Kirk was executive editor for security and technology for Information Security Media Group. Reporting from Sydney, Australia, he created "The Ransomware Files" podcast, which tells the harrowing stories of IT pros who have fought back against ransomware.
It's a laser-focused hack. Literally. Voice-controlled assistants such as Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri and Google's Assistant can be tricked into executing commands by precisely directing a laser beam at a device's microphone, according to new research released on Monday.
The cybersecurity community had been holding its breath in anticipation of mass attacks targeting the severe BlueKeep vulnerability in Windows, which Microsoft has patched. The first in-the-wild exploits have now been seen, although they don't appear to constitute an emergency - at least yet.
A trio of domain name registrars are mandating a password reset after a breach affecting about 22 million accounts occurred in late August. Web.com and two of its brands, Network Solutions and Register.com are contacting victims via email.
Mobile devices are attractive targets for attackers because of messages, call logs, location data and more. State-sponsored groups are digging ever deeper into mobile hacking, says Brian Robison of BlackBerry Cylance.
Facebook is suing NSO Group, a spyware company, alleging it developed a potent exploit to spy on WhatsApp messages sent by diplomats, journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents. Facebook is seeking damages and an injunction forbidding NSO Group from accessing its infrastructure.
Agile environments benefit from development platforms and open-source software, but that also raises the risks of attacks seeded in those supply chains, says Chet Wisniewski of Sophos, who describes steps that organizations can take to mitigate the risks.
Democratic lawmakers are urging the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to open an investigation into whether Amazon violated federal law by failing to the prevent Capital One's devastating data breach. Amazon dismissed the request as "baseless and a publicity attempt from opportunistic politicians."
Avast's CCleaner utility is popular - with attackers. For the second time in two years, the company says it believes CCleaner was the intended targeted of a carefully plotted intrusion executed between May and October.
Virtual private network provider NordVPN says an error by its Finish data center provider allowed an attacker to gain control of a server, but it says its broader service was not hacked. One security expert, however, says the attacker would have had "God mode" on one VPN node.
Zappos is close to settling a long-running class action lawsuit filed by consumers over a 2012 data breach. The online shoe and clothing retailer's proposed compensation would be a 10 percent discount on a future online purchase. A federal judge has granted preliminary approval to the deal.
Organizations are accepting that the network perimeter no longer serves as the "ultimate defense" and thus adapting zero-trust principles, including least privilege, based on the understanding that they may already have been compromised, says Darran Rolls of SailPoint.
The threat and risk surface of internet of things devices deployed in automobiles is exponentially increasing, which poses risks for the coming wave of autonomous vehicles, says Campbell Murray of BlackBerry. Large code bases, which likely have many hidden software bugs, are part of the problem, he says.
Pitney Bowes says it was infected by file-encrypting malware that has affected online accounts and mailing products but that client data doesn't appear to be at risk. The postage meter maker says "all options" are being considered for recovery, meaning that it could pay a ransom.
Cybersecurity vendor Imperva's breach post-mortem should serve as a warning to all those using cloud services: One mistake can turn into a calamity. The company accidently left an AWS API key exposed to the internet; the key was then stolen and used to steal a sensitive customer database.
Twitter apologized on Tuesday for repurposing phone numbers provided by users for security features for use in targeted advertising, claiming the move was a mistake. Earlier, Facebook was reprimanded for a similar practice.
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