[From the desk of Paul Davis – his opinions and no-one else’s]
I hope you don’t mind but I changed the subject line to make it easier to distinguish from other newsalerts
Apart from the reporter’s opinions 😉
So onto the news:
Human error to blame as UK data breach investigations surge
The 183 per cent rise in reported Data Protection Act (DPA) incidents incorporated 585 events reported to the ICO during 2014 alone. In total, 791 incidents have been investigated since the start of 2013.
Across all industries, the ICO has issued civil monetary penalties of more than £7.5m, £455,000 of which were levied against financial services organisations.
This figure could potentially be set to rise when proposed reforms to the EU General Data Protection Regulation are enacted in the coming years. It is expected that the new legislation will introduce fines of up to two per cent of annual turnover for a breach.
Link: http://paulgdavis.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=45bf3caf699abf9904ddc00e3&id=d24071acd0&e=20056c7556
Why Are Information Security Tools and Cyber Intelligence Like a Hammer and Nails?
Market Guide for Security Threat Intelligence Services, a Gartner paper from October 2014, lists 27 companies in its CTI category. These include two very different Israeli companies, Check Point, known originally for its firewalls, and SenseCy, which is known for its intelligence.
Yet one-dimensional market categories do not reflect the specific activities of various companies. In other words, CTI, like DLP (data leakage protection) and other terms, is implemented in various ways and expresses different needs. Sometimes, with all the marketing hype, words lose their meaning. One of the biggest challenges with “CTI” is that it refers to intelligence when what is actually delivered is information.
In the ancient world, when Joshua sent spies into Jericho, his tools were mainly between his ears, and the intelligence took form accordingly. Today, with firewalls, information security management systems, data leak prevention, and endpoint protection, we sometimes confuse intelligence with technological information like IP addresses and signatures that can be inserted into the products that we.
Link: http://paulgdavis.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=45bf3caf699abf9904ddc00e3&id=7d1915acf9&e=20056c7556
Phishers Registered More Malicious Domain Names Than Ever in Second Half of 2014: Report
In its Global Phishing Survey: Trends and Domain Name Use in 2H2014 report, the APWG found that the number of domain names used for phishing reached a record number. According to the report, there were at least 123,972 unique phishing attacks worldwide during the final half of last year, and those attacks occurred on 95,321 unique domain names. That represents the most the APWG has ever seen during a half-year period.
Eighty-four percent of the malicious domains were registered to phish Chinese targets – services and sites in China that primarily serve Chinese customer bases, the APWG found.
More than 16 percent of the world’s malicious registrations were made in the .TK, .CF, .GA and .ML registries, according to the report.
Link: http://paulgdavis.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=45bf3caf699abf9904ddc00e3&id=14010f658c&e=20056c7556
How Brian Krebs tracks down hackers
Simple mistakes by cyber criminals — such as reusing an email address — has helped US journalist Brian Krebs with his research. Speaking at the Checkpoint cyber security symposium in Sydney, Krebs told delegates that while many cyber criminals constantly change their name, some who are “lazy or had tremendous egos” tended to use the same username constantly.
Link: http://paulgdavis.us3.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=45bf3caf699abf9904ddc00e3&id=b3e1bec983&e=20056c7556
EU governments in disagreement over data breach liability rules
EU governments are in disagreement over whether consumers should be able to sue businesses for damage they suffer as a result of a data breach even where those businesses are not responsible for the damage caused.
According to those papers, some EU countries believe new data protection laws should allow consumers to only seek compensation for damage they suffered from non-compliant personal data processing from the businesses responsible for their data, data controllers. However, other countries believe consumers should be able to pursue companies that undertake data processing activities on behalf of data controllers instead if they wish.
Link: http://paulgdavis.us3.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=45bf3caf699abf9904ddc00e3&id=39fe0c9e4a&e=20056c7556
Microsoft’s update IE mandate pushes people to Chrome
Rather than follow Microsoft’s mandate to update older editions of Internet Explorer (IE) by January, a significant chunk of IE’s users switched to Google’s Chrome browser instead, data released Monday showed.
In August 2014, Microsoft suddenly told most IE users that they needed to be running IE11 by Jan. 12, 2016, or face a shut-off of security updates for their frequently-patched browsers. After that date, Microsoft will support IE9 only on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008; IE10 only on Windows Server 2012; and only IE11 on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 R2, and by then, Windows 10.
Link: http://paulgdavis.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=45bf3caf699abf9904ddc00e3&id=5c4631bab3&e=20056c7556
When stolen data turns up on the dark web, this tech can find it fast
A new technology launched Wednesday, called Matchlight, built by a Baltimore, MD.-based security startup Terbium Labs, can trace the source of a data breach — even on the dark web which accessible through anonymity networks such as Tor. The aim is to cut down response times, seal leaks in company systems, and get a recovery plan in place sooner rather than later.
The customer, such as a retailer or a bank, has a database of sensitive data, from credit card numbers to usernames and passwords. With an appliance, they can generate in-house unique fingerprints of that data. Those fingerprints go into Matchlight’s cloud, without any sensitive data leaving that company’s systems. Combined with an advanced web crawler that’s able to index sites on the dark web, the company can be immediately informed when a fingerprint is found.
Link: http://paulgdavis.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=45bf3caf699abf9904ddc00e3&id=afe42ed9ec&e=20056c7556
Financial Institution Spied on for 3 Months with Non-Complex Malware
Unknown actors deploying a targeted attack against a financial institution in Asia managed to run the operation under the radar for three months, despite relying on malware that lacked the complexity researchers are used to see in such cases.
In a blog post published on Tuesday, the company concludes that malware does not need to be advanced to be effective. In this case, three months of stealth offered the attacker plenty of operation time, yielding passwords and valuable insight into the targeted organization.
Despite antivirus solutions remaining an important part of a company’s security, the numerous techniques employed by attackers make it clear that a single product cannot deal with all threats.
Link: http://paulgdavis.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=45bf3caf699abf9904ddc00e3&id=51f61b33e7&e=20056c7556
Russian Crypto-Malware Encrypts Files Completely
The operators of a new piece of ransomware originating from Russia keep open a communication channel with victims for payment instructions, but this also means there’s a possibility for bargaining.
Found by security researchers at Check Point, Troldesh ransomware, also known as Encoder.858 and Shade, applies full encryption of the files it processes, from content to name and extension.
Backing up files regularly and storing the safe copies in a place with limited access from the main computer is currently the best form of protection against crypto-malware.
Link: http://paulgdavis.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=45bf3caf699abf9904ddc00e3&id=c44a133605&e=20056c7556
Holy SSH-it! Microsoft promises secure logins for Windows PowerShell
Microsoft has finally decided to add support for SSH to PowerShell, allowing people to log into Windows systems and use software remotely over an encrypted connection.
Link: http://paulgdavis.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=45bf3caf699abf9904ddc00e3&id=0a90429046&e=20056c7556
============================================================
Feedback, questions? Our mailing address is: ** dailynews@paulgdavis.com (mailto:dailynews@paulgdavis.com)
If someone forwarded this email to you and you want to be added in,
please click this: ** Subscribe to this list (http://paulgdavis.us3.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=45bf3caf699abf9904ddc00e3&id=e09452545a)
** Unsubscribe from this list (http://paulgdavis.us3.list-manage1.com/unsubscribe?u=45bf3caf699abf9904ddc00e3&id=e09452545a&e=20056c7556&c=1d82ab5f2f)
** Update subscription preferences (http://paulgdavis.us3.list-manage.com/profile?u=45bf3caf699abf9904ddc00e3&id=e09452545a&e=20056c7556)