Threats

UPDATED: Is this Cyber War? Ransomware Attack Hits Banks, Transport, Government in Ukraine

Fast spreading ransomware dubbed Petya has crippled parts of Ukraine and hit companies in The Netherlands, France, Russia and Spain. It appears to be spreading using a combination of software exploit and stolen passwords.

U.K. Parliament Attack Reshines Light on Persistent Vulnerability of Passwords

In-brief: Password security remains a thorn in the side of security experts as once again proven by the cyberattack on U.K. Parliament, which focused on gaining access to members’ e-mail accounts merely by guessing their passwords.

Podcast: The Internet of Things’ Entropy Problem and why it matters

In-brief: Governments may worry about the democratization of strong encryption. But a bigger problem may be that the encryption we think is strong really isn’t, says Richard Moulds of the firm Whitewood. In this podcast, we talk about the.growing difficulty of generating truly random numbers in cloud environments and on the Internet of Things and how ‘entropy as a service’ may be the answer.

Endpoint Protection Firm Cybereason Lands $100m Softbank Investment

Alternatives to legacy endpoint protection software like anti virus is one of the hottest areas in the information security space. Yesterday’s announcement by Cybereason of a $100 Million investment by SoftBank only underscores that. Cybereason, which has offices in Boston, London and Tel Aviv, closed a Series D funding round from SoftBank to accelerate growth. The round brings total investment in Cybereason to $189 million and make SoftBank the single largest investor int he company, which also counts Spark Capital, Lockheed Martin and CRV as investors. “We are thrilled with our incredible growth but we are never satisfied because hackers still have a big advantage over the vast majority of corporations. This new funding allows us to increase our growth through new distribution channels and to develop new technologies. Our strengthened partnership with SoftBank, which has a formidable sales force and enterprise customer base in Japan and a global reach, […]

Security Pro tilts at Smart Drill, finds It doesn’t suck

In-brief: Is there cause for hope? A new analysis of a connected power drill  by a researcher at DUO Security finds that it’s actually pretty secure. But challenges remain for connected device makers.