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French data protection regulators on Thursday found the use of Google Analytics a breach of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws in the country, almost a month after a  similar decision  was reached in Austria. To that end, the National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) ruled that the transatlantic movement of Google Analytics data to the U.S. is not "sufficiently regulated" citing a violation of  Articles 44 et seq.  of the data protection decree, which govern the transfers of personal data to third countries or international entities. Specifically the independent administrative regulatory body highlighted the lack of equivalent privacy protections and the risk that "American intelligence services would access personal data transferred to the United States if the transfers were not properly regulated." "[A]lthough Google has adopted additional measures to regulate data transfers in the context of the Google An

Microsoft on Monday disclosed details of a recently patched security vulnerability in Apple's macOS operating system that could be weaponized by a threat actor to expose users' personal information. Tracked as CVE-2021-30970, the flaw concerns a logic issue in the Transparency, Consent and Control (TCC) security framework, which enables users to configure the privacy settings of their apps and provide access to protected files and app data. The  Security & Privacy pane  in the macOS System Preferences app serves as the front end of TCC. Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team, which reported the vulnerability to Apple on July 15, 2021, dubbed the flaw " powerdir ." Apple  addressed  the issue as part of macOS 11.6 and 12.1 updates released in December 2021 with improved state management. While Apple does enforce a policy that limits access to TCC to only apps with full disk access, it's possible to orchestrate an attack wherein a malicious application could

Super Low RPO with Continuous Data Protection: Dial Back to Just Seconds Before an Attack Zerto , a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, can help you detect and recover from ransomware in near real-time. This solution leverages continuous data protection (CDP) to ensure all workloads have the lowest recovery point objective (RPO) possible. The most valuable thing about CDP is that it does not use snapshots, agents, or any other periodic data protection methodology. Zerto has no impact on production workloads and can achieve RPOs in the region of 5-15 seconds across thousands of virtual machines simultaneously. For example, the environment in the image below has nearly 1,000 VMs being protected with an average RPO of just six seconds! Application-Centric Protection: Group Your VMs to Gain Application-Level Control   You can protect your VMs with the Zerto application-centric approach using Virtual Protection Groups (VPGs). This logical grouping of VMs ensures that your whole applica

Italy's antitrust regulator has fined both Apple and Google €10 million each for what it calls are "aggressive" data practices and for not providing consumers with clear information on commercial uses of their personal data during the account creation phase. The Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM)  said  "Google and Apple did not provide clear and immediate information on the acquisition and use of user data for commercial purposes," adding the tech companies chose to emphasize the data collection as only necessary to improve their own services and personalize user experience without offering any indication that the data could be transferred and used for other reasons. The concerns have to do with how the companies omit relevant information when creating an account and using their services, details which the authority said are critical to making an informed decision as to whether or not to give permission for utilizing their data for comme

Patching really, really matters – patching is what keeps technology solutions from becoming like big blocks of Swiss cheese, with endless security vulnerabilities punching hole after hole into critical solutions. But anyone who's spent any amount of time maintaining systems will know that patching is often easier said than done. Yes, in some instances, you can just run a command line to install that patch, and that's it. These instances are increasingly rare though – given the complexity of the technology environment, you're more likely faced with a complex process to achieve patching best practice. In this article, we'll outline why database patching matters (yes, databases are vulnerable too!), explain what the problem is with patching databases, and point to a novel solution that takes the pain out of database patching. Watch out – your database services are vulnerable too We know that database services are critical – databases underpin IT operations in countle

An unpatched design flaw in the implementation of Microsoft Exchange's Autodiscover protocol has resulted in the leak of approximately 100,000 login names and passwords for Windows domains worldwide. "This is a severe security issue, since if an attacker can control such domains or has the ability to 'sniff' traffic in the same network, they can capture domain credentials in plain text (HTTP basic authentication) that are being transferred over the wire," Guardicore's Amit Serper  said  in a technical report. "Moreover, if the attacker has DNS-poisoning capabilities on a large scale (such as a nation-state attacker), they could systematically syphon out leaky passwords through a large-scale DNS poisoning campaign based on these Autodiscover TLDs [top-level domains]." The Exchange  Autodiscover  service enables users to configure applications such as Microsoft Outlook with minimal user input, allowing just a combination of email addresses and pas

Every once in a while, an industry term will get overused by marketing to the point of becoming a cliche. "Zero Trust" may have reached this threshold. In some ways, we understand why this is happening. Security perimeters have become obsolete as people use mobile devices and cloud applications to work from anywhere. Zero Trust deployment — moving all your apps and data to the cloud and assuming no user or device is trustworthy until proven otherwise in order to gain access — has been rapidly introduced as a result of the pandemic. However, most attempts at achieving Zero Trust access today are a patchwork of disparate products from different vendors connected to virtual private networks (VPN), with rudimentary on-off access controls based on limited visibility. Cloud security company,  Lookout , believes a modern approach to Zero Trust needs to take into account the fact that data has moved to the cloud and users are working from anywhere, on any device, and connecting o

Cloud infrastructure security company Wiz on Thursday revealed details of a now-fixed Azure Cosmos database vulnerability that could have been potentially exploited to grant any Azure user full admin access to other customers' database instances without any authorization. The flaw, which grants read, write, and delete privileges, has been dubbed " ChaosDB ," with Wiz researchers noting that "the vulnerability has a trivial exploit that doesn't require any previous access to the target environment, and impacts thousands of organizations, including numerous Fortune 500 companies." Cosmos DB is Microsoft's proprietary  NoSQL database  that's advertised as "a fully managed service" that "takes database administration off your hands with automatic management, updates and patching." The Wiz Research Team reported the issue to Microsoft on August 12, after which the Windows maker took steps to mitigate the issue within 48 hours of r

