Weekend Update

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


One Hundred Years Ago, Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity Baffled the Press and the Public

Few people claimed to fully understand it, but the esoteric theory still managed to spark the public’s imagination.


Pentesters Charges Reduced But The Drama Continues

Iowegians have a reputation for being hard-headed and stubborn, but this case has become a ridiculous side show of police overstepping the boundaries of justice and just plain old common sense.  Read the most recent statement by Coalfire CEO.


The City Of Baltimore Blew Off A $76,000 Ransomware Demand Only To Find Out A Bunch Of Its Data Had Never Been Backed Up

The City of Baltimore was hit with a ransomware attack in May of this year. Criminals using remodeled and rebranded NSA exploits (EternalBlue) knocked out a “majority” of the city’s servers and crippled many of its applications. More details didn’t surface until September when the city’s government began reshuffling the budget to cover the expenses of recovering from the attack.

The person in charge of the city’s systems was Frank Johnson, who went on leave (presumably permanently) after a post-attack audit found the IT director hadn’t done much IT directing.


350+ hackers hunt down missing people in first such hackathon

Organizers said 100 leads were generated every 10 minutes by contestants using OSINT – open-source intelligence such as online searches.


Pitney Bowes and Groupe M6 join ransomware’s victim list

Two more large organisations find themselves struggling after a ransomware attack…


Watch out for this latest LinkedIn phish that’s ‘sent’ by a friend

We recently showed you how crooks rip off social networking passwords – here’s what they do with stolen accounts.


DNS amplification attacks increase by 1,000% since 2018

Researchers said a new defense system DNSSEC is fueling a wave of DNS amplification attacks.  Cybersecurity firm Nexusguard said they saw a 1000% increase in DNS amplification attacks in the last three months.


 

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About the Author:

I am a cybersecurity and IT instructor, cybersecurity analyst, pen-tester, trainer, and speaker. I am an owner of the WyzCo Group Inc. In addition to consulting on security products and services, I also conduct security audits, compliance audits, vulnerability assessments and penetration tests. I also teach Cybersecurity Awareness Training classes. I work as an information technology and cybersecurity instructor for several training and certification organizations. I have worked in corporate, military, government, and workforce development training environments I am a frequent speaker at professional conferences such as the Minnesota Bloggers Conference, Secure360 Security Conference in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, the (ISC)2 World Congress 2016, and the ISSA International Conference 2017, and many local community organizations, including Chambers of Commerce, SCORE, and several school districts. I have been blogging on cybersecurity since 2006 at http://wyzguyscybersecurity.com
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