New Exploit Uses Disk Images to Deliver Malware

There is a new email attachment exploit making the rounds, that uses a file type called a disk image.  The file extension for this kind of file is ISO.  ISO files are not inherently dangerous, and in the exploit work much the same way that a ZIP attachment works.  This file type can sneak past email security filters because it is generally seen as ...

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SCADA Plus Smartphone Equals Insecure Utilities

What if cyber-criminals or enemy nations could take over the computer control systems that run electric utilities, water systems, or traffic control systems for traffic lights and commuter trains.  The effects could be disastrous.

We have written about these systems before.  These are known as SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) or ICS (industrial control systems).  One of the claims of the industries that use SCADA systems is that they are ...

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Typosquatting – When Domain Name Typing Errors Produce Unfortunate Results

Registering common misspellings of popular website domain names is a big business.  A recent study found that 80% of all possible one-character typographical variants of Facebook, Google, and Apple are registered.  Registering close misspellings of domain names is know as “typosquatting.”

Security company Sophos recently analysed all the possible one-letter variations of six popular websites, a whopping 2249 unique site names.  Of the 2249 possibilities, 67% or 1502 domain names were actually registered.  ...

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Sunday Funnies – Artificial Intelligence

Since we take an interested in AI and robotics in this blog, the following church sign seemed a good candidate for Sunday Funnies.  The most recent articles on the subjects of AI and “machine learning” seem to be saying the threat of AI is overblown, and is no match for the abstract reasoning prowess of human intelligence.  This sign brings us a sobering wake up call.

From Pinterest

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Weekend Update

A quick Saturday digest of cybersecurity news articles from other sources.


Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week

File early or an impostor may get your refund.  Especially now that the Equifax credit trove is in the wild.

01/29/2018 08:27 AM EST  Original release date: January 29, 2018

Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week is January ...

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Do You Accept Credit Cards? How Credit Card Breaches Happen

If your business accepts credit cards for payment, then your a subject to the regulations of the Payment Card Industry.  This is known as PCI-DSS Compliance.  PCI compliance company Security Metrics recently released an infographic that shows the main compliance failures that lead to credit card breaches in 2017.  Here are some of the startling take-aways:

  • Businesses that took credit ...
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Phishing Sites Using HTTPS Too

When you see the secure HTTPS protocol at the beginning of a web address, or see the green “secure site” padlock symbol, does this mean that the site is safe?  Unfortunately, the answer is NO.  There is some confusion among computer users about what HTTPS really means.  This confusion is being exploited by cyber-criminals running phishing exploits.

HTTPS or secure hypertext ...

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Super Blue Blood Moon

The rare Tuesday post to advise about an impending event.  Tomorrow there is a triple lunar event.  A blue moon, which is when the moon appears twice in the same calendar month, a super moon, which is when the moon is closest in its rather wobbly orbit around the earth, and a blood moon, which is a lunar eclipse event when the moon passes through earth’s shadow, and the color ...

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