« Talkin' Passwords | Main | How to Securely Erase Removable Media Using Mac OS X »

Tuesday, 22 April 2014

Top 5 #infosec reads: April 14-18, 2014

by Matt Piscitello

 This week's Top InfoSec reads feature WiFi recon drones, new legal ground for bloggers, First Amendment rights with respect to hacktivism, a shameless self-promotion, and more news on Heartbleed.

Darpa Turns Aging Surveillance Drones Into WiFi Hotspots

Retired recon drones have been re-purposed as wireless hubs in remote zones. Dave adds, "what a poster child for encrypting traffic..."

Appeals Court Says Blogs Are Not Only Media, They're An Important Source of News and Commentary

A case in Florida breaks new barriers by defining bloggers as journalists. The ruling says that blogs and bloggers do in fact fall within the reach of media for the purposes of the courtroom. This entitles bloggers to the same protection that journalists are afforded in the eyes of the law.

Hacktivism and First Amendment: Drawing the Line  Between Cyber Protests and Crime

Internet activism and its varied iterations walks a tightrope between Freedom of Speech protection and outright criminal behavior as specificed by the CFAA. This note from the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology asserts that over time, cyber attacks may fall under the protection of the First Amendment.

Use ESET's Security Awareness Vidoes to Make Your Family Safer Online

Shameless self-promotion. My review of ESET's security videos concludes that these provide users with helpful tips and recommendations for surfing the web in safety.

Targeted Attack Uses Heartbleed to Hijack VPN Sessions

Threats from Heartbleed continue as cyber attacks leverage it to gain access to private keys and network sessions. The important thing to keep in mind when reading this kind of news is that we now have knowledge of these attacks compared to two years ago when they were flying under the radar.

Posted at 09:00 AM in Top Infosec Reads |

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

The comments to this entry are closed.

Find me on Mastodon and Facebook

Spotlight Posts

  • Interisle's Phishing Landscape 2024 is here
    Our Interisle team today announced the publication of an industry report, Phishing Landscape 2024, A Study of the Scope and Distribution of Phishing. Interisle’s fourth annual study examines nearly four million phishing reports collected from May 2023 to April 2024 and provides historical measurements using over 15 million phishing reports collected at the Cybercrime Information Center over a four year period. Findings from the study: • The total number of phishing attacks grew to ~1.9 million incidents worldwide. • Phishing attacks hosted at subdomain providers increased by 450,000+ reported names, representing 24% of all phishing attacks. • The use of...
  • Malware Trends, January - March, 2024 posted at the Cybercrime Information Center
    2024 began with a rise in domain names reported for hosting malware unlike any we have seen since we began measuring malware attacks in 2021. The 1Q2024 Top 20 TLDs included 10 new gTLDs, 6 ccTLDs, and 4 legacy gTLDs. Only three TLDs remained in the top 5 TLDs (COM, NET, INFO) from the prior quarter. The ORG and BR TLDs were replaced by SHOP (over 3,000% increase) and TOP (over 700% increase). All but one registrar in 1Q2024’s Top 20 registrar ranking showed increases of 100% or more. Several registrars had 4- and 5-figure percentage increases in domains reported....
  • Malware Trends, January - March, 2024 posted at the Cybercrime Information Center
    2024 began with a rise in domain names reported for hosting malware unlike any we have seen since we began measuring malware attacks in 2021. The 1Q2024 Top 20 TLDs included 10 new gTLDs, 6 ccTLDs, and 4 legacy gTLDs. Only three TLDs remained in the top 5 TLDs (COM, NET, INFO) from the prior quarter. The ORG and BR TLDs were replaced by SHOP (over 3,000% increase) and TOP (over 700% increase). All but one registrar in 1Q2024’s Top 20 registrar ranking showed increases of 100% or more. Several registrars had 4- and 5-figure percentage increases in domains reported....
  • Spotlight: Impersonation phishing using exact match hostnames
    Phishers have long embedded exact matches of brands in domain names that they register for phishing. Company, service, or product names in domains continue to deceive less technically savvy members of society. Phishers are increasingly using exact match strings to compose hostnames at free web sites for phishing. My Interisle colleagues and I looked at the web site domains and subdomains used in phishing attacks from November 2023 through January 2024. During that period, impersonation attacks against two brands stood out: United States Postal Service (USPS) and Facebook. Looking closely at these two brands, we are able to illustrate how...
  • Cybercrime supply chain interviews with Spamhaus Team
    The Spamhaus team recently interviewed me to learn more about Interisle's recent study, Cybercrime Supply Chain 2023, where we examine the supply chains used by cybercriminals to acquire resources for malware, spam, and phishing attacks. In Trends, policy and cheap TLDs - an interview with Dave Piscitello (Part 1), we dive into some of the study's key findings: Nearly 5 million domain names identified as resources for cybercrime. Over 1 million new gTLD domain names reported for spam activity. Over 500,000 subdomain hostnames reported as cybercrime resources at 229 subdomain resellers. The United States, China, India, Australia, and Hong Kong...

Search

My Photo

Categories