What can schools, which all too often make easy prey for cybercriminals, do to bolster their defenses and keep threats at bay?
The post 5 steps to protect your school from cyberattacks appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
Panic over the risk of deepfake scams is completely overblown, according to a senior security adviser for UK-based infosec company Sophos.…
Asia In Brief Chinese president Xi Jinping has opened the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party with a call for the nation he leads to win the race for development of “core technologies” and to become self-reliant in strategic tech.…
I decided to do something a bit different this week and mostly just answer questions from my talk at GOTO Copenhagen last week. I wasn't actually in Denmark this time, but a heap of really good questions came through and as I started reading them, I thought "this would actually make for a really good weekly update". So here we are, and those questions then spurned on a whole heap more from the live audience too so this week's video became one large Q&A. I hope you enjoy this one, let me know if I should do more of these in the future.
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AMLBot, a service that helps businesses avoid transacting with cryptocurrency wallets that have been sanctioned for cybercrime activity, said an investigation published by KrebsOnSecurity last year helped it shut down three dark web services that secretly resold its technology to help cybercrooks avoid detection by anti-money laundering systems.
Antinalysis, as it existed in 2021.
In August 2021, KrebsOnSecurity published “New Anti Anti-Money Laundering Services for Crooks,” which examined Antinalysis, a service marketed on cybercrime forums that purported to offer a glimpse of how one’s payment activity might be flagged by law enforcement agencies and private companies that track and trace cryptocurrency transactions.
“Worried about dirty funds in your BTC address? Come check out Antinalysis, the new address risk analyzer,” read the service’s opening announcement. “This service is dedicated to individuals that have the need to possess complete privacy on the blockchain, offering a perspective from the opponent’s point of view in order for the user to comprehend the possibility of his/her funds getting flagged down under autocratic illegal charges.”
Antinalysis allows free lookups, but anyone wishing to conduct bulk look-ups has to pay at least USD $3, with a minimum $30 purchase. Other plans go for as high as $6,000 for 5,000 requests. Nick Bax, a security researcher who specializes in tracing cryptocurrency transactions, told KrebsOnSecurity at the time that Antinalysis was likely a clone of AMLBot because the two services generated near-identical results.
AMLBot shut down Antinalysis’s access just hours after last year’s story went live. However, Antinalysis[.]org remains online and accepting requests, as does the service’s Tor-based domain, and it is unclear how those services are sourcing their information.
AMLBot spokesperson Polina Smoliar said the company undertook a thorough review after that discovery, and in the process found two other services similar to Antinalysis that were reselling their application programming interface (API) access to cybercrooks.
Smoliar said that following the revelations about Antinalysis, AMLBot audited its entire client base, and implemented the ability to provide APIs only after a contract is signed and the client has been fully audited. AMLBot said it also instituted 24/7 monitoring of all client transactions.
“As a result of these actions, two more services with the name AML (the same as AMLBot has) were found to be involved in fraudulent schemes,” Smoliar said. “Information about the fraudsters was also sent to key market participants, and their transaction data was added to the tracking database to better combat money laundering.”
The Antinalysis homepage and chatter on the cybercrime forums indicates the service was created by a group of coders known as the Incognito Team. Tom Robinson, co-founder of the blockchain intelligence firm Elliptic, said the creator of Antinalysis is also one of the developers of Incognito Market, a darknet marketplace specializing in the sale of narcotics.
“Incognito was launched in late 2020, and accepts payments in both Bitcoin and Monero, a cryptoasset offering heightened anonymity,” Robinson said. “The launch of Antinalysis likely reflects the difficulties faced by the market and its vendors in cashing out their Bitcoin proceeds.”
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Technology has typically had a reputation for being exciting and inventive. Unfortunately, this hasn’t always been the case for security. But times have changed. We are now recognizing the crucial role security plays in any groundbreaking technology. Without strong defenses, even the most visionary app is likely to crash and burn. So it’s imperative that big security players like Cisco stay on top of what’s next.
I am thrilled to announce that in November, we will be launching our new video series, “NEXT” by Cisco Secure. In the series, my esteemed co-host TK Keanini and I will interview some of the brightest new minds in tech to find out more about the future of the industry and how we can best secure it. Watch the series preview below!
As the CTO of Cisco Secure, TK has over 25 years of networking and security expertise, as well as a penchant for driving technical innovation. As for me, I’m a cybersecurity specialist of 10 years with an obsession for communication and empathy. Together, TK and I will bring new cyber pioneers to the forefront and highlight the criticality of digital protection and privacy for everyone.
Whether we’re discussing Web3, the metaverse, or next-generation healthcare, we’ll learn and laugh a lot. Through simple conversations about complex topics, we’re building a bridge between leading-edge tech and how Cisco is helping to safeguard what’s on the horizon.
And what better time to preview this series than during Cybersecurity Awareness Month? A time when we focus on the reality that security belongs to everyone — not just the threat hunter, or the product engineer, or the incident responder — but everyone.
We all have a responsibility to protect the world’s data and infrastructure, and should all have a seat at the table for important security conversations. We hope you’ll join us as we dive into what’s making waves out there, and how we can keep it safe.
Follow our Cisco Secure social channels to catch our first episode in November, when we will speak with Michael Ebel, CEO of Atmosfy. Atmosfy is revolutionizing restaurant reviews by incorporating engaging live video that inspires others and supports local businesses. TK and I will chat with Michael about the origin of Atmosfy, and how the company keeps its content authentic and organization resilient.
In the meantime, explore our other Cybersecurity Awareness Month resources.
Who do you want to hear from next? Tell us your ideas for future guests in the comments.
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
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More than a dozen organizations operating in various verticals were attacked by the threat actor
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From a little girl financially helping her family in Jerusalem to a Nobel Prize laureate. That is the exceptional life of Ada Yonath in a nutshell.
The post Life in pursuit of answers: In the words of Ada Yonath appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
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Sharing is caring… but on the internet, sharing can also be tricky! When we post something, we have to look at the forest and not just the trees. Doxxers usually start with one or two pieces of relatively innocent or public information, but by connecting the dots between those pieces they can build a frighteningly detailed picture of an individual.
Seemingly innocuous details can be pieced together into a much more personal profile when collected and leveraged to learn more. As one example, your wish list/wedding registry makes it easy for friends and family to get you gifts that you actually want, but could also be used to find out products/services you’re interested in as pretext (setting the scene) of a conversation or phishing email trying to gather more. You may have Google Alerts set up for your name (a great idea!), but this may not flag text in scanned documents such as school yearbooks, newspapers and other digitized paper records available online.
If the above sounds scary – don’t panic! Your first step in this auto-dox is going to be brainstorming as much personally identifying information (PII) shared online as possible. I suggest doing this either in a secure note or longhand. The goal is to write down all of the accounts/addresses/phone numbers that come to mind, as these are some of the top things that attackers will try to gather in their search. Start your list here:
Email addresses are an especially juicy target for someone trying to locate you, because most people only use one personal and maaaybe a second school or work email account. Those accounts are tied to all our other online identities and often double as our username for logging in.
When you finish this process, you will likely have dozens or even hundreds of “breadcrumbs” between your account list and search results. Read through your list again, and we’re going to sort it into three categories:
Great job! You’ve already got a much better idea of what people can learn about you than most folks ever do, and are well on your way to cleaning up your online footprint. In our next step, we’ll start locking down everything that you want to keep!
P.S. If you’re enjoying this process and value keeping people safe online, please check out our open roles at Cisco Secure.
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
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Authorities in the US and the UK are taking a keen interest in the contents of WhatsApp messages among bank employees and their associates in the financial services industry.…