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Microsoft Urges Customers to Update Windows as Soon as Possible

By McAfee

What happened  

Microsoft has shipped an emergency security update affecting most Windows users. This update partially addresses a security vulnerability known as PrintNightmare that could allow remote hackers to take over your system.  

How does this affect you?  

PrintNightmare could allow hackers to gain control of your computer. This means hackers could perform malicious activities like installing their own apps, stealing your data, and creating new user accounts.  

How to fix the issue

Microsoft recommends Windows 10, 8.1, and 7 users update their computers through Windows Update as soon as possible. Note that an additional patch will likely be required to fully fix the issue, so expect another update prompt from Microsoft in the days to come. 

Additional protection 

For extra protection against malware that may result from a hack like this one, we recommend an all-in-one security solution, like McAfee Total Protection or McAfee LiveSafeIf a hacker takes advantage of the exploit and tries to install additional malware, McAfee Total Protection/LiveSafe can help protect against those attempts. Learn more about our online security products here. 

An alternate solution for tech-savvy Windows users 

PrintNightmare exploits a vulnerability in the Windows Print Spooler service. The step-by-step instructions below will guide you through turning off the service to ensure hackers can no longer exploit the security flaw. The Print Spooler will remain off until the PC is rebooted.   

Step 1: Press the Windows key, and type Services, clicking on the Services App 

Zero Day Vulnerability

Step 2: Scroll down to the Print Spooler Service 

Zero Day Vulnerability

Step 3: Right-click on the Print Spooler Service and click Stop. 

Zero Day Vulnerability

The post Microsoft Urges Customers to Update Windows as Soon as Possible appeared first on McAfee Blogs.

The New McAfee: A Bold New World of Protection Online

By Judith Bitterli

This news has been some time in the making, and I’m terrifically excited to share it.  

As of July 27th, we take a decisive step forward, one where McAfee places its sole focus on consumers. People like you. This marks the day we officially divest our enterprise business and dedicate ourselves to protecting people so they can freely enjoy life online. 

McAfee is now focused solely on people. People like you. 

This move reflects years of evolution, time spent re-envisioning what online protection looks like in everyday life—how to make it stronger, easier to use, and most importantly, all the ways it can make you feel safe and help you stay that way.   

In the coming days, you’ll see your experience with us evolve dramatically as well. You’ll see advances in our online protection that look, feel, and act in bold new ways. They will put you in decisive control of your identity and privacy, all in a time where both are so infringed upon. And you’ll also see your protection get simpler, much simpler, than before. 

Today, I’d like to give you a preview of what’s ahead. 

You’re driving big changes 

First, these changes are inspired by you. From feedback, research, interviews, and even having some of you invite us into your homes to show us how you live life online, you’ve made it clear what’s working and what isn’t. You’ve also shared what’s on your mind—your thoughts on technology’s rapid growth, the concerns you have for your children, and the times where life online makes you feel vulnerable.  

We’re here to change things for the better. And here’s why …  

Our lives are more fluid and mobile than ever before. From the palm of our hand, we split the cost of dinner, purchase birthday gifts, dim the lights in our living room, warm up the car on a winter morning, and far more. In many ways, our smartphones are the remote control for our lives. From managing our finances to controlling our surroundings, we’re increasing our use of technology to get things done and make things happen. Could any of us have imagined this when the first smartphones rolled out years ago? 

Without question, we’re still plenty reliant on our computers and laptops too. Our recent research showed that we’re looking forward to using them in addition to our phones for telemedicine, financial planning, and plenty of personal shopping—each representing major upticks in usage than in years before, up to 74 percent more in some cases. 

Yet what’s the common denominator here? You. Whatever device you’re using, at the center of all that activity is you. You’re the one who’s getting things done, making things happen, or simply passing some time with a show. So, while the device remains important, what’s far more important is you—and the way you’re using your device for ever-increasing portions of your life. Safely. Confidently. Easily. 

Security is all about you 

Taken together, the time to squarely focus on protecting people is now. A new kind of online security is called for, one that can protect you as you go online throughout your day in a nearly constant and seamless fashion. We’ve dedicated ourselves to making that happen. And you’ll soon see what that looks like. 

So how can you expect this evolution to take shape? You’ll see it in three significant ways: 

1. Personalized experience. We’re building security that protects you effortlessly wherever your day takes you. From device to device, place to place, and all the experiences online in between. Think of our approach to online protection like Netflix, which used to be a physical service where you waited in queue for that next episodic DVD of Lost to get mailed to you. Now your shows follow you and stream anywhere, no matter what device you’re on. It’s the same thing with our security. It will recognize you and protect you whether you’re at home or by the pool on vacation, on your laptop, or your phone, with one consistent experience. Again, it’s all about you. Keeping you protected as you enjoy every perk and convenience of life online.

2. Intelligent experience. The next evolution builds on personalization and takes it a step further. This is security that understands when you and your personal info is at risk and then takes intelligent steps to protect you. This could be your smartphone automatically connecting to VPN when you’re at the airport, keeping you safe from prying eyes on public networks. It could also be alerts to you if your personal info is compromised so you can take steps to protect it. Or it could be a simple suggestion to help keep you safe while browsing, shopping, or banking online. In all, it’s intelligence that helps you stay safe and make safe choices.

3. Simpler experience. With this personalization and intelligence in place, you can protect everyone in your family far more easily than ever. It becomes practically automatic. Regardless of their age, interests, or how much they know about technology, this simplified approach to online security makes smart choices for you and your family wherever possible, steering them clear of threats and keeping everyone safer as a result. 

What won’t change? 

Us at your side. New and existing customers alike will still benefit from McAfee’s award-winning technology as you always have. Further advances and features will roll out to you as part of the regular updates as they become available for your subscription. In all, you’ll always have the latest and greatest benefits of your product with us 

As for our future, expect more to come. Your confidence in us both fuels and informs these leaps ahead. Thank you as always for choosing us for your protection. It allows us to invest in breakthroughs that keep you safe against new and evolving threats, just as we have as a market leader for years. 

A bold new world of protection online 

The new McAfee is focused on you. It’s a bold new world of protection online, where you are in control of your identity and privacy, where you have intelligence that offers right protection in the right moment, where you can simply feel safe, and where you’re ultimately free to enjoy your life online at every turn. 

Here’s to what’s next. And I can’t wait for you to experience it. 

Stay Updated

To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our newsletter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.  

The post The New McAfee: A Bold New World of Protection Online appeared first on McAfee Blogs.

The Big Reason Why You Should Update Your Browser (and How to Do It)

By McAfee

The humble internet browser. Dutifully taking you the places you want to go online, whether that’s the bank, the store, the movies, or even to work. All the more reason to make sure your browser gets every last bit of protection it can.

It’s easy to fire up your browser without a second thought. Arguably, it’s one of the first things many of us do when we hop on our computers. And because it’s often our literal window into important tasks like managing our finances, making payments, and so forth, hackers will absolutely target browsers in order to conduct their attacks. Whether it’s through vulnerabilities in the code that runs the browser, injecting malicious code into a browser session or any one of several other attack vectors, hackers will try to find a way to compromise computers via the browser.

What’s one of the best ways to keep your browser safe? In a word, update. By updating your browser, you’ll get the latest in features and functionality in addition to security fixes that can keep you safer out there.

Let’s take a closer look at what a safer browser is all about, how to update yours, and check out some additional things you can do to stay safer still.

