Logical Security

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Why should you care and how do you defend your organization against hardware breaches?

U.S. President Joe Biden has signed an executive order (EO) to improve the cybersecurity of the U.S.  As the U.S. faces persistent and increasingly sophisticated malicious cyber campaigns that threaten the public sector, the private sector, and ultimately people’s security and privacy, the EO seeks to improve efforts to identify, deter, protect against, detect, and respond to these actions and actors. Specifically, the EO will: 

HP Inc. released its HP Wolf Security Blurred Lines & Blindspots Report, a comprehensive global study assessing organizational cyber risk in an era of remote work. The report shows that changing work styles and behaviors are creating new vulnerabilities for companies, individuals, and their data.

COVID made “flatten the curve” a household phrase in 2020, but did you know the concept also applies to vulnerability exploits? It turns out that what’s past is prologue in exploit trends. By tracking which attacks are being exploited the most, organizations discover important information to help proactively determine their vulnerability and risk. But it is also important to track attacks where activity has increased the most within a specified timeframe. It only takes one critical exploit to cause significant damage and, once inside the network, the attacker will need to move laterally and probably deploy additional exploits. That’s why understanding which exploits have the greatest likelihood of arriving on the network’s doorstep helps organizations prioritize patch management and risk assessment. This remains top of mind as cyber adversaries continue to maximize vulnerabilities, as we have recently seen with DearCry ransomware, for example.

Enterprise security teams need the ability to see, and they need good sound—sound that is clear, intelligible, and understood, every time. Only then can security teams acquire actionable business intelligence, increase operational efficiency, and mitigate safety and security risks. What are some examples within enterprise security where “good sound” and high-definition audio can help security teams to reduce security risks?

Almost every American adult knows that cyberattacks and breaches are ubiquitous and have primarily targeted companies and government entities. They might even know that the single most common breach these days is ransomware, a malicious process by which hackers dismantle computer systems and don’t fix them until a ransom is paid. Few, however, are aware that ransomware is targeting a new set of highly vulnerable victims en masse. In recent months, the majority of successful ransomware attacks have struck K-12 schools nationwide, casting a whole new light on the number of Americans highly susceptible to a cyberattack.

News quickly spread about a vulnerable call recording app for iPhone named “Call Recorder,” or “Acr call recorder,” as its listing in the Apple App Store states. TechCrunch was the first outlet to flag a design flaw with the mobile application’s API when it obtained call recordings from AWS S3 cloud storage to prove it was insecure and therefore open to API-based attacks. The weaknesses exhibited by the mobile app represent a vital shift occurring in cybersecurity towards the importance of the protection and hardening of APIs. From this instance alone, we can learn a number of valuable lessons as API attacks are set to rise drastically this year. Most of the issues in the Call Recorder vulnerability map directly to the OWASP API Security Top 10, a list that captures the most common API mistakes. This document is a great reference for DevOps and security teams that are looking to implement strong API security that can be applied to both web and mobile application systems, including those in the cloud.