Data Security – Page 3 – Computer Security Articles

Would killing Bitcoin end ransomware?

March 3, 2017 admin Data Security, IDG Insider, Security

Credit to Author: Ryan Francis| Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2017 12:51:00 -0800

Ransomware is running rampant. The SonicWall GRID Threat Network detected an increase from 3.8 million ransomware attacks in 2015 to 638 million in 2016. According to a Radware report, 49 percent of businesses were hit by a ransomware attack in 2016. Quite often the attacker asks for some amount of cybercurrency – usually Bitcoin – in exchange for providing a decryption key.

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(Insider Story)

ComputerWorld Independent

Cloudflare bug exposed passwords, other sensitive website data

February 24, 2017 admin Data Security, Security

Credit to Author: Lucian Constantin| Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2017 08:47:00 -0800

For months, a bug in Cloudflare’s content optimization systems exposed sensitive information sent by users to websites that use the company’s content delivery network. The data included passwords, session cookies, authentication tokens and even private messages.

Cloudflare acts as a reverse proxy for millions of websites, including those of major internet services and Fortune 500 companies, for which it provides security and content optimization services behind the scenes. As part of that process, the company’s systems modify HTML pages as they pass through its servers in order to rewrite HTTP links to HTTPS, hide certain content from bots, obfuscate email addresses, enable Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and more.

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ComputerWorld Independent

The SHA1 hash function is now completely unsafe

February 23, 2017 admin Data Security, encryption, Security

Credit to Author: Lucian Constantin| Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2017 14:35:00 -0800

Security researchers have achieved the first real-world collision attack against the SHA-1 hash function, producing two different PDF files with the same SHA-1 signature. This shows that the algorithm’s use for security-sensitive functions should be discontinued as soon as possible.

SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm 1) dates back to 1995 and has been known to be vulnerable to theoretical attacks since 2005. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology has banned the use of SHA-1 by U.S. federal agencies since 2010, and digital certificate authorities have not been allowed to issue SHA-1-signed certificates since Jan. 1, 2016, although some exemptions have been made.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Tips for negotiating with cyber extortionists

February 17, 2017 admin Data Security, IDG Insider, Security

Credit to Author: Jaikumar Vijayan| Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2017 04:51:00 -0800

Paying ransom to a cyber extortionist holding enterprise data hostage might seem like a poor idea in principle but sometimes it might the best, or even only, option for extricating your organization from a crisis.

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(Insider Story)

ComputerWorld Independent

How to eliminate insider threats

February 2, 2017 admin Data Security, IT Skills & Training, Security

eliminate insider threats 1 — Insider threats are a major security problem

ComputerWorld Independent

Study: 62% of security pros don’t know where their sensitive data is

January 30, 2017 admin Data Privacy, Data Security, IDG Insider, Security

Ask organizations today about the value of data and you’re likely to hear it measured in terms of competitive advantage, customer experience and revenue generation. As Dante Disparte and Daniel Wagner put it in a December 2016 HBR article, data is “becoming a centerpiece of corporate value creation.”

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(Insider Story)

ComputerWorld Independent

The essential guide to anti-malware tools

January 25, 2017 admin Data Security, IDG Insider, Malware & Vulnerabilities, Security

It’s a sad fact of life in IT nowadays that some form of preparation for dealing with malware is part and parcel of what systems and network administrators must do. This goes above and beyond normal due diligence in warding off malware. It includes a proper appreciation of the work and risks involved in handling malware infections, and acquiring a toolkit of repair and cleanup tools to complement protective measures involved in exercising due diligence. It should also include at least two forms of insurance – one literal, the other metaphorical – that can help avert or cover an organization against costs and liabilities that malware could otherwise force the organization to incur.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Researchers propose a way to use your heartbeat as a password

January 25, 2017 admin Data Security, Emerging Technology, encryption, Healthcare IT, Security

Researchers at Binghamton State University in New York think your heart could be the key to your personal data. By measuring the electrical activity of the heart, researchers say they can encrypt patients’ health records.

The fundamental idea is this: In the future, all patients will be outfitted with a wearable device, which will continuously collect physiological data and transmit it to the patients’ doctors. Because electrocardiogram (ECG) signals are already collected for clinical diagnosis, the system would simply reuse the data during transmission, thus reducing the cost and computational power needed to create an encryption key from scratch.

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