Protecting the water supply – hacker edition

Protecting the water supply – hacker edition

What can municipalities do to better protect their water supply systems? We reported recently about an attack against the water supply in Oldsmar, Florida, and worry about the potential for future and copycat attacks against other lightly defended water treatment systems in small towns worldwide and what can be done to stem such incursions. In…
Record‑breaking number of vulnerabilities reported in 2020

Record‑breaking number of vulnerabilities reported in 2020

High-severity and critical bugs disclosed in 2020 outnumber the sum total of vulnerabilities reported 10 years prior An analysis of data collected by the United States’ National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) about common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) has found that 2020 saw more reports of security loopholes than any other year to date.…
Beware of COVID‑19 vaccine scams and misinformation

Beware of COVID‑19 vaccine scams and misinformation

The vaccination push provides a vital shot in the arm for the world’s battle against the pandemic, but it’s also a topic ripe for exploitation by fraudsters and purveyors of misinformation The rollouts of COVID-19 vaccines are steadily gaining speed, sparking hope that we may see the end of the pandemic and return to normal…
Facebook etiquette: Behaviors you should avoid

Facebook etiquette: Behaviors you should avoid

Sharing your thoughts or photos for the world to see is now as easy as pushing a button, but even a seemingly harmless post may come back to haunt you Facebook, the white and blue social media behemoth, has been part of our lives for exactly 17 years. Some of us still remember the days…
Identity theft spikes amid pandemic

Identity theft spikes amid pandemic

The US Federal Trade Commission received 1.4 million reports of identity theft last year, double the number from 2019 The number of reported cases of identity theft in the United States doubled in 2020 year-on-year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has said. In a blogpost marking the start of Identity Theft Awareness Week, the FTC said that…
Google: Better patching could have prevented 1 in 4 zero‑days last year

Google: Better patching could have prevented 1 in 4 zero‑days last year

Vendors should fix the root cause of a vulnerability, rather than block just one path to triggering it, says Google Google’s Project Zero team revealed that a quarter of zero-day exploits detected in 2020 could have been prevented had the vendors issued proper patches for the underlying security flaws. In its Year in Review bloggpost,…
Kobalos – A complex Linux threat to high performance computing infrastructure

Kobalos – A complex Linux threat to high performance computing infrastructure

ESET researchers publish a white paper about unique multiplatform malware they’ve named Kobalos ESET researchers have analyzed malware that has been targeting high performance computing (HPC) clusters, among other high-profile targets. We reverse engineered this small, yet complex, malware that is portable to many operating systems including Linux, BSD, Solaris, and possibly AIX and Windows.…
Wormable Android malware spreads via WhatsApp messages

Wormable Android malware spreads via WhatsApp messages

“Download This application and Win Mobile Phone”, reads the message attempting to trick users into downloading a fake Huawei app Android users should watch out for new wormable malware that spreads through WhatsApp and lures the prospective victims into downloading an app from a website masquerading as Google Play. ESET malware researcher Lukas Stefanko looked…
Data Privacy Day: Top tips for safe remote learning

Data Privacy Day: Top tips for safe remote learning

As schools and students continue to contend with the very real cyber-risks of virtual classrooms, we share some advice for protecting children’s data and privacy The COVID-19 pandemic is still here, with pupils and students still soldiering on mostly remotely and focusing on their education from the confines of their houses. While another semester studying…
Apple patches three iOS zero‑days under attack

Apple patches three iOS zero‑days under attack

The company emits emergency updates to fix bugs affecting devices ranging from iPhones to Apple Watches Apple has rolled out an update for its iOS and iPadOS operating systems to patch three zero-day security flaws that are being actively exploited in the wild. The trio of flaws affects various versions of iPhones and iPads and…