Browser hacks go way back—and are here to stay

Just as long as there have been browsers, there have been security vulnerabilities and issues. Among the first documented cases, one of the most noteworthy goes back to 1995 when researchers at the University of California, Berkeley uncovered a security issue with the way the Netscape browser handled online payments. Today, news of potential browser exploits and follow-on security measures to remedy them still make the headlines all across several types of popular browsers.

The reality of the issue is that browsers, humble as they may seem to us, are complex applications made up of myriad smaller applications to handle all manner of tasks that create your overall web browsing experience. And where there’s code, there’s room for error. Errors that hackers will look to exploit until an update comes along and fixes them.

Browser plug-ins and extensions add extra features—and potential risks

Adding further functionality to your browser, and potentially further opportunities for hackers, are browser plug-ins and extensions. These are small apps that give your browser additional capabilities, like opening and editing documents, blocking ads, finding coupons, and even playing tabletop role-playing games in a browser as well. In short, there are thousands of them, often available in the various stores run by different browser developers.

Likewise, browser plug-ins and extensions can be prone to security issues just like the browser they’re installed in. Errors in their code may lead to exploits that hackers can take advantage of. Further, not all plug-ins and extensions are safe and secure to use. It’s not uncommon for malicious ones to turn up on third-party sites that steal user information, introduce malware, or that end up serving ads on a person’s computer, just to name a few of the nasty things they can do. Even official browser stores have had malicious plug-ins and extensions slip onto their shelves.

Lastly, even seemingly legitimate plug-ins and extensions can introduce privacy issues. Given that they’re on your browser and have been granted permissions to work with it, they could be collecting data—data which the developer may use, share, or resell. And it may be tough to know exactly what’s being collected and what’s being done with it. Yet like many smartphone app stores, browser stores are including links to developer privacy statements on the download page for the plug-ins and extensions they offer, giving people more insight into how their data is used. However, sometimes plug-ins and extensions get sold from one company to another where they not only change owners but privacy policies as well. In other words, that plug-in or extension on your computer may get sold to another company without your knowledge and subsequently decide to use your data in an entirely new way.

Given this landscape, there’s a clear case for updating your browser regularly, along with your plug-ins and extensions as well. Moreover, you might want to take a look at what plug-ins and extensions you’re running as well to ensure they’re secure and that they’re something you actually have use for.

Let’s take a look at how you can do all that.

So, do you keep your browser and extensions up to date?

Set up your browser to update automatically. This is relatively straightforward, and browser developers have pages that show you how it’s done. For example, sampling a few of the browsers out there:

As for updating your extensions, the browser developers have put together quick guides to help you what that too. The good news is that when you update your browser, your browser typically updates its associated plug-ins and extensions as well. However, note that your browser’s update cycle may not be in sync with the update cycle for your various plug-ins and extensions, so you may want to go in and update them on their own. These guides can help:

<h2>Take a look at your browser extensions—and see if you want them in the first place

What extensions am I even running? Now that’s a great question. And it’s not too tough to get the answer. In short, your browser’s menu will have an option that will give you an overview of what you have installed and which ones are enabled for use. Once more, each browser developer has their own way of going about this:

This is a good opportunity to give your extensions a hard look. Are they something you use? Are they something you want? Who developed that extension? What might they be doing with my data? Answering these questions may take a little work on your part—like searching for news, information, or reviews about the various extensions you have installed. If you don’t like what your research turns up, you can simply uninstall the extension in question.

A good general rule is this—the fewer apps and extensions you have, the fewer you have to update. Likewise, that’s ultimately fewer lines of code that may turn up a possible exploit. If it’s something you’re not using, consider getting rid of it.

<h2>Make your browser safer with web protection

Many browser-based attacks find their way to you through sketchy websites and downloads. Even ads that look legit but are not. As said before, hackers will try and find a way. One tool you can use to beat them at their game is browser protection, which helps prevent you from making that one wrong click that leads to malware.

In our case, we offer McAfee WebAdvisor, a lightweight app that helps keep you safe from threats while you browse and search the web. Specifically, it includes three types of protection that can help steer you clear of those sketchy websites and downloads.

It’s a free download, and it’s also included with our comprehensive online protection software. Either way, this provides you with yet another line of defense when it comes to browser-based attacks.

Protect your browser from hacks and attacks. Update.

That’s the big reason to update right there. Updates give you one more way to prevent attacks by fixing known security issues. It’s true for your operating systems, your apps, your games, what have you. All of them rely on sometimes complex code, code which can sprout exploits, ones that hackers will use. Count your browser in that mix as well. Updating your browser, plus its plug-ins and extensions will help keep you safer online.

The post The Big Reason Why You Should Update Your Browser (and How to Do It) appeared first on McAfee Blog.

Weekly Update 292

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 292

Well that was an unusual ending. Both my mouse and keyboard decided to drop off right at the end of this week's video and without any control whatsoever, there was no way to end the live stream! Wired devices from kids borrowed, I eventually got back control and later discovered that all things Bluetooth had suddenly decided to die without any warning whatsoever. I certainly wasn't updating drivers mid-live stream or anything like that so... 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, other than that it's business as usual this week, enjoy!

Weekly Update 292
Weekly Update 292
Weekly Update 292
Weekly Update 292

References

  1. The shots I'm getting with the new drone are amazing! (it's crazy how much tech is jammed into this little thing)
  2. I'm disappointed that Mailchimp has stopped offering a discount for users with 2FA enabled (I'd really love to think there was an ROI for them offering the discount)
  3. You'd think an Attorney General's office would have better things to do than forwarding on a complaint from someone who thinks HIBP has been breached (seriously, it'd take about 3 mins for anyone paying attention to understand what's going on)
  4. Disclosing data breaches is still way too hard (people found it painful to watch a 1 hour 15 minute video of me trying to disclose to Avvo - good - that's the point - it's painful!)
  5. Sponsored by: Varonis for Salesforce. Protect Salesforce data from overexposure and cyberthreats. Try it free!

You Need to Update iOS, Android, and Chrome Right Now

By Kate O'Flaherty
Plus: Microsoft patched some 100 flaws, while Oracle issued more than 500 security fixes.

Weekly Update 293

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 293

Didn't get a lot done this week, unless you count scuba diving, snorkelling, spear fishing and laying around on tropical sand cays 😎 This week is predominantly about the time we just spent up on the Great Barrier Reef which has very little relevance to infosec, IoT, 3D printing and the other usual topics. But as I refer to in the guitar lessons blog post referenced below, I share what I do pretty transparently and organically and this week, that's what I want to talk about. So, either enjoy it or skip it until next week when I'll back to business as usual 😊

Weekly Update 293
Weekly Update 293
Weekly Update 293
Weekly Update 293

References

  1. I followed Lars' guidance and installed the physical mailbox sensor (so far, I'm unhappy with it, more next week)
  2. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of my guitar lessons blog post (watch the Ricky Gervais bit, it's funny... and true)
  3. Pictures speak a thousand words... especially when they're amazing pictures of the Great Barrier Reef (that's the tweet thread of an amazing holiday)
  4. Sponsored by: Got Slack? Got Macs? Get Kolide: Device security that fixes challenging problems by messaging users on Slack. Try Kolide for 14 days free.

Android monthly updates are out – critical bugs found in critical places!

By Paul Ducklin
Android May 2022 updates are out - with some critical fixes in some critical places. Learn more...

