Weekly Infosec News Brief 21-27 September

ABA Study Shows the Law Firm Breaches are on the Rise

In a survey released this week, the ABA reported that approximately 20% of attorneys surveyed reported that their firms had experienced an information security breach of some type over the past year. Of respondents, 3% reported experiencing breaches the resulted in unauthorized access to client data, and 5% reported that their breaches resulted in the need to notify clients. The greatest increase was seen in firms with 100 or more lawyers.
http://www.americanbar.org/groups/departments_offices/legal_technology_resources/publications.html
https://bol.bna.com/aba-survey-data-breaches-rising-at-large-firms/


 Adobe Releases New Flash Version, Fixes 23 Security Flaws

Last Monday, Adobe released a new version of their Flash browser plug-in, version 19.0.0.185. This release fixes 23 security issues with Flash, at least some of which Adobe considers of the highest possible priority (Adobe doesn’t provide priority ratings for individual vulnerabilities fixed, only for the overall update.) The vulnerabilities (or at least some of them) affect both the Windows and Macintosh versions of Flash. If you want to check what version of Flash you are running, you can visit this page.
https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player/apsb15-23.html
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2985152/application-security/adobe-updates-flash-player-to-patch-23-flaws.html
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/09/adobe-flash-patch-plus-shockwave-shocker/


Firefox Releases a New Version Fixing Some Vulnerabilities and Adding Chat Features

Mozilla has released Firefox version 41, which includes fixes for 19 security problems, four of which are deemed “critical.” The new version also introduces video and voice chat features, as well as instant messaging functionality, all built into the browser. This may be a convenience for some passionate Firefox users, but for corporate IT departments it is likely to be unwelcomed, seen as yet another route around organizational policies for communications.
http://www.scmagazine.com/new-firefox-version-comes-out-with-vulnerability-patches/article/440254/


Google Plans to Discontinue Support for SSLv3 and for RC4 Cipher

The world’s most popular website and web service provider has announced that they are planning to stop supporting the use of SSLv3 and of the RC4 cipher for SSL/TLS on their various websites and services. These are old methods used for encryption of HTTPS traffic that have long been considered less-than-secure, and for which further vulnerabilities have been discovered over the past year. Many web servers have continue to allow clients to connect using these old protocols and ciphers due to fears of incompatibility with older browsers some customers may be using (about half of sites still support both of these). The fact that the company that serves more web clients from all over the world than anyone else is ready to remove this support is a strong sign to the rest of us that the time has come to do so. If you are unsure of what methods your website supports, you can test it via Qualys’ SSLLabs.
http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2015/09/disabling-sslv3-and-rc4.html
http://www.scmagazine.com/google-phasing-out-support-for-sslv3-rc4/article/439799/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Weekly Infosec News Brief: 14-20 March

Image
Major Media Websites Caught up inNew Malicious Advertising Attacks Last week multiple major advertising networks, including Google's DoubleClick, AppNexus, Rubicon, and AOL were abused by attackers to serve up malicious advertisements on major media sites. These malicious advertisements were redirecting to the "Angler" exploit kit, which uses multiple means to attempt to compromise a browser and install malware. While such malicious ads are common on smaller websites, they are not unheard-of on major media sites. This outbreak, however, was unusually large and long-lived, lasting at least the better part of two days. Given how common malicious web ads are, some security experts are recommending the use of ad blocking technology in web browsers. http://www.computerworld.com/article/3044565/security/advertising-based-cyberattacks-hit-bbc-new-york-times-msn.html Malicious Macros in Word Documents Used to Install Malware with No Files Needed Everything old is new a
Read more

Weekly Infosec News Brief 20-26 July

Image
FBI Sees Massive Increase in Espionage, Including Industrial Espionage, Against the US The FBI on Thursday issued a press release discussing what they believe is an increasing threat of economic espionage against US companies. They estimate that such espionage may cost the US as much as "hundreds of billions" of dollars a year. This espionage is not just directed against large industrial companies, but any place where trade secrets and innovations might be found, including third-party organizations (e.g. business partners, vendors, consultants, lawyers, etc.) affiliated with targeted companies. A key take-away is that the threat is more widespread than most people think, and that few organizations are immune. https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-announces-economic-espionage-awareness-campaign http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/politics/fbi-economic-espionage/ Microsoft Releases Out-of-Cycle Patch for Critical Font Driver Bug A flaw uncovered in connecti
Read more

Weekly Infosec News Brief: 22-28 February

Image
Ransomware Observed to Jump from One Device to Another via the Cloud Researchers described last week an incident where they observed malicious "ransomware" propagating from one device to another via cloud-based file synchronization. When the ransomware encrypted files on one machine that synchronized files to a specific folder, it spread to other PCs that synchronized to that same folder. This type of phenomenon is simply another reason for organizations to serious consider limiting or eliminating the use of such file-synchronizing software within their networks. http://www.scmagazine.com/researchers-confirm-cases-of-ransomware-encryption-jumping-devices-via-cloud-apps/article/479572/ New OpenSSL Patches Soon to Come The OpenSSL project team announced last Thursday that they are working on patches to fix at least two "high" severity vulnerabilities in OpenSSL. This is the software that powers the cryptographic security layer of many web servers, browser
Read more