Welcome to our weekly roundup, where we share what you need to know about the cybersecurity news and events that happened over the past few days.
Below you’ll find a quick recap of topics followed by links to news articles and/or our blog posts providing additional insight. Be sure to check back each Friday for highlights of the goings-on each week!
It’s almost here – April 18, tax day in the U.S. As businesses and employees prepare their tax returns, cybercriminals are once again ramping up efforts to steal this information, and they are getting more intelligent every year.
Microsoft Patches Office Vulnerability Used in Zero-Day Attacks
One of the major updates for this month’s Patch Tuesday addresses CVE-2017-0199, a zero-day remote code execution vulnerability that allowed attackers to exploit a flaw that exists in the Windows Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) interface of Microsoft Office.
Hackers Blast Emergency Sirens in Dallas
Screaming sirens serenaded Dallas residents in the early morning hours Saturday after a cyberattack set off the city’s emergency warning system. All of the city’s 156 sirens were set off more than a dozen times, The Dallas Morning News reported.
Melbourne IT Confirms DDoS Attack Behind DNS Outage
Australian domain name registrar Melbourne IT confirmed on Thursday afternoon that it had experienced a large distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on its DNS servers that disrupted its web hosting, email platforms, and access to the company’s customer administration portal.
Nintendo Offers $20K for Hacking a Switch
Nintendo is willing to pay out as much as $20,000 to hackers in return for information regarding Switch hardware security vulnerabilities. Nintendo wants to ensure everyone buys Switch games rather than having the temptation of downloading them illegally, so a bounty is up for grabs.
Securing Driverless Cars from Hackers Is Proving to be More Difficult than Anticipated
Autonomous vehicles are at the apex of all the terrible things that can go wrong,” says Miller, who spent years on the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations team of elite hackers before stints at Twitter and Uber. “Cars are already insecure, and you’re adding a bunch of sensors and computers.”
Hackers Can Hijack Your Smart Aga Oven with a Text Message
All the hijackers need is the phone numbers of the appliances. The vulnerable iTotal Control models of the upmarket cookers contain a SIM card and radio tech that connects to mobile phone networks. This allows the Brit-built roasters to receive texted commands.
You’re Talking About Security Wrong
If security is everybody’s responsibility, organizations need to act that way. While the board is way more cognizant of it, while CISOs might be better at working at the board level, fundamentally on the ground, we need people talking about security while they’re building solutions.
Cybersecurity Jobs Are Here for the Taking
One might think that a net increase of 13,000 information technology jobs in February is a sign of healthy growth in the field, but a comparison to previous employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) paints a more complex picture.
As Cities Get Smarter, Hackers Become More Dangerous
As governments create smarter cities, they need cybersecurity measures built from the ground up — or they risk costly data breaches which could compromise the privacy of their citizens. In 2016 alone, cyber-crime cost the global economy more than $450 billion and over two billion personal records were stolen.
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