The Threatpost Podcast

Verizon's 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), released Tuesday, analyzed 32,002 security incidents and 3,950 data breaches across 16 industry verticals. While cyber-espionage attacks and malware decreased, other trends, such as security "errors" (like misconfigurations, etc.), denial of service (DoS) attack and web application attacks saw startling growth.

Threatpost editors discuss the top news stories of the week ended May 15, including: Recent ransomware attacks, including ones targeting healthcare giant Magellan, the IT office that supports Texas appellate courts and judicial agencies, and a popular law firm that works with several A-list celebrities, including Lady Gaga, Drake and Madonna. "Double extortion" methods being increasingly used by ransomware actors - and new research that found paying a ransom to unlock systems can actually cost companies more financially than recovering data themselves in the long run. The state of Utah announcing it has settled on a contact-tracing mobile app that collects detailed user location information to track the spread of COVID-19 among citizens – eschewing the API model proposed by Apple and Google in April. The roadmap for a COVID-19 contact-tracing app, to be rolled out by the UK's National Health Service (NHS), thrust into the spotlight thanks to sensitive documents being leaked via a public Google Drive l

Companies are increasingly dealing with a slew of security and compliance issues across cloud services and containers – from AWS to Azure to GCP. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) security capabilities can help companies "shift left" to improve developer productivity, avoid misconfigurations and prevent policy violations. Threatpost host Cody Hackett talks to Chris Hertz, vice president of cloud security sales at DivvyCloud by Rapid7, about the top trends he's seeing around cloud security and how IaC is helping companies handle security and compliancy.

Threatpost editors Tom Spring, Tara Seals and Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch talk about the biggest news stories of the week ended May 1, including: A "PhantomLance" espionage campaign discovered targeting specific Android victims, mainly in Southeast Asia — which could be the work of the OceanLotus APT. A highly targeted phishing campaign, uncovered this week, with a Microsoft file platform twist, that successfully siphoned the Office 365 credentials of more than 150 executives since mid-2019. A Microsoft vulnerability found in Microsoft Teams that could have allowed an inside attacker to weaponize a single GIF image and use it to pilfer data from targeted systems and take over all of an organization's Teams accounts.

Thousands of recycled Zoom credentials have been unearthed on underground forums as cybercriminals tap into remote workers. In this week's podcast, Threatpost does a deep dive into how these credentials are being collected, shared and used. 

For the week ended April 24, Threatpost editors discuss a bevy of recent cybersecurity news stories, including: Apple zero days were disclosed in the iPhone iOS; researchers say they have been exploited for years, but Apple has pushed back and said there's no evidence to support such activity Nintendo confirming that over 160,000 accounts have been hacked, due to attackers abusing a legacy login system With the NFL's virtual draft kicking off this week, security researchers and teams have been sounding off on security issues leading to data theft or denial of service attacks

In this week's Threatpost Podcast, Threatpost talks to Dan Dahlberg, director of security research at BitSight, about new research that found that work from home remote office networks are 3.5 times more likely than corporate networks to have a malware infection present.

Researchers with Cisco Talos created threat models outlining how fingerprint scanners could be bypassed utilizing 3D printing technology, and tested them on various mobile devices (including the iPhone 8 and Samsung S10), laptops (including the Samsung Note 9, Lenovo Yoga and HP Pavilion X360) and smart devices (a smart padlock and two USB encrypted pen drives).  Craig Williams, director of Cisco Talos Outreach, walks through the results on the Threatpost podcast.

For the week ended March 20, Threatpost editors break down the top security stories, including: The various cybercriminal activity - from malware, phishing and other scams - tapping into the coronavirus pandemic The security risks of businesses working from home due to the virus' spread Privacy concerns as more governments use facial recognition and mobile apps for tracking the virus   The results of Pwn2Own, which took place this week  

A recent 2020 IoT report found that more than half of IoT devices are vulnerable to medium- or high-severity attacks, making IoT the low-hanging fruit for attackers. Threatpost talks to Ryan Olson, vice president of Threat Intelligence for Unit 42 at Palo Alto Networks, and May Wang, senior distinguished engineer at Palo Alto Networks and former Zingbox CTO, about the top IoT threats.  

The RSA 2020 conference kicks off next week in San Francisco, this year with a theme looking at the "human element" of cybersecurity. As they prepare to cover the show, Threatpost editors Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch, Tom Spring and Tara Seals break down the biggest news, stories and trends  that they expect to hear about at RSA 2020 this year - from trends in the industrial cybersecurity landscape, to connected medical device security issues that will be flagged.

