Think Wi-Fi has become more secure in the past few decades? Recent news proves it’s time to think again. It’s been nearly two decades since mobile Wi-Fi snooping, known as “wardriving,” became popular. This practice, where individuals drive around in cars with Wi-Fi “sniffers,” looking for open or easily hackable Wi-Fi networks, has been joined by warwalking, warbiking and even warballooning. For many, seeking out and hopping on other Wi-Fi networks was a [...]

Earlier this year, we talked about the Wannacry and Petya ransomware attacks and the part that human mistakes play in their success. There, we focused on the importance of making system updates a priority. You can read that article, here. This month, we’ll explore other “computer control” missteps that invite cyberattacks and system infections. Inappropriate or missing administrator controls With Wannacry, the biggest source of infection was non-IT personnel with local administrator rights. When security [...]

For most of the past decade, security experts have been proclaiming every year “the Year of the Hack,” and yet each year, cyber criminals manage to up their game. This year has been especially dangerous, as criminals used ransomware to lock up millions (if not billions) of files and extort an untold amount of money from their victims. Making matters worse, in many cases the ransom was a distraction rather than the end game, with [...]

As cyberattackers become increasingly aggressive while expanding their targets to critical systems that literally could impact people’s lives, we are left to ask, “What’s next, and how can we stop it?” I’ll provide some advice here, but first, let me share a little background. It’s longer than our usual articles, so please stay with me. The Situation Is Moving from Serious to Dire If you weren’t affected directly, you probably heard about the WannaCry attack, [...]

With the advent of Advanced Threat Detection (ATD), sandboxing—whereby a potentially dangerous email is detonated in a safe environment before delivery—has become a common mechanism for stopping malicious attachments in their tracks. Unfortunately, the spread of this technique may also be engendering some complacency among security teams. Is the sandbox approach bulletproof when it comes to preventing malicious attachments from getting into your network? From what we have seen, the answer is “No.” Already seen [...]