Resources

You were hit with ransomware. You panic. You search “ransomware response” or “ransomware repair” and among the top results is a link that reads “Recover Encrypted Files - Guaranteed.” Sounds like you found the solution! None of us wants to pay the ransomware operators. If there is a legitimate solution that avoids sending tens of thousands (if not millions) of dollars via cryptocurrency to threat actors overseas, it’s worth paying for.

Background

The cyber security industry is reeling from another large scale, targeted attack. What was initially reported as a breach of FireEye red team tools on December 8th has now been exposed as a much wider, potentially catastrophic breach affecting the SolarWinds Orion software. SolarWinds stated a threat actor inserted malware,  SUNBURST or Solorigate, into a service providing trojanized software updates for its Orion platform, used by public and private companies to track IT resources. To date (December 16th, 2020), as many as 18,000 organizations have been affected by SUNBURST, announced SolarWinds. On December 14, Reuters and the Washington Post reported the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the State Department, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were also compromised as a result of the infected Orion distribution.

The world’s most popular messaging and social media apps are rolling out new privacy features allowing users to send content that will self-delete after a short time. On November 5, WhatsApp announced “disappearing messages” that are automatically erased after a week; on November 12, WhatsApp’s parent company Facebook introduced “vanish mode” for Messenger and Instagram, seamlessly deleting messages after users leave their chat. And on November 17, Twitter launched “Fleets,” messages with 24-hour lifespans.

Republished from October 2019

Twitter is a fun and easy way to engage with pop culture and maybe even spark a spirited discussion. Many of us on twitter can retweet/share without thinking or researching what tweets truly say, causing them to spread quickly to a larger audience. But, the sad fact is, some tweets might end up being misinformation or disinformation, especially politically-oriented tweets.

In August 2020, Microsoft posted an article focused on email authentication utilizing their Azure Active Directory (AD) authentication and the use of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).

ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 18, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- GroupSense, a threat intelligence company, today announced a special package of its Election Threat Protection offering for state and city governments. This package of services includes a readiness assessment, pre-election preparations, and cyber threat monitoring both during and after an election. This approach to election security protects city and state governments and their citizens from cyberattacks on voting technology, mis/disinformation campaigns, ransomware attacks, hacktivism, physical threats and other crimes.

Dave shares a story of an attempt on his father's Verizon account, Joe has the story of an Amazon gift card phishing attempt, The Catch of the Day is a funny phishing email, and later in the show, Joe checks in with Kurtis Minder from GroupSense. They dig a little deeper into some of the topics Kurtis discussed in his previous appearance on our show. 

ARLINGTON, Va., April 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- GroupSense, a digital risk protection company, today announced it has named Adam Bregenzer as chief technology officer and Jeffrey Duran as chief marketing officer. Bregenzer will be responsible for the direction and implementation of GroupSense's technology roadmap, particularly in the area of frictionless delivery of finished, actionable digital risk intelligence into customer security operations. Duran, a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, will lead the vision and strategy for the company's marketing operations.