Weekly Update 294

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 294

It's back to business as usual with more data breaches, more poor handling of them and more IoT pain. I think on all those fronts there's a part of me that just likes the challenge and the opportunity to fix a broken thing. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for punishment, I don't know, but either way it's kept me entertained and given me plenty of new material for this week's video 😊

Weekly Update 294
Weekly Update 294
Weekly Update 294
Weekly Update 294

References

  1. The book is almost ready to launch! (I've totally rewritten the intro, tweaked a bunch of the stories and added more - hopefully only a month off go-live)
  2. My fallback position for the IoT not working is literally climbing over the wall (I'm going to solve - and blog - this issue around too much broadcast traffic)
  3. Speaking of broadcast traffic, rolling from MQTT to the native Home Assistant Shelly integrations has been... not very good (I don't want to blame HA for this, it's a network-level issue)
  4. The wifi proximity sensor I installed in my mailbox is heading for "the drawer of broken dreams" (I spoke the Lars after recording and he agreed - it sucks!)
  5. I'll be speaking at AusCERT on the Gold Coast next week (I've decided to call my talk "Pwning Compromised Passwords with the FBI and NCA")
  6. How PayHere in Sri Lanka has handled their data breach is pretty much a textbook example of what not to do (although kudos to the CEO for eventually apologising and acknowledging they "messed up")
  7. Sponsored by: Got Slack? Got Macs? Get Kolide: Device security that fixes challenging problems by messaging users on Slack. Try Kolide for 14 days free.

QNAP Releases Firmware Patches for 9 New Flaws Affecting NAS Devices

By Ravie Lakshmanan
QNAP, Taiwanese maker of network-attached storage (NAS) devices, on Friday released security updates to patch nine security weaknesses, including a critical issue that could be exploited to take over an affected system. "A vulnerability has been reported to affect QNAP VS Series NVR running QVR," QNAP said in an advisory. "If exploited, this vulnerability allows remote attackers to run arbitrary

Weekly Update 295

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 295

A short one this week as the previous 7 days disappeared with AusCERT and other commitments. Geez it was nice to not only be back at an event, but out there socialising and attending all the related things that tend to go along with it. I'll leave you with this tweet which was a bit of a highlight for me, having Ari alongside me at the event and watching his enthusiasm being part of the industry I love 😊

At #AusCERT with Ari for “take your son to work” day 🙂

I’m up next on stream 2 at 14:45 talking about Pwned Passwords, the FBI, the NCA and giving the whole thing over to the community, come say hi! https://t.co/PqSgb1AjMS pic.twitter.com/Z88xIrrHYW

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) May 12, 2022
Weekly Update 295
Weekly Update 295
Weekly Update 295
Weekly Update 295

References

  1. The new Elgato mic boom arm is really slick (I accidentally ordered the "LP" low-profile model, which turned out to be a much better fit for the space)
  2. I mentioned the Pwned Passwords downloader in the video so I'm sharing the link again here (I hope to blog about it this coming week, it just needs some minor tweaks first)
  3. Sponsored by: Varonis for Salesforce. Detect suspicious behavior and strengthen your Salesforce security posture. Try it free!

UpdateAgent Returns with New macOS Malware Dropper Written in Swift

By Ravie Lakshmanan
A new variant of the macOS malware tracked as UpdateAgent has been spotted in the wild, indicating ongoing attempts on the part of its authors to upgrade its functionalities. "Perhaps one of the most identifiable features of the malware is that it relies on the AWS infrastructure to host its various payloads and perform its infection status updates to the server," researchers from Jamf Threat

Weekly Update 296

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 296

Data breaches, 3D printing and passwords - just the usual variety of things this week. More specifically, that really cool Pwned Passwords downloader that I know a bunch of people have been waiting on, and now we've finally released. It hits the existing k-anonymity API over 1 million times and that API is already going on 2 billion requests a month so I'm kinda curious to see what happens if everyone starts running the downloader at the same time... 🤔

Weekly Update 296
Weekly Update 296
Weekly Update 296
Weekly Update 296

References

  1. This is a much better guide to what causes a 3D printer hot end to leak out the top of the heat block (the image there makes easy to understand)
  2. Since I broke the heater cartridge anyway, a Revo 6 should do the job (see how the nozzle and heat break are all one part)
  3. The Pwned Passwords downloader is here! (this is a great little tool put together by Stefán)
  4. Sponsored by: Kolide provides endpoint security for teams that value privacy, transparency, and employee productivity. Try Kolide for free today!

Weekly Update 297

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 297

So I basically spent my whole day yesterday playing with Ubiquiti gear and live-tweeting the experience 😊 This was an unapologetically geeky pleasure and it pretty much dominates this week's video but hey, it's a fun topic. Still, there's a bunch of data breach stuff up front and as I write this, 25M more records courtesy of the MGM breach are making their way up into HIBP. Get ready for a bunch of notification emails going out on that one. Here's this week's video:

Weekly Update 297
Weekly Update 297
Weekly Update 297
Weekly Update 297

References

  1. Finally worked out how to handle the MGM breach (it's loading now as a new breach to ensure HIBP subscribers are appropriately notified)
  2. The Ubiquiti G4 PTZ is a mighty looking camera! (it'll take a professional to get it mounted though, stay tuned for more)
  3. The G4 Doorbell Pro is a little more accessible and has a remarkably better picture quality than the old "standard" one (I know it's sold it, Ubiquiti knows it's sold out, fingers crossed for more supply soon)
  4. The in-wall wifi 6 units look almost identical to the previous gen... (but they're not - they much more nicely made)
  5. Sponsored by: Varonis for Salesforce. Protect Salesforce data from overexposure and cyberthreats. Try it free!

You Need to Update iOS, Chrome, Windows, and Zoom ASAP

By Kate O'Flaherty
Plus: Google patches 36 Android vulnerabilities, Cisco fixes three high-severity issues, and VMWare closes two “serious” flaws.

Weekly Update 298

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 298

I somehow ended up blasting through an hour and a quarter in this week's video with loads of discussion on the CTARS / NDIS data breach then a real time "let's see what the fuss is about" with news that one of our state's digital driver's licenses (DDL) may be easily forgeable. I think the whole discussion is actually really interesting when looked at through the lens of how on balance, a digitised license compares to a physical one. As you'll see, I think the reporting on this is overblown however... the weak encryption keys do seem like an oversight and the response of Service NSW to criticism has been lacklustre at best. Let's see how it goes in other states, I'll be first in line when they roll out in Queensland so I can finally start leaving my wallet at home!

Weekly Update 298
Weekly Update 298
Weekly Update 298
Weekly Update 298

References

  1. I'm doing a meetup in Tassie on July 7 (in a brewery!!!)
  2. I got pwned in the MGM Resorts data breach (I didn't even know until I checked my old Hotmail address)
  3. The CTARS / NDIS data breach is really nasty (just really super sensitive medical data)
  4. The controversary around the ability to forge New South Wales digital driver's feels overblown (let's stop asking whether it's a perfect security construct and instead ask how it differs to the old physical plastic licenses)
  5. Sponsored by: Kolide enables cross-platform fleet visibility for your Linux, Mac, and Windows devices. Start your free 14-day trial today!

