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" If you want to keep living, Pay a ransom, or die ." This could happen, as researchers have found thousands of vulnerabilities in Pacemakers that hackers could exploit. Millions of people that rely on pacemakers to keep their hearts beating are at risk of software glitches and hackers, which could eventually take their lives. A pacemaker is a small electrical battery-operated device that's surgically implanted in the chest to help control the heartbeats. This device uses low-energy electrical pulses to stimulate the heart to beat at a normal rate. While cyber security firms are continually improving software and security systems to protect systems from hackers, medical devices such as insulin pumps or pacemakers are also vulnerable to life-threatening hacks. In a recent study, researchers from security firm White Scope analysed seven pacemaker products from four different vendors and discovered that they use more than 300 third-party libraries, 174 of which are

WikiLeaks has published a new batch of the ongoing Vault 7 leak , this time detailing an alleged CIA project that allowed the agency to turn Windows file servers into covert attack machines that can silently infect other computers of interest inside a targeted network. Codenamed Pandemic , the tool is a persistent implant for Microsoft Windows machines that share files with remote users on a local network. The documents leaked by the whistleblower organisation date from April 2014 to January 2015. According to WikiLeaks, Pandemic infect networks of Windows computers through the Server Message Block (SMB) file sharing protocol by replacing application code on-the-fly with a trojanized version of the software. "Pandemic is a tool which is run as kernel shellcode to install a file system filter driver," a leaked CIA manual reads. "The filter will 'replace' a target file with the given payload file when a remote user accesses the file via SMB (read-only, not w

Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords to safeguard human identities, a pressing question arises: How do we guarantee the security and integrity of these non-human counterparts? How do we authenticate, authorize, and regulate access for entities devoid of life but crucial for the functioning of critical systems? Let's break it down. The challenge Imagine a cloud-native application as a bustling metropolis of tiny neighborhoods known as microservices, all neatly packed into containers. These microservices function akin to diligent worker bees, each diligently performing its designated task, be it processing data, verifying credentials, or

Nobody likes to do router and firewall management. It often requires a lot of hard labor just keeping the infrastructure up and running. If you ever had to set up IPsec tunnels between different firewall brands, change a firewall rule and hope nothing breaks, upgrade to the latest software or urgently patch a vulnerability – you know what I am talking about. All of these issues have been with us basically forever. Recently, the list of complex tasks extended to getting cloud infrastructure connected to the rest of the network, and secure access for mobile users. There seems to be a change coming to this key part of IT, a silver lining if you will. We decided to take a look at one solution to this problem – the Cato Cloud from Cato Networks. Founded in 2015, Cato Networks provides a software-defined and cloud-based secure enterprise network that connects all locations, people and data to the Cato Cloud – a single, global, and secure network. Cato promises to simplify netwo

Is it wrong to hack back in order to counter hacking attack when you have become a victim? — this has been a long time debate. While many countries, including the United States, consider hacking back practices as illegal, many security firms and experts believe it as "a terrible idea" and officially "cautions" victims against it, even if they use it as a part of an active defense strategy. Accessing a system that does not belong to you or distributing code designed to enable unauthorized access to anyone's system is an illegal practice. However, this doesn't mean that this practice is not at all performed. In some cases, retribution is part of current defense offerings, and many security firms do occasionally hack the infrastructure of threat groups to unmask several high-profile malware campaigns. But a new proposed bill intended to amend section 1030 of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that would allow victims of ongoing cyber-attacks to fight

With the evolving hacking events around us, cyber-security skills are in high demand across all organizations and industries, because a shortage of skilled cyber security practitioners could leave an organization vulnerable to cyber attacks. But knowledge alone is not sufficient, 'certification as eligibility' also matters, which shows employers that you are serious about your career and eligible as you have demonstrated your technical ability in some form. I frequently receive emails and messages from my readers asking: Should I get certified?, Are certifications important to build up a career in IT?, What certifications can one get to start a career in information security? and more. These are some of the most frequent queries I came across, and in this article, I will attempt to answer these along with a solution on how to get started. Whether you are looking to launch your career in the IT industry, or perhaps get promoted at your current job — getting certified

Two suspected hackers have reportedly been arrested in London on suspicion of hacking 70 percent of the CCTV cameras in Washington with ransomware ahead of President Donald Trump's inauguration last month. The arrest took place on 20th January by the officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) of UK after it received a request from United States authorities, but it has not been disclosed until now. The NCA raided a house in the south of London last month and detained a British man and a Swedish woman, both 50-years-old, reported The Sun. Some 123 of the 187 police CCTV cameras used to monitor public areas in Washington DC stopped working on 12 January, just 8 days before the inauguration of Donald Trump, after a cyber attack hit the storage devices. The cyber attack lasted for about three days, eventually leaving the CCTV cameras out of recording anything between 12 and 15 January. It was reported that the surveillance cameras were left useless after a ransomware made

2017 is the year of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), Big Data, Virtual Reality (VR) and Cyber Security with major companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, IBM and Salesforce and technology pioneers like SpaceX founder Elon Musk investing in these hot technologies. Since everyone seems to be talking about the hottest trend — artificial intelligence and machine learning — broadly, 62 percent of large enterprises will be using AI technologies by 2018, says a report from Narrative Science. But why AI is considered to be the next big technology? Because it can enhance and change everything about the way we think, interact, manufacture and deliver. Last year, we saw a significant number of high-profile hacks targeting big organizations, governments, small enterprises, and individuals — What's more worrisome? It's going to get worse, and we need help. No doubt, we, the human, can find vulnerabilities but can not analyze millions of programs with billions of lines of codes at o

Recent data breaches have taught us something very important — online users are spectacularly bad at choosing their strong passwords. Today majority of online users are vulnerable to cyber attacks, not because they are not using any best antivirus or other security measures, but because they are using weak passwords that are easy to remember and reuse same passwords on multiple accounts and reusable passwords to secure their online accounts. Ideally, your password should be at least 16 characters long and should contain a combination of digits, symbols, uppercase letters and lowercase letters. Most of us know about this good password practice, but we just ignore it because it is really painful for us to memorize complex password strings for different accounts. Here comes the need of a Password Manager OR  Password Management Software . Password Manager can significantly reduce your password memorizing problem, along with the cure for your bad habit of setting weak password

The FBI hacked into more than 8,000 computers in 120 different countries with just a single warrant during an investigation into a dark web child pornography website, according to a newly published court filings. This FBI's mass hacking campaign is related to the high-profile child pornography Playpen case and represents the largest law enforcement hacking campaign known to date. The warrant was initially issued in February 2015 when the FBI seized the Playpen site and set up a sting operation on the dark web site, in which the agency deployed malware to obtain IP addresses from alleged site's visitors. The piece of malware used by the FBI is known as a Network Investigative Technique (NIT). The malware was used for at least 13 days to break into the computer of users who visited certain threads on Playpen and then sent their IP addresses back to the bureau. Earlier this year, court documents related to the Playpen case revealed that the FBI hacked over 1,000 alleg