Still Discussing Sony Attack … but why?

The reason is that it was a _Destructive_ attack. Credit card numbers were not stolen. Data was deleted and stolen. Highly unusual attack. Dark Reading  has a story on the “destructive” attack. http://www.darkreading.com/how-not-to-be-the-next-sony-defending-against-destructive-attacks-/d/d-id/1318516 ” “If your only goal is to do damage,” says Jonathan Sander, strategy and research officer for Stealthbits Technologies, “you don’t need a lot … Read more

Amazing to note Telnet vulnerability Patch Tuesday

Microsoft has a Telnet  vulnerability which has a critical remote code execution. (MS15-002) https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/ms15-jan This is true:  “Only customers who enable telnet on Windows 2003 are affected (it is installed but not enabled). and Telnet is not installed on Vista or later operating systems” But if you did enable (or install and enable) it has … Read more

Credit Card Thieves Caught in Saint Louis area

Fox2 a local TV media channel (in Saint Louis area) has the story: http://fox2now.com/2015/01/12/police-bust-credit-card-thieves-from-detroit/   Why do I bring this up in a cyber security blog? Due to this little info blurb: “Maryland Heights police searched the vehicle, and found fake Michigan drivers’ licenses, dozens of pre-paid MasterCard gift cards, and pricey electronics.” and “Fedak … Read more

Krebs notes Lizard attacked Sony with home routers

The hacker group Lizard Squad  that attacked Sony and Microsoft on Christmas day: http://oversitesentry.com/christmas-hacking-while-you-were-out/ This was the result of their attack:   Brian Krebs has done research (as he does) and has found that the Lizard group has been hacking default password home routers around the world, and it seems they used them to attack … Read more

Can We Stop Cybersecurity Breaches?

Dark Reading has an article on PCI compliance from end of last year: http://www.darkreading.com/risk/compliance/how-pci-dss-30-can-help-stop-data-breaches/a/d-id/1318306 An important paragraph: “In the cases of the largest data breaches, in 2014 a common point of vulnerability was the exploit of remote access methods to implant malware on systems that store, process, or transmit cardholder data. Frequently the point of … Read more