Apple's New Feature Will Install Security Updates Automatically Without Full OS Update

By Ravie Lakshmanan
Apple has introduced a Rapid Security Response feature in iOS 16 and macOS Ventura that's designed to deploy security fixes without the need for a full operating system version update. "macOS security gets even stronger with new tools that make the Mac more resistant to attack, including Rapid Security Response that works in between normal updates to easily keep security up to date without a

Even the Most Advanced Threats Rely on Unpatched Systems

By The Hacker News
Common cybercriminals are a menace, there's no doubt about it – from bedroom hackers through to ransomware groups, cybercriminals are causing a lot of damage. But both the tools used and the threat posed by common cybercriminals pale in comparison to the tools used by more professional groups such as the famous hacking groups and state-sponsored groups. In fact, these tools can prove almost

Weekly Update 299

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 299

How on earth does an enterprise rack-mounted NAS not come with rails to actually install it in the rack?! So yeah, that's what's in the box, something that should have been in the original box and not in a separate purchase. Just to add to the Synology packaging insanity, I went to install a couple of spare NVMe drives in it today and... there were no screws in the NVMe slots 🤦‍ I'll be doing the next four weekly updates from various locations around the country as we hit the road again, stay tuned for epic tweet threads of amazing locations 😎

Weekly Update 299
Weekly Update 299
Weekly Update 299
Weekly Update 299

References

  1. The MyElectronics.nl Raspberry Pi racks are really sweet (the rack is looking pretty slick now!)
  2. Apple Watch fall detection is pretty amazing when you actually see it work as intended (I've had lots of easily dismissible false-positives on mine, but my father just demonstrated precisely how it's meant to work)
  3. A lot of personal finance is just basic maths and simple market observations (why is anyone even remotely surprised that interest rates are going up?!)
  4. The Indonesian government is now the 33rd gov on board HIBP (also the first one from Asia)
  5. Sponsored by: Varonis for Salesforce. Detect suspicious behavior and strengthen your Salesforce security posture. Try it free!

What is the Essential Eight (And Why Non-Aussies Should Care)

By The Hacker News
In 2017, The Australian Cyber Security Center (ACSC) published a set of mitigation strategies that were designed to help organizations to protect themselves against cyber security incidents. These strategies, which became known as the Essential Eight, are designed specifically for use on Windows networks, although variations of these strategies are commonly applied to other platforms. What is

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft Issues Fix for Actively Exploited 'Follina' Vulnerability

By Ravie Lakshmanan
Microsoft finally released fixes to address an actively exploited Windows zero-day vulnerability known as Follina as part of its Patch Tuesday updates. Also addressed by the tech giant are 55 other flaws, three of which are rated Critical, 51 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. Separately, five more shortcomings were resolved in the Microsoft Edge browser. <!--adsense-->

Weekly Update 300

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 300

Well, we're about 2,000km down on this trip and are finally in Melbourne, which was kinda the point of the drive in the first place (things just escalated after that). The whole journey is going into a long tweet thread you can find below (or mute - that's partly why it's in a single thread):

It’s time for the next great road trip 🏎 pic.twitter.com/9B9k9cXQvH

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) June 14, 2022

Next week is NDC Melbourne so please get along to the event if you're in town, it's kinda amazing to think I'll finally be back at an NDC after all this time 😊

Weekly Update 300
Weekly Update 300
Weekly Update 300
Weekly Update 300

References

  1. We're on another epic road trip (that's the tweet thread, I'll keep adding to it as we go)
  2. Been listening to the Hardcore History podcast which is epic... (...but very heavy listening I need to break into smaller sessions)
  3. It's NDC Melbourne nest week! (my first time back at an NDC since London in early 2020, and the inaugural event for Melbourne)
  4. The DivX SubTitles breach was 783k records worth of plain text passwords (it's a 12-year-old incident, but still...)
  5. Sponsored by: Meet compliance objectives in a remote-first world without resorting to rigid device management. Try Kolide for 14-days free!

Weekly Update 301

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 301

First up, I'm really sorry about the audio quality on this one. It's the exact same setup I used last week (and carefully tested first) but it's obviously just super sensitive to the wind. If you look at the trees in the background you can see they're barely moving, but inevitably that was enough to really mess with the audio quality. I do actually have a windsock for the mic, but it's in a drawer at home so for the remainder of this trip it'll be indoor recording only. Speaking of which, because there was a lot of enthusiasm for Charlotte and I to do one together on the cultural differences we've both experienced living in different parts of the world, that'll be next week's video. Less techie, but hopefully something you'll all enjoy 😊

Weekly Update 301
Weekly Update 301
Weekly Update 301
Weekly Update 301

References

  1. NDC Melbourne was very much like a reunion being the first NDC event we've been back to since London in Jan 2020 (and being able to share it with the kids made it extra special 😊)
  2. The travel thread continues, with much more to come yet before hitting home (a lot of gorgeous Aussie countryside scenes in there, and the best is yet to come)
  3. Sixt had a data breach (but don't worry, lots of European companies are being hacked!)
  4. Sponsored by: Varonis for Salesforce. Protect Salesforce data from overexposure and cyberthreats. Try it free!

You Need to Update Windows and Chrome Right Now

By Kate O'Flaherty
Plus: Google issues fixes for Android bugs. And Cisco, Citrix, SAP, WordPress, and more issue major patches for enterprise systems.

Weekly Update 302

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 302

In a complete departure from the norm, this week's video is the much-requested "cultural differences" one with Charlotte. No tech (other than my occasional plug for the virtues of JavaScript), but lots of experiences from both of us living and working in different parts of the world. Most of it is what Charlotte has learned being thrown into the deep end of Aussieness (without the option of even getting out of the country until very recently), which I thought made for some pretty funny viewing 🤣

We almost got through the entire content I had planned... then my phone went into battery saving mode and killed the mic so apologies for that last little bit of missing content. But hey, it was worth it when the battery was low due to capturing these epic shots earlier in the day:

Stunning 🤩 pic.twitter.com/s1TRJ3bcb1

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) July 1, 2022

I think this made for fun viewing with heaps of audience engagement, I hope you enjoy watching it 😊

Weekly Update 302
Weekly Update 302
Weekly Update 302
Weekly Update 302

References

  1. Sponsored by: Detack. Detect & prevent weak, leaked, shared passwords with EPAS, a patented, privacy compliant solution used in 40 countries. Try it free!

Weekly Update 303

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 303

And we're finally done with this trip. 26 days, 14 different accommodations, 5,146km of driving through 4 states and the last 4 weekly vids all done on the road. Travel is great, but right now going home is even better 😊 Next week's vid will be back in my comfy office with good lighting, video, audio and better planning. Until then, here's a (late) weekly update 303:

Weekly Update 303
Weekly Update 303
Weekly Update 303
Weekly Update 303

References

  1. If you're going to scrape someone else's content, don't embed the images directly off their site! (referrer header based Rickrolls 😎)
  2. The Shanghai police data breach is massive... (if it turns out to be legitimate)
  3. SHA-1 is fine and k-anonymity isn't PII (and frankly, if an organisation doesn't understand these simple facts, they've got bigger issues to deal with)
  4. The Polish government is the 34th to use HIBP's gov service (and I'm still toying with the idea of doing a "visit all the govs" tour one day)
  5. My 12th MVP award came in this week (it's still such an important part of my career 😊)
  6. Sponsored by: CrowdSec - The open-source & collaborative security stack: respond to attacks & share signals across the community. Download it for free

Microsoft Releases Fix for Zero-Day Flaw in July 2022 Security Patch Rollout

By Ravie Lakshmanan
Microsoft released its monthly round of Patch Tuesday updates to address 84 new security flaws spanning multiple product categories, counting a zero-day vulnerability that's under active attack in the wild. Of the 84 shortcomings, four are rated Critical, and 80 are rated Important in severity. Also separately resolved by the tech giant are two other bugs in the Chromium-based Edge browser, one

Weekly Update 304

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 304

It's very much a last-minute agenda this week as I catch up on the inevitable post-travel backlog and pretty much just pick stuff from my tweet timeline over the week 😊 But hey, there's some good stuff in there and I still managed to knock out almost an hour worth of content!

