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Testing security controls is the only way to know if they are truly defending your organization. With many different testing frameworks and tools to choose from, you have lots of options. But what do you specifically want to know? And how are the findings relevant to the threat landscape you face at this moment? "Decide what you want to know and then choose the best tool for the job." Security teams typically use several different testing tools to evaluate infrastructure. According to SANS , 69.9% of security teams use vendor-provided testing tools, 60.2% use pen-testing tools, and 59.7% use homegrown tools and scripts. While vendor-provided tools test a specific security solution—whether it's a web application firewall (WAF), EDR solution, or something else—pen testing is frequently used to verify that controls meet compliance requirements, such as PCI DSS regulations, and by red teams as part of broader testing assessments and exercises. Automated pen test

Internet Explorer is dead, but not the mess it left behind. Microsoft earlier today issued an emergency security advisory warning millions of Windows users of a new zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer (IE) browser that attackers are actively exploiting in the wild — and there is no patch yet available for it. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2020-0674 and rated moderated, is a remote code execution issue that exists in the way the scripting engine handles objects in memory of Internet Explorer and triggers through JScript.dll library. A remote attacker can execute arbitrary code on targeted computers and take full control over them just by convincing victims into opening a maliciously crafted web page on the vulnerable Microsoft browser. "The vulnerability could corrupt memory in such a way that an attacker could execute arbitrary code in the context of the current user. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain the same user rights as

The  ransomware industry surged in 2023  as it saw an alarming 55.5% increase in victims worldwide, reaching a staggering 5,070.  But 2024 is starting off showing a very different picture.  While the numbers skyrocketed in Q4 2023 with 1309 cases, in Q1 2024, the ransomware industry was down to 1,048 cases. This is a 22% decrease in ransomware attacks compared to Q4 2023. Figure 1: Victims per quarter There could be several reasons for this significant drop.  Reason 1: The Law Enforcement Intervention Firstly, law enforcement has upped the ante in 2024 with actions against both LockBit and ALPHV. The LockBit Arrests In February, an international operation named "Operation Cronos" culminated in the arrest of at least three associates of the infamous LockBit ransomware syndicate in Poland and Ukraine.  Law enforcement from multiple countries collaborated to take down LockBit's infrastructure. This included seizing their dark web domains and gaining access to their backend sys

Penetration tests have long been known as a critical security tool that exposes security weaknesses through simulated attacks on an organization's IT environments. These test results can help prioritize weaknesses, providing a road-map towards remediation. However, the results are also capable of doing even more. They identify and quantify security risk, and can be used as a keystone in cybersecurity policies. The same can be said about broader penetration testing practices. Organizations gain real value from learning about others' penetration testing experiences, trends, and the role they play in today's threat landscape. The world of pen testing can be an interesting balance of open collaboration and closely guarded privacy. While pen testers may engage in teaming exercises, or happily talk technique when they attend Black Hat, most organizations are extremely reluctant when it comes to discussing their pen testing practices and results. Of course, confidentia

Great news for iOS users! You can now use your iPhone or iPad, running iOS 10 or later, as a physical security key for securely logging into your Google account as part of the Advanced Protection Program for two-factor authentication. Android users have had this feature on their smartphones since last year, but now Apple product owners can also use this advanced, phishing-resistant form of authentication as an alternative to a physical security key. Adding extra security later of two-step authentication is one of the more essential steps you can take to secure your online accounts, which makes it harder for attackers to log in to your account, especially when they steal your password. "According to a study we [Google] released last year, people who exclusively used security keys to sign into their accounts never fell victim to targeted phishing attacks," said Shuvo Chatterjee, Product Manager at Google's Advanced Protection Program. Google recently update

After Adobe today releases its first Patch Tuesday updates for 2020, Microsoft has now also published its January security advisories warning billions of users of 49 new vulnerabilities in its various products. What's so special about the latest Patch Tuesday is that one of the updates fixes a serious flaw in the core cryptographic component of widely used Windows 10, Server 2016 and 2019 editions that was discovered and reported to the company by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States. What's more interesting is that this is the first security flaw in Windows OS that the NSA reported responsibly to Microsoft, unlike the  Eternalblue SMB flaw that the agency kept secret for at least five years and then was leaked to the public by a mysterious group, which caused WannaCry menace in 2017. CVE-2020-0601: Windows CryptoAPI Spoofing Vulnerability According to an advisory released by Microsoft, the flaw, dubbed ' NSACrypt ' and tracked as CVE-20

Adobe today released software updates to patch a total of 9 new security vulnerabilities in two of its widely used applications, Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Illustrator. It's the first Patch Tuesday for the year 2020 and one of the lightest patch releases in a long time for Adobe users. Moreover, none of the security vulnerabilities patched this month were either publicly disclosed or found being actively exploited in the wild. 5 of the 9 security vulnerabilities are 'critical' in severity, and all of them affect Adobe Illustrator CC versions 24.0 and earlier, which were reported to the company by Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs researcher Honggang Ren. According to an advisory published by Adobe, all five critical issues in Adobe Illustrator software are memory corruption bugs that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on targeted systems in the context of the current user. The rest 4 security vulnerabilities affect Adobe Experience Manager —

It's now or never to prevent your enterprise servers running vulnerable versions of Citrix application delivery, load balancing, and Gateway solutions from getting hacked by remote attackers. Why the urgency? Earlier today, multiple groups publicly released weaponized proof-of-concept exploit code [ 1 , 2 ] for a recently disclosed remote code execution vulnerability in Citrix's NetScaler ADC and Gateway products that could allow anyone to leverage them to take full control over potential enterprise targets. Just before the last Christmas and year-end holidays, Citrix announced that its Citrix Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and Citrix Gateway are vulnerable to a critical path traversal flaw (CVE-2019-19781) that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to perform arbitrary code execution on vulnerable servers. Citrix confirmed that the flaw affects all supported version of the software, including: Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway version 13.0 all supported build