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.
Colonial Pipeline, which operates the biggest gasoline conduit to the East Coast, said it has no estimate on when it could restart the 5,500-mile pipeline that it shut Friday after a cyberattack. The company took systems offline to contain the threat, temporarily halting all pipeline operations and affecting some IT system. In a statement, the company said the Colonial Pipeline operations team is developing a system restart plan, and while their mainlines remain offline, some smaller lateral lines between terminals and delivery points are now operational.
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.
In a blog post commemorating World Password Day, Google announced the move to make users sign in via a second step after entering a password, such as a mobile app.
Global insurance company AXA said Thursday it will stop writing cyber-insurance policies in France that reimburse customers for extortion payments made to ransomware criminals.
University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) will be a pilot site designated to develop a federal program that will improve the nation’s ability to respond to future catastrophic events.
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