Weekly Update 304
Weekly Update 304
Weekly Update 304
Weekly Update 304

References

  1. La Poste Mobile got themselves ransom'd and their data dumped (and they're still offline)
  2. Mangatoon are very clearly covering up their breach (which is now hard to do given it's in HIBP and received plenty of press)
  3. The "Seconds" app is my secret presenting sauce! (any workout app that can run a sequence of timed intervals will do it)
  4. I'm totally loving Apple's AirTags to track all my things! (not loving that my AMG is still sitting Melbourne 🤦‍♂️)
  5. The Wi-Fi BBQ thermometer is actually really neat (and it does benefit from being connected, too)
  6. Sponsored by: Kolide can help you nail third-party audits and internal compliance goals with endpoint security for your entire fleet. Learn more here.

Apple Releases Security Patches for all Devices Fixing Dozens of New Vulnerabilities

By Ravie Lakshmanan
Apple on Wednesday rolled out software fixes for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS to address a number of security flaws affecting its platforms. This includes at least 37 flaws spanning different components in iOS and macOS that range from privilege escalation to arbitrary code execution and from information disclosure to denial-of-service (DoS). <!--adsense--> Chief among them is CVE-2022-

Weekly Update 305

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 305

I broke Yoda's stick! 3D printing woes, and somehow I managed to get through the explanation without reverting to a chorus of My Stick by a Bad Lip Reading (and now you'd got that song stuck in your head). Loads of data breaches this week and whilst "legacy", still managed to demonstrate how bad some practices remain today (hi Shadi.com 👋). Never a dull moment in data breach land, more from there next week 😊

Weekly Update 305
Weekly Update 305
Weekly Update 305
Weekly Update 305

References

  1. The Yoda 3D print looks amazing (just don't touch his stick)
  2. New flash - social media platform collects lots of data! (seriously, the TicTok hyperbole got a bit too much this week)
  3. What if... some free stuff is actually free? (you're not always "the product" and in many cases, that's frankly a pretty disingenuous term)
  4. Sponsored by: Kolide is a fleet visibility solution for Mac, Windows, and Linux that can help you securely scale your business. Learn more here.

Weekly Update 306

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 306

I didn't intend for a bunch of this week's vid to be COVID related, but between the breach of an anti-vaxxer website and the (unrelated) social comments directed at our state premier following some pretty simple advice, well, it just kinda turned out that way. But there's more on other breaches too, in particular the alleged Paytm one and the actual Customer.io one.

I'm really looking forward to next week's update, here's a little teaser of what you can expect to hear about then 🤣

Weekly Update 306
Weekly Update 306
Weekly Update 306
Weekly Update 306

References

  1. I've updated the Paytm data breach to be flagged as "fabricated" (full thread on the reasons why, it's a tricky one)
  2. Anti-vax dating site that let people advertise ‘mRNA FREE’ semen left all its user data exposed (😲😳😲)
  3. I'm genuinely sympathetic to all politicians on any side of the political fence who have to deal with the COVID mess (just read the volume of ridiculous crap they're at the receiving end of)
  4. We're still seeing the long tail of the Customer.io data breach (protecting against malicious insiders is a hard one)
  5. Sponsored by: Kolide is an endpoint security solution for teams that want to meet SOC2 compliance goals without sacrificing privacy. Learn more here.

Apple Just Patched 39 iPhone Security Bugs

By Kate O'Flaherty
Plus: A Google Chrome patch licks the DevilsTongue spyware, Android’s kernel gets a tune-up, and Microsoft fixes 84 flaws.

Microsoft Issues Patches for 121 Flaws, Including Zero-Day Under Active Attack

By Ravie Lakshmanan
As many as 121 new security flaws were patched by Microsoft as part of its Patch Tuesday updates for the month of August, which also includes a fix for a Support Diagnostic Tool vulnerability that the company said is being actively exploited in the wild. Of the 121 bugs, 17 are rated Critical, 102 are rated Important, one is rated Moderate, and one is rated Low in severity. Two of the issues

Weekly Update 308

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 308

It was all a bit last minute today after travel, office works and then a quick rebuild of desk and PC before doing this livestream (didn't even have time to comb my hair!) So yes, I took a shortcut with the description of this video, but it all worked out well in the end IMHO with plenty of content that wasn't entirely data breach related, but yeah, that does seem to be a bit of a recurring theme in these vids. Enjoy 😊

Weekly Update 308
Weekly Update 308
Weekly Update 308
Weekly Update 308

References

  1. The acoustic panelling in my office is starting to look awesome (some stuff is not lining up so it will be a little longer yet before completion)
  2. The QuestionPro breach has been pretty poorly handled (it's also now well beyond debate that it's real)
  3. If you're sending a C&D notice to a data breach forum, you're really got no idea how these things work (and now their data is... everywhere)
  4. Here's that UniFi Protect Theta cam (they're pumping out so much cool stuff lately 😎)
  5. The stage at NEXTGEN's Cyber Republic event was pretty awesome (the delayed flight home, late night and early start the next day was... less awesome 🙁)
  6. I got what will possibly be the funniest set of spammer responses to Password Purgatory this week 🤣 (also learned a few things, I'm determined to get even better at this!)
  7. Sponsored by: Kolide believes that maintaining endpoint security shouldn’t mean compromising employee privacy. Check out our manifesto: Honest Security.

Apple Releases Security Updates to Patch Two New Zero-Day Vulnerabilities

By Ravie Lakshmanan
Apple on Wednesday released security updates for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS platforms to remediate two zero-day vulnerabilities previously exploited by threat actors to compromise its devices. The list of issues is below - CVE-2022-32893 - An out-of-bounds issue in WebKit which could lead to the execution of arbitrary code by processing a specially crafted web content CVE-2022-32894 - An

Weekly Update 309

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 309

Right off the back of a visit to our wedding venue (4 weeks and counting!) and a few hours before heading to the snow (yes, Australia has snow), I managed to slip in a weekly update earlier today. I've gotta say, the section on Shitexpress is my favourite because there's just so much to give with this one; a service that literally ships shit with a public promise of multiple kinds of animal shit whilst data that proves only horse shit was ever shipped, a promise of 100% anonymity whilst the data set clearly shows both shit-senders and shit-receivers and possibly the most eye-opening of all, the messages accompanying the shit. So, uh, yeah, enjoy! 💩

Weekly Update 309
Weekly Update 309
Weekly Update 309
Weekly Update 309

References

  1. The acoustic panelling in my office is starting to come together, but it needs more work (I'll always notice those little misaligned lines... and you probably will too now that I've mentioned it!)
  2. Kickstarter's password reset email left a lot of people confused (turns out they were just rolling people on Facebook auth to native Kickstarter accounts, but by their own admission the messaging was really confusing)
  3. Turns out the source of the templated emails I was getting about removing data from HIBP was Rightly (their intentions are good, but IMHO their execution is poor)
  4. Shitexpress - where do I even being with this one?! (just read my Twitter thread on it, it's all kinds of crazy this one)
  5. Sponsored by: Kolide can help you nail third-party audits and internal compliance goals with endpoint security for your entire fleet. Learn more here.

