In late July, the government of Kazakhstan attempted to perform a mass man-in-the-middle attack on Kazakh citizens. Users of all Kazakh mobile networks were asked to install a government-issued CA certificate to continue using selected sites such as Google services, Facebook, and Instagram. Under global…
How To Prevent DOM-based Cross-site Scripting
DOM-based Cross-site Scripting (DOM XSS) is a particular type of a Cross-site Scripting vulnerability. It uses the Document Object Model (DOM), which is a standard way to represent HTML objects in a hierarchical manner. As with all other Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities, this type of…
What Is a Reverse Shell
To gain control over a compromised system, an attacker usually aims to gain interactive shell access for arbitrary command execution. With such access, they can try to elevate their privileges to obtain full control of the operating system. However, most systems are behind firewalls and…
How to Prevent Blind SQL Injections: The Basics
Blind SQL Injections are a subtype of SQL Injection vulnerabilities. Exploiting Blind SQL Injections is more difficult and more time consuming for the attacker but the consequences to web application security are similar. Successful exploitation of the database query language gives the attacker control over…
Cyber Threats, Vulnerabilities, and Risks
Terms such as cyber threats, vulnerabilities, and risks are often used interchangeably and confused. This post aims to define each term, highlight how they differ, and show how they are related to one another. Cyber Threats Cyber threats, or simply threats, refer to cybersecurity circumstances…
7 Cybersecurity KPIs That Security Analysts Should Focus On
Being a CyberSec specialist is frustrating. It often seems like a new cybersecurity key performance indicator (KPI) is invented every week. However, there are some good reasons for this. A main source of frustration is the need for cybersecurity teams to constantly justify the cost…
Instagram Awards a $30,000 Bounty for a Serious Flaw
Laxman Muthiyah, an Indian security researcher, earned $30,000 for finding a serious flaw in the Instagram password reset mechanism. If exploited, the flaw would have let an attacker gain control over any Instagram account in 10 minutes with an investment of approximately $150. The flaw…
Misconfiguration Causes a Leak of One Hundred Million Financial Records
According to a statement by Capital One released on July 19, an unauthorized party gained access to the company’s customer data: approximately 106 million individuals in the United States and Canada. Data was stored in Amazon S3 buckets but accessed using Capital One infrastructure. Capital…
Dynamic Program Analysis and Static Code Analysis in Web Security
There are two primary approaches to analyzing the security of web applications: dynamic program analysis (dynamic application security testing – DAST), also known as black-box testing, and static code analysis (static application security testing – SAST), also known as white-box testing. Both approaches have their…