Threatpost editors Tara Seals and Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch break down the top stories for this week, ended Feb. 14, including: Recent phishing scams - including ones with a romance hook - continue to trick victims, showing that phishing tactics still work in stealing millions from individuals, corporations, and even government agencies. Emotet has a newly discovered feature that hacks nearby Wi-Fi networks, allowing the prolific malware to spread rapidly, like a worm. The operators behind the Robbinhood ransomware are using a new tactic called "bring your own bug," which researchers think will continue in future campaigns. Patch Tuesday craziness this week included 99 patches from Microsoft, as well as vulnerability fixes from Adobe, Intel and Mozilla Firefox.

Bug bounty programs continue to increase in popularity – but that popularity has its downsides. Since the launch of the Hack the Pentagon program in 2016, bug bounty programs have quickly grown in popularity. However, as more programs are created, some companies are forgetting the real reason behind bug bounties. That is, instead of making their systems more secure, companies want to merely hunt bugs. Threatpost talked to Katie Moussouris, founder and CEO of Luta Security, to hear more about her thoughts about the challenges in developing – and launching – bug bounty programs.

Researchers on Wednesday disclosed five critical vulnerabilities in Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP), the Cisco Proprietary Layer 2 network protocol that is used to discover information about locally attached Cisco equipment. Threatpost talked to Ben Seri, VP of Research at Armis, who discovered the flaws, about the CDPwn flaws, their impact, and why Layer 2 protocols are an under-researched area. Researchers say that the vulnerabilities, which they collectively dub CDPwn, can allow attackers to remotely take over millions of devices. The flaws specifically exist in the parsing of CDP packets, in the protocol implementation for various Cisco products, from its software to IP cameras. Cisco issued patches on Wednesday addressing the five flaws, and is urging users to update as soon as possible.  

 Oded Vanunu, head of products vulnerability research at Check Point research, has seen his share of WhatsApp vulnerabilities – the researcher at Black Hat 2019 demoed several flaws in the messaging platform could be used to manipulate chats, for instance. However, Vanunu told Threatpost at CPX 360, Check Point's annual security conference that takes place this week, WhatsApp is a prime example of how mobile devices are increasingly becoming targeted by nation state actors, in stark contrast to previous, less serious threats mobile devices have faced like adware.

This week's news wrap podcast breaks down the biggest Threatpost security stories of the week, including: Various proof-of-concept exploits being released for serious vulnerabilities this week - including for the recently-patched crypto-spoofing vulnerability found by the National Security Agency and reported to Microsoft. Multiple cable modems used by ISPs to provide broadband into homes have a critical vulnerability in their underlying reference architecture, dubbed "Cable Haunt," that would allow an attacker full remote control of the device. Google's continual battle against attackers who are infiltrating Google Play with Android apps (more than 17,000 apps to date) distributing the Joker malware. Google setting an aggressive two-year deadline for dropping support for third-party tracking cookies in its Chrome web browser.

A major Microsoft crypto-spoofing bug impacting Windows 10 made waves this Patch Tuesday, particularly as the flaw was found and reported by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Microsoft's January Patch Tuesday security bulletin disclosed the "important"-severity vulnerability, which could allow an attacker to spoof a code-signing certificate, vital to validating executable programs in Windows, and make it appear as if an application was from a trusted source. Threatpost talked to Pratik Savla, senior security engineer at Venafi, about the vulnerability, whether the hype around the flaw was warranted, and what the disclosure means for the NSA.

The California Consumer Privacy Act is being touted as one of the strongest privacy regulations in the U.S. enacted so far. However, though the CCPA was adopted on January 1, 2020, the act still has several loose ends and privacy loopholes that need to be fleshed out. At a high level ,the CCPA mandates strict requirements for companies to notify users about how their user data will be used and monetized along with giving them straightforward tools for opting out.  However, one of the bigger challenges with the CCPA is the question of tracking the location of that user data, Terry Ray, SVP and fellow with Imperva, tells Threatpost.

In 2019, diversity in the cybersecurity was thrust to the forefront with recognition from both vendors and experts. The tech industry is facing challenges around diversity in general, but women are particularly underrepresented. And with an estimated 3.5 million jobs are expected to remain unfilledby 2021, infosec is certainly a lucrative space for women. Threatpost sat down with Jessica LaBouve, a pen tester with A-LIGN, to discuss the personal challenges she's faced in the cybersecurity industry and the opportunities in the space that she sees for improvement.