Weekly Update 310

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 310

By all accounts, this was one of the best weekly updates ever courtesy of a spam caller giving me a buzz at the 38:40 mark and struggling with "pwn" versus "porn". It resulted in an entertaining little on-air call and subsequently caused me to go out and register both haveibeeninpwn.com and haveibeeninporn.com. I figure these will result in much ongoing hilarity the next time I get a call of this nature about one of those domains 🤣 Oh - and there's a whole bunch of data breach stuff this week, enjoy!

Weekly Update 310
Weekly Update 310
Weekly Update 310
Weekly Update 310

References

  1. The Mudge v. Twitter scandal has some pretty serious accusations in it (there's a 6 min CNN vid in that tweet that's worth a look)
  2. Plex has gone for another round of data breach this week (actually pretty impressed that they now have 30M subscribers!)
  3. LastPass has also gone for another round (I know the optics aren't good, but the real world impact of this is almost certainly insignificant)
  4. I got a very convincing SMS phish this week (think about the human vulnerabilities this exploits, no wonder phishing remains so lucrative)
  5. Sponsored by: Kolide is a fleet visibility solution for Mac, Windows, and Linux that can help you securely scale your business. Learn more here.

Apple Fixed a Serious iOS Security Flaw—Have You Updated Yet?

By Kate O'Flaherty
Plus: Chrome patches another zero-day flaw, Microsoft closes up 100 vulnerabilities, Android gets a significant patch, and more.

Weekly Update 311

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 311

Well, after a crazy amount of work, a lot of edits, reflection, and feedback cycles, "Pwned" is almost here:

This better be a sizzling read @troyhunt or I'll be crashing the wedding in ways never done before.

Also, I thought they'd cancelled Neighbours? 😉❤️ pic.twitter.com/jrYIKtL0Uh

— Mike Thompson (@AppSecBloke) August 30, 2022

The preview cycle is in full swing with lots of feedback coming in and revisions being made before we push it live to the masses. This is really exciting and I can't wait to get the book out there in front of everyone, stay tuned 😊

Weekly Update 311
Weekly Update 311
Weekly Update 311
Weekly Update 311

References

  1. There's clearly more going on behind the scenes with Krebs' "Final Thoughts on Ubiquiti" post (but hey, I love what they both do so hopefully that's that and everyone can get back to doing what they do best)
  2. The Russian streaming service START made it into HIBP (should I have done anything differently because it's Russian, or mostly full of Russian subscribers?)
  3. The Stripchat data is also now in HIBP (a very adult website so flagged as "sensitive" and not publicly searchable)
  4. I love a good crazy corporate response on Twitter, so here's a couple of them for you 😊 (quite funny that Ocado now decides to delete their crazy tweet!)
  5. Sponsored by: Kolide is an endpoint security solution for teams that want to meet SOC2 compliance goals without sacrificing privacy. Learn more here.

Weekly Update 312

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 312

I'm so excited to see the book finally out and awesome feedback coming in, but I'm disappointed with this week's video. I frankly wasn't in the right frame of mind to do it justice (it's been a very hard road up until this point, for various reasons), then my connection dropped out halfway through and I had to roll to 5G, and now I'm hearing (both from other people and with my own ears), a constant background noise being picked up by the mic. Argh! But, that's the reality of scheduled live streams and for better or worse, you end up getting the "warts and all" version. It is what it is, and next week's will be better 😊

Weekly Update 312
Weekly Update 312
Weekly Update 312
Weekly Update 312

References

  1. book.troyhunt.com
  2. Sponsored by: Kolide believes that maintaining endpoint security shouldn’t mean compromising employee privacy. Check out our manifesto: Honest Security.

Weekly Update 313

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 313

I came so close to skipping this week's video. I'm surrounded by family, friends and my amazing wife to be in only a couple of days. But... this video has been my constant companion through very difficult times, and I'm happy to still being doing it at the best of times 😊 So, with that, I'm signing out and heading off to do something much more important. See you next week.

Taking a bit of time off Twitter while @charlottelyng and I do more important things 💍 👰‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/9JJrPM9kWX

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) September 13, 2022
Weekly Update 313
Weekly Update 313
Weekly Update 313
Weekly Update 313

References

  1. The Brand New Tube video site was breached and is now in HIBP (350k account details of what seems to be a very, uh, "unique" demographic were exposed)
  2. The TikTok breach that... wasn't (why is this still getting media attention?!)
  3. Sponsored by: Varonis. Reduce your SaaS blast radius with data-centric security for AWS, G Drive, Box, Salesforce, Slack and more.

Weekly Update 314

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 314

Wow, what a week! Of course there's lots of cyber / tech stuff in this week's update, but it was really only the embedded tweet below on my mind so I'm going to leave you with this then come to you from somewhere much more exotic than usual (and I reckon that's a pretty high bar for me!) next week 😎

Absolutely over the moon to formally make @Charlotte_Hunt_ a part of our family ❤️ 💍 pic.twitter.com/XfahXElboC

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) September 21, 2022
Weekly Update 314
Weekly Update 314
Weekly Update 314
Weekly Update 314

References

  1. Optus disclosed a breach, but really didn't share much solid information about it... unlikely what Jeremy Kirk has since tweeted (these tweets came out after I recorded the vid so I didn't reference them, but it's the best analysis of the legitimacy of the data that I've seen to date)
  2. Lots of gigabytes of TAP Air Portugal customers is now floating around (and it's searchable within HIBP)
  3. Sponsored by: SecAlerts vulnerability awareness: Receive CVE & zero-day alerts, news & version updates all matched to your software. Discount code within!

Weekly Update 315

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 315

How's this weeks video for a view?! It's a stunning location here in Bali and it's just been the absolute most perfect spot for a honeymoon, especially after weeks of guests and celebrations. But whoever hacked and ransom'd Optus didn't care about me taking time out and I've done more media in the last week than I have in a long time. I don't mind, it's a fascinating story the way this has unfolded and that's where most of the time in this week's video has gone, I hope you enjoy my analysis of what has become a pretty crazy story back home in Australia.

Weekly Update 315
Weekly Update 315
Weekly Update 315
Weekly Update 315

References

  1. Bali is a stunning place with postcard worthy shots around every corner (link through to the tweet thread with all the magic 😍)
  2. I've never seen a data breach make as much local news as Optus has, not even close! (link through to Jeremy Kirk's thread explaining how it went down)
  3. When people are wondering if they need to change their name and date of birth in the wake of a data breach, you know there's bigger problems to be solved (seriously, depending on numbers as some sort of secret source sufficient to form a significant part of an identity theft attack is madness and needs to die in a fire)
  4. Sponsored by: Varonis. Reduce your SaaS blast radius with data-centric security for AWS, G Drive, Box, Salesforce, Slack and more.

Go Update iOS, Chrome, and HP Computers to Fix Serious Flaws

By Kate O'Flaherty
Plus: WhatsApp plugs holes that could be used for remote execution attacks, Microsoft patches a zero-day vulnerability, and more.

