receive at least one advanced phishing link every week

Phishing remains one of the most significant cyber threats impacting organizations worldwide, according to SlashNext. Credential phishing is raising Credential theft attacks surged dramatically in the second half of 2024 (703%), signaling a sharp escalation in the use of sophisticated…

Is healthcare cybersecurity in critical condition?

This article highlights key findings and trends in healthcare cybersecurity for 2024. From the rising impact of cyberattacks on patient care to the vulnerabilities posed by medical devices and supply chains, these insights provide an overview of the current state…

The modern CISO is a cornerstone of organizational success

The chief information security officer (CISO) role has undergone a remarkable transformation, evolving from a purely technical position to a role that bridges business strategy, operational efficiency, and cybersecurity. The post The modern CISO is a cornerstone of organizational success…

Best practices for ensuring a secure browsing environment

In this Help Net Security interview, Devin Ertel, CISO at Menlo Security, discusses how innovations like AI and closer collaboration between browser vendors and security providers will shape the future of browser security. The post Best practices for ensuring a…

Deepfakes question our ability to discern reality

As deepfakes become increasingly sophisticated and accessible, their potential for misuse in areas such as cybercrime, misinformation campaigns, and identity theft continues to grow. In this article, you will find key insights from 2024 reports on deepfake technology and the…

The real cost of data breaches for businesses

This article presents key findings from 2024 reports on data breaches. Breaches are taking longer to resolve and are becoming more costly for organizations. With recovery times extending and costs increasing, businesses face growing challenges in managing the aftermath. Full…

CISOs don’t invest enough in code security

72% of security leaders agree that the age of AI necessitates a complete reset of how organizations approach application security, according to Cycode. This urgency is reinforced by the fact that 93 billion lines of code were generated in the…

Why software is the key to FI risk management

Risk management is important, but it’s not always exciting. Many risk professionals still rely on spreadsheets and manual methods despite the availability of better options. Excel is familiar and cost-effective. Some spreadsheets are handy for certain risk management activities. In…

The state of cybersecurity and IT talent shortages

This article highlights key findings and trends in the 2024 IT and cybersecurity skills gap, from the shortage of cybersecurity talent to the rising demand for certifications and upskilling programs, offering insights into the current state of skills development in…