The U.S. is presently combating two pandemics--coronavirus and ransomware attacks. Both have partially shut down parts of the economy. However, in the case of cybersecurity, lax security measures allow hackers to have an easy way to rake in millions. It's pretty simple for hackers to gain financially, using malicious software to access and encrypt data and hold it hostage until the victim pays the ransom. Cyber attacks are more frequent now because it is effortless for hackers to execute them. Further, the payment methods are now friendlier to them. In addition, businesses are  willing to pay a ransom  because of the growing reliance on digital infrastructure, giving hackers more incentives to attempt more breaches.  Bolder cybercriminals A few years back, cybercriminals played psychological games before getting bank passwords and using their technical know-how to steal money from people's accounts. They are bolder now because it is easy for them to buy ransomware software

An ongoing malicious campaign that employs phony call centers has been found to trick victims into downloading malware capable of data exfiltration as well as deploying ransomware on infected systems. The attacks — dubbed "BazaCall" — eschew traditional social engineering techniques that rely on rogue URLs and malware-laced documents in favor of a vishing-like method wherein targeted users are sent email messages informing them of a forthcoming subscription charge unless they call a specific phone number. By tricking the recipients into calling the number, the unsuspecting victims are connected with an actual human operator at a fraudulent call center, who then provides them with instructions to download the BazaLoader malware. BazaLoader (aka BazarBackdoor) is a C++-based downloader with the ability to install various types of malicious programs on infected computers, including deploying ransomware and other malware to steal sensitive data from victimized systems. First

Researchers on Tuesday disclosed a new espionage campaign that resorts to destructive data-wiping attacks targeting Israeli entities at least since December 2020 that camouflage the malicious activity as ransomware extortions. Cybersecurity firm SentinelOne attributed the attacks to a nation-state actor affiliated with Iran it tracks under the moniker "Agrius." "An analysis of what at first sight appeared to be a ransomware attack revealed new variants of wipers that were deployed in a set of destructive attacks against Israeli targets," the researchers  said . "The operators behind the attacks intentionally masked their activity as ransomware attacks, an uncommon behavior for financially motivated groups." The group's modus operandi involves deploying a custom .NET malware called Apostle that has evolved to become a fully functional ransomware, supplanting its prior wiper capabilities, while some of the attacks have been carried out using a secon

Protection against insider risks works when the process involves controlling the data transfer channels or examining data sources. One approach involves preventing USB flash drives from being copied or sending them over email. The second one concerns preventing leakage or fraud in which an insider accesses files or databases with harmful intentions. What's the best way to protect your data? It seems obvious that prevention is the best way to solve any problem. In most cases, DCAP (data-centric audit and protection) and DAM (database activity monitoring) is sufficient. Both serve the purpose of protecting data at rest. The following example illustrates the approach we found in the Russian legal system. An employee of the Federal Migration Service in one of the Russian regions was approached by his friend, who asked him to hide information about two offenses in his file in the migrant database. The employee knew that this could be done remotely, accessed the database from home,

When you are a startup, there are umpteen things that demand your attention. You must give your hundred percent (probably even more!) to work effectively and efficiently with the limited resources. Understandably, the  application security importance  may be pushed at the bottom of your things-to-do list. One other reason to ignore web application protectioncould be your belief that only large enterprises are prone to data breaches, and your startup is hardly noticeable to become a target. Well, these eye-opening  statistics  prove otherwise. 43% of security attacks target small businesses New small businesses witnessed a 424% rise in security breaches in 2019 60% of small businesses close within six months of cyberattacks SMEs can lose more than $2.2 million a year to cyberattacks How Can Cyber Breaches Impact Your Startup? Unless you belong to the category of data security startups ,  which are thoroughly familiar with the importance of a secure web app, your startup can f

"Respect for your privacy is coded into our DNA," opens WhatsApp's  privacy policy . "Since we started WhatsApp, we've aspired to build our Services with a set of strong privacy principles in mind." But come February 8, 2021, this opening statement will no longer find a place in the policy. The Facebook-owned messaging service is alerting users in India of an update to its  terms of service  and  privacy policy  that's expected to go into effect next month. The "key updates" concern how it processes user data, "how businesses can use Facebook hosted services to store and manage their WhatsApp chats," and "how we partner with Facebook to offer integrations across the Facebook Company Products." The mandatory changes allow WhatsApp to  share  more user data with other Facebook companies, including account registration information, phone numbers, transaction data, service-related information, interactions on the platform,

With the continuing rise of IoT devices, mobile networks, and digital channels, companies face a lot of pressure to generate meaningful and actionable insights from the wealth of data they capture. Gartner Research lists data democratization as  one of the top  strategic technology trends to watch out for.  While empowering non-technical users to run ad-hoc reports gives enterprises the ability to get closer to business conditions, it also introduces problems of data governance and privacy compliance. All reports are only as good as the data they're based on, and non-technical users might not be aware of the need for data integrity and security. Even the "experts" at cybersecurity firms have been known to leak files  at alarming rates . Organizations need to implement strong data governance strategies to ensure their data is accurate, reliable and secure, while continuing to provide their employees with the resources they need to realize the full benefits of it. Here&