security

7 min read

Anyone can purchase an exploit pack (EP) license or rent time on an existing EP server. The challenge for threat actors is to redirect unsuspecting web browsing victims by force to the exploit landing page with sustained frequency. Naturally, like most criminal services in the underground, the dark art of traffic generation is a niche specialty that must be purchased to ensure drive-by campaign success. For the past year we have been tracking a threat actor (group) that compromises legitimate websites and redirects victims to EP landing pages. Over the past three months we observed the same actor using malvertising - leveraging content delivery networks (CDNs) to facilitate increased victim redirection - as part of larger exploit pack campaigns.

1 min read

We know that communicating quickly and openly about security vulnerabilities can result in a little extra public attention for Cisco. As a trustworthy vendor, this is something we’re happy to accept. It’s recently been said that there is only one thing being discussed by IT security people right now – the OpenSSL heartbeat extension vulnerability […]

3 min read

I remember growing up in the UK years ago during the UK’s  ‘North Sea Oil Boom’. It was a time of great excitement and opportunity for the nation. A whole industry was developed to deal with offshore exploration to ‘bring the energy home’. It was Aberdeen’s local ‘moon landing’ event –  just five months after […]

2 min read

The median rate of web malware encounters in March 2014 was 1:260, compared to a median rate of 1:341 requests in February. At least some of this increased risk appears to have been a result of interest in the NCAA tournaments (aka March Madness), which kicked off during the second week of March in the […]

2 min read

*** UPDATED 15-April 2014  *** By now, almost everyone has heard of the OpenSSL Heartbleed vulnerability with CVE id CVE-2014-0160. The vulnerability has to do with the implementation of the TLS heartbeat extension (RFC6520) and could allow secret key or private information leakage in TLS encrypted communications. For more detailed information, visit the VRT’s analysis. […]

1 min read

The first blog of this series discussing the role of data security in the cloud can be found here. In 2014 and onward, security professionals can expect to see entire corporate perimeters extended to the cloud, making it essential to choose a service provider that can deliver the security that your business needs. While organizations can let business needs […]

3 min read

The first blog of this series discussing the role of data security in the cloud can be found here. In 2014 and onward, security professionals can expect to see entire corporate perimeters extended to the cloud, making it essential to choose a service provider that can deliver the security that your business needs. While organizations […]

2 min read

Editor’s Note: This post is a response to EN Mobility Workspace. Please see that post for full context. A colleague of mine here at Cisco, Jonathan, recently spoke well to the Evolution of Cisco Mobility Workspace Journey. Like all technologies, there is an adoption and engagement cycle based on maturity and risk level. We begin […]

1 min read

At the height of an eventful week – Cloud and IoT developments, Open Source Think Tank,  Linux Foundation Summit – I learned about the fate of my fellow alumnus, an upperclassman as it were, the brilliant open source developer and crypto genius known for the first transaction on Bitcoin. Hal Finney is a Caltech graduate who went […]