Weekly Update 316

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 316

Geez it's nice to be home 😊 It's nice to live in a home that makes you feel that way when returning from a place as beautiful as Bali 😊 This week's video is dominated by the whole discussion around this tweet:

I love that part of the Microsoft Security Score for Identity in Azure improves your score if you *don't* enforce password rotation, what a sign of the times! Who out there still works somewhere that forces rotation (because "reasons")? pic.twitter.com/a2yQQvNRpa

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) October 6, 2022

I love this for the way it throws traditional logic out the window, logic we all knew sucked and I suspect the massive engagement the tweet drove is due to precisely that: Microsoft giving us all a good reason to whinge about a sucky practice that still prevails so broadly. So... I hope you enjoy listening to just how bad enforced password rotation sucks 😊

Weekly Update 316
Weekly Update 316
Weekly Update 316
Weekly Update 316

References

  1. We've known that mandatory password rotation has passed its used by date for years now (that blog post was actually the genesis for Pwned Passwords)
  2. The Bhinneka breach went into HIBP (Indonesian e-commerce service with 83% of pwnees being repeat visitors to HIBP)
  3. The Wakanim breach also went in, a pretty fresh one from 6 weeks ago (actually thought this was quite under-reported for an incident impacting 6.7M people)
  4. Sponsored by: Kolide can help you nail third-party audits and internal compliance goals with endpoint security for your entire fleet. Learn more here.

Microsoft Patch Tuesday Fixes New Windows Zero-Day; No Patch for Exchange Server Bugs

By Ravie Lakshmanan
Microsoft's Patch Tuesday update for the month of October has addressed a total of 85 security vulnerabilities, including fixes for an actively exploited zero-day flaw in the wild. Of the 85 bugs, 15 are rated Critical, 69 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. The update, however, does not include mitigations for the actively exploited ProxyNotShell flaws in Exchange Server

Weekly Update 317

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 317

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.

Weekly Update 317
Weekly Update 317
Weekly Update 317
Weekly Update 317

References

  1. I now have a teenager... on social media! (it's been fun setting stuff up with Ari and locking it down, lots of fundamentals there everyone should know)
  2. Here's all the questions from GOTO (also includes the ratings, which please me 😊)
  3. Sponsored by: Varonis. Reduce your SaaS blast radius with data-centric security for AWS, G Drive, Box, Salesforce, Slack and more.

Weekly Update 318

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 318

Aussie breachapalooza! That what it feels like this week between Optus (ok, it was weeks ago but it's still in the news), Vinomofo, My Deal and the mother of all of them (at least as far as media interest goes), Medibank. That last one totally smashed my week out with unprecedented press enquiries, so is it any wonder I totally missed the Microsoft one? I read through that last one live in this week's video and as you'll hear, a breach of any kind is never a good look but what stands out for me about this one isn't the breach itself, rather the marketing effort SOCRadar has made around it. As I say in the video, it just feels... icky. See if you agree.

Weekly Update 318
Weekly Update 318
Weekly Update 318
Weekly Update 318

References

  1. The Optus breach really got the nation down here paying attention to data breaches (that alone got a huge amount of attention, and then Medibank happened...)
  2. I myself got an email from My Deal saying I'm in the breach (ok, so password reset and then they tell me I have no account!)
  3. Vinomofo also had themselves a data breach (they were just using production data for testing "as is industry practice" 🤦‍♂️)
  4. The Medibank breach has made massive news down here (it's particularly nasty when we're talking about health data being held to ransom)
  5. The BlueBleed marketing campaign (sorry - "breach") is more about how it was reported rather than what it actually is (note in the thread that Kevin mentions the search tool has now been removed)
  6. Sponsored by: EPAS by Detack. No EPAS protected password has ever been cracked and won't be found in any leaks. Give it a try, millions of users use it.

Weekly Update 319

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 319

Geez we've been getting hammered down here: Optus, MyDeal, Vinomofo, Medibank and now Australian Clinical Labs. It's crazy how much press interest there's been down here and whilst I think some of it is a bit hyperbolic, bringing the issue to the forefront and ensuring it's being discussed is certainly a good thing. Anyway, let's see what happens between now and next week's video, at this rate there'll be at least one more major Aussie breach to talk about!

Weekly Update 319
Weekly Update 319
Weekly Update 319
Weekly Update 319

References

  1. Big Ass Fan IoT integration has been a big pain in the ass (it really shouldn't be this hard)
  2. Australian Clinical Labs is the latest Aussie company to make the data breach headlines (includes pathology test results 😲)
  3. The E-Pal breach went into HIBP (100k email addresses, more than half in HIBP already)
  4. The Doomworld breach also went into HIBP (they "got pwned by a script kiddie", according to their disclosure)
  5. I've been putting a heap of work into the Stripe integration for the HIBP API key (deleting code is so satisfying!)
  6. Sponsored by: Varonis. Reduce your SaaS blast radius with data-centric security for AWS, G Drive, Box, Salesforce, Slack and more.

You Need to Update Google Chrome, Windows, and Zoom Right Now

By Kate O'Flaherty
Plus: Important patches from Apple, VMWare, Cisco, Zimbra, SAP, and Oracle.

Unofficial Patch Released for New Actively Exploited Windows MotW Vulnerability

By Ravie Lakshmanan
An unofficial patch has been made available for an actively exploited security flaw in Microsoft Windows that makes it possible for files signed with malformed signatures to sneak past Mark-of-the-Web (MotW) protections. The fix, released by 0patch, arrives weeks after HP Wolf Security disclosed a Magniber ransomware campaign that targets users with fake security updates which employ a

Weekly Update 320

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 320

I feel like life is finally complete: I have beaches, sunshine and fast internet! (Yes, and of course an amazing wife, but that goes without saying 😊) For the folks asking via various channels, the speed is not exactly symmetrical at 1000/400 and I'm honestly not sure why that's the case here in Australia. I also had to shell out quite a bit extra to go from 50 up to a "business" plan of 400 up, but with the volumes of data I ship around it'll make a pretty big difference to the way I work over time. Also this week, much more on the work we're doing with HIBP from pricing the annual plans to a proper support system via Zendesk. I'm really hoping that by next week's update we'll have shipped the new rate limits too, stay tuned for that but for now, here's number 320:

Weekly Update 320
Weekly Update 320
Weekly Update 320
Weekly Update 320

References

  1. Finally - I have fast internet! (just a "little" 25x speed boost, thank you very much 😊)
  2. Everyone seems to be doing 17% discounts for annual over monthly billing (that's Slack's pricing page and as someone pointed out in the live stream, it's effectively 2 free months)
  3. We now have a proper support system up and running for the HIBP API keys (we're really happy with Zendesk, hoping this makes both subscribers' and our lives easier)
  4. Sponsored by: Kolide is a fleet visibility solution for Mac, Windows, and Linux that can help you securely scale your business. Learn more here.

Install Latest Windows Update ASAP! Patches Issued for 6 Actively Exploited Zero-Days

By Ravie Lakshmanan
Microsoft's latest round of monthly security updates has been released with fixes for 68 vulnerabilities spanning its software portfolio, including patches for six actively exploited zero-days. 12 of the issues are rated Critical, two are rated High, and 55 are rated Important in severity. This also includes the weaknesses that were closed out by OpenSSL the previous week. Also separately 

Weekly Update 321

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 321

What a week to pick to be in Canberra. Planned well before things got cyber-crazy in Australia, I spent a few days catching up with folks in our capital and talking to the Australia Federal Police for scam awareness week. That it coincided with the dumping of Medibank customer health records made it an especially interesting time to talk with police, politicians and industry leaders. A bit of a bizarre, whirlwind week if I'm honest, but full of very positive encounters even though it coincided with such a demanding time for many of us in this industry down here.

