As an executive responsible for many aspects of running your business, it can be difficult and downright confusing trying to understand the balance between Web security and compliance. Your IT, information security, and internal audit teams may be telling you completely different things based on…
Danger: Open Ports – Remote Access Trojans (RATs) vs Worms
Having a good antivirus solution gives a warm, fuzzy feeling of safety: you know that your assets are virus free and that your network is secure. However, most antivirus solutions cannot detect Remote Administration Tools (aka Remote Access Trojans or just RATs), because their structure…
POS Security: Are my POS terminal credentials up for sale?
There is a black market for stolen credit card information: you can shop online for credit card data for prices between 20$ and 100$ per item. Underground websites like Silk Road (today Silk Road 2.0) offer the possibility to acquire this information anonymously (via The…
Heartbleed Used to Steal Credentials and Breach Community Health Systems
Last Monday, Community Health Systems (CHS) filed an 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, confirming a security breach which occurred in April and June, 2014. CHS blamed the breach on a group of Chinese hackers. The 8-K filing confirms that the hackers…
Common network security assessment oversights
Network security assessments are one of the most critical exercises performed for minimizing business risks. Your time is limited. You’ve got pressure from management to get things done. There’s so much to do and not enough time to do it. Yet, network security assessments are…
Making web security part of your IT governance program
Moving past IT compliance, IT “governance” is becoming the new area of focus in enterprises today. With compliance often being a more tactical business function, IT governance tends to operate at a higher level, especially in larger organizations. Internal audit, legal, and boards of directors…
Taking your network security assessment to the next level
There’s always a point in every IT professional’s career where he thinks he has everything figured out. We can get so caught up in our ways that we often overlook the fact that there are so many things we do on a daily basis that…
Top network security flaws you’re likely overlooking
There’s no doubt you know your network better than anyone else. The real question is, do you know whether you’ve checked for all relevant security flaws on all of your critical systems? Odds are you haven’t but that’s okay to an extent. No one has…
What you need to know about performing authenticated network security scans
Are you scanning your network hosts for security vulnerabilities while logged in as a user? If not, you should be. Authenticated testing can add a lot of value to your overall security assessment results. You’ll find a lot more missing patches, weak share permissions, and…