Weekly Update 321
Weekly Update 321
Weekly Update 321
Weekly Update 321

References

  1. Mastodon has been... entertaining 🤣 (just a collection of fun tweets that perfectly illustrate how much many of us have struggled to wrap our heads around it)
  2. HTML email signatures are a complete nightmare ("mjml" bubbled to the top a few times as a way of tackling this)
  3. HIBP API keys can be bought at different rate limits and paid a year in advance! (by some unexplainable miracle, 100% of feedback has been positive!)
  4. I've honestly become a bit lost for words over the Medibank ransom saga, it's just absolutely horrendous (that's a link to my thread commentating on the data dumps)
  5. Sponsored by: Varonis. Reduce your SaaS blast radius with data-centric security for AWS, G Drive, Box, Salesforce, Slack and more.

Weekly Update 322

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 322

It's very strange to have gone 1,051 days without spending more than a few hours apart, but here we are... very temporarily:

Only 15,501km away 😢 And only 4 days until I head back to Oslo 😊 pic.twitter.com/PDn1Syplig

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) November 20, 2022

Which means that right now, I'm throwing myself into a gazillion other things to keep me busy including how schools advise parents to manage devices, wrapping gup that HTML signature, asking probing questions about paying ransoms and, unbelievably, fighting off the most ridiculous claim of HIBP having been P'd. That last one especially, FFS, just listen...

Weekly Update 322
Weekly Update 322
Weekly Update 322
Weekly Update 322

References

  1. Does your child's school provide any guidance around the use of native parental controls on their devices? (not a poll, but a near unanimous "no" response anyway)
  2. My HTML email signature is finally done - it was not a fun process 😭 (for my next trick - making it actually work in Exchange for iOS)
  3. Should there be a government ban on paying a ransom to stop breached data from being publicly leaked? (this one is a poll... with a very clear result)
  4. Have I Been Pwned didn't get pwned (I can't believe how this got written in the first place, nor how anyone ever even took it seriously 🤦‍♂️)
  5. Sponsored by: Varonis. Reduce your SaaS blast radius with data-centric security for AWS, G Drive, Box, Salesforce, Slack and more.

Weekly Update 323

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 323

Finally, after nearly 3 long years, I'm back in Norway! We're here at last, leaving our sunny paradise for a winter wonderland. It's almost surreal given how much has happened in that time, not just the pandemic but returning to Oslo with Charlotte as my Norwegian wife is super cool 😎 Other things this week are not so different, namely people complaining on Twitter (albeit also complaining about Twitter). As I find myself continually caveating, YMMV but it does feel like events are being overly dramatised by some at present. Time will tell, but I think we'll all still be using the platform to complain about things just as effectively in a year from now as we are today 🙂

Weekly Update 323
Weekly Update 323
Weekly Update 323
Weekly Update 323

References

  1. Catch me this week in Oslo doing a free meetup for NDC and NNUG (Tuesday from 17:00 onwards)
  2. Have you heard there's some controversy surrounding Twitter at present? (geez this thread opened a can of worms, it's a massively divisive topic right now)
  3. Acxiom didn't get breached, but that doesn't stop people shipping around "The Acxiom Breach" (I hate breach misattribution with a passion)
  4. You can now get Pwned for 30% less! (because it's a holiday in America, we've made my book cheaper 😊)
  5. Sponsored by: 1Password, a secure password manager, is building the passwordless experience you deserve. See how passkeys work

Drop What You're Doing and Update iOS, Android, and Windows

By Kate O'Flaherty
Plus: Major patches dropped this month for Chrome, Firefox, VMware, Cisco, Citrix, and SAP.

Weekly Update 324

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 324

We're in Copenhagen! Scott and family joined us in Oslo for round 2 of wedding celebrations this week before jumping on the ferry to Copenhagen and seeing the sights here. There's lots of cyber things in this week's vid relating to HIBP's birthday, Medibank and financial penalties for breaches, but I'm just going to leave you with one of the most amazing moments of my life captured in pics:

🇳🇴 ❤️ 👰‍♀️ 🤵 pic.twitter.com/pPY49DArIF

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) December 2, 2022
Weekly Update 324
Weekly Update 324
Weekly Update 324
Weekly Update 324

References

  1. Scott joined Charlotte and I for our second wedding celebration in Oslo (a very special occasion with some amazing pics... just wait until you see what's coming)
  2. I stopped by NDC in Oslo this week to do a joint user group for them and NNUG (first time back in Oslo for almost 3 years!)
  3. It's HIBP's 9th birthday today (well that escalated... quickly?)
  4. The ransomware crew that hit Medibank has announced "case closed" (it's certainly far from that for Medibank, but hopefully that's the end of dumped data)
  5. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia is throwing shade at Australia for attributing the Medibank hack back to Russian criminals (this was always going to get messy)
  6. The Aus government has laid down some serious maximum penalties for future data breaches ("maximum" being the operative word, this isn't about killing companies)
  7. Sponsored by: Kolide is an endpoint security solution for teams that want to meet SOC2 compliance goals without sacrificing privacy. Learn more here.

Weekly Update 325

By Troy Hunt
Weekly Update 325

For the first time in I don't know how long, I couldn't do this live. Turns out both cell and wifi in Lapland are, with the benefit of hindsight, exactly what you'd expect from a remote location in the Arctic circle. The rest of the place was pretty amazing though, and a good deal of this week's content has gone to that. Plus, there's the whole "Australia becoming the world's most cyber-secure country" goal which deserves discussion. Oh - and the tweet with that pic I discuss - I'll just leave that one here 😊

Sometimes, life feels like a fairytale. This is now my favourite photo ever ❤️ pic.twitter.com/lspKwVVSly

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) December 9, 2022
Weekly Update 325
Weekly Update 325
Weekly Update 325
Weekly Update 325

References

  1. Will Australia become the world's most cyber-secure country by 2030? (Is it feasible? Measurable? Does it even matter?)
  2. Abandonia was breached again (7 years on, and still salted MD5 password hashes 🤦‍♂️)
  3. I mentioned my Hack Your Career talk as it relates to dealing with snarky comments online (deep linked to the point where I cover this exact topic)
  4. Sponsored by: Varonis. Reduce your SaaS blast radius with data-centric security for AWS, G Drive, Box, Salesforce, Slack and more.

December 2022 Patch Tuesday: Get Latest Security Updates from Microsoft and More

By Ravie Lakshmanan
Tech giant Microsoft released its last set of monthly security updates for 2022 with fixes for 49 vulnerabilities across its software products. Of the 49 bugs, six are rated Critical, 40 are rated Important, and three are rated Moderate in severity. The updates are in addition to 24 vulnerabilities that have been addressed in the Chromium-based Edge browser since the start of the month.

Ransomware Attackers Use Microsoft-Signed Drivers to Gain Access to Systems

By Ravie Lakshmanan
Microsoft on Tuesday disclosed it took steps to implement blocking protections and suspend accounts that were used to publish malicious drivers that were certified by its Windows Hardware Developer Program. The tech giant said its investigation revealed the activity was restricted to a number of developer program accounts and that no further compromise was detected. Cryptographically signing
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