XFER Blog

As the U.S. election rapidly approaches, many citizens are strongly concerned with who they’ll vote for. Unfortunately, not enough of these same citizens are nearly as concerned with what they’ll vote on, as the electronic voting machines utilized in many polling places are notoriously insecure to breaches.

Halloween is a time when creatures like ghosts and goblins are celebrated rather than feared. Even adults use the holiday to lighten up and enjoy themselves, as they’re well aware that the monsters so often seen and heard about in stories are fictional. Unfortunately, the fact remains that there are monsters hiding in plain sight all around us, playing on the fears and misfortune of others--namely, hackers.

Today’s cars are equipped with more complicated computer systems that allow users access to cutting-edge technology and services. Due to the increasing number of cyber attacks on computerized cars, Volkswagen has chosen to team up with three Israeli cybersecurity experts to equip advanced vehicles with the proper security solutions.

There’s an ongoing debate concerning whether the United States Constitution gives the American government the right to access data held on electronic devices by its citizens. In case they didn’t make themselves heard clearly enough, the director of the FBI, James Comey, has released a statement at Symantec’s Annual Government Symposium. You might not like his answer.

Windows is perhaps the most common workplace computing tool, and hackers have been trying for decades to uncover holes in its security. In some cases, like with unsupported operating systems, they’ve succeeded. However, Microsoft’s latest addition to their OS family, Windows 10, seems to have exceptionally potent built-in security measures, many of which have the hackers at the Black Hat conference scratching their heads and scrambling to find threats to talk about.

It’s clear that security professionals have waged war with hackers since the Internet’s inception, but NATO has reaffirmed that cybersecurity is not just a localized problem; it’s a nation-state-wide issue, and one that needs to be addressed. Just like land, air, and sea, cyberspace is now an operational domain, a place that can be considered a battlefield.

Businesses need to take security into account and make it a priority. In fact, security is so important that Verizon has compiled a report of the various types of attacks and data breaches that occurred in the past year. This is Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report, or DBIR, and it offers insights into how you can protect your business and secure your assets.

There’s a new augmented reality game on the market these days. Perhaps you’ve heard of it - a title called Pokemon Go, which lets you capture virtual monsters that “appear” on your smartphone’s camera. However, hackers have seized this opportunity to infect players’ mobile devices with a backdoor called DroidJack, which uses the mobile app’s immense popularity to its advantage.

“What’re you in for?” a prison inmate asks. “I shared my Netflix password with my sister,” you say. This conversation might be absurd, but according to a recent ruling in accordance with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, it’s one that could actually happen. Now, sharing your Netflix password to let someone catch up on their favorite TV show can be considered a federal offense.

A vulnerability has been discovered that affects all versions of Microsoft’s Windows operating system, including the long-unsupported Windows XP, going all the way back to Windows 95. The vulnerability, called BadTunnel, allows attackers to directly bypass system defenses and initiate a man-in-the-middle attack. The vulnerability isn’t limited to just Windows, either; it also affects Internet Explorer, Edge, and other Microsoft software.

In a recent hack attack, Twitter had 33 million user login credentials stolen. This is unfortunate, but not surprising; an incident like this routinely makes the headlines. Although, what is surprising is what this hack reveals about people’s poor password security habits.

You may feel like you’re familiarized with everything your smartphone can do; yet, there are still some little-known things about smartphones that may surprise you. Take for example these four smartphone facts from List25.

When it comes to cybersecurity, maintenance is key. Whether you choose human-based security or an automated security solution, running into shortcomings is still possible. Human security tends to rely on the word of experts, and anything that doesn’t fit into the guidelines is missed and may therefore get through and wreak havoc. Network security can be a touch overzealous, in a way “crying wolf,” with an excess of false positives that ultimately require human analysis, leading to human frustration.

We often talk about how important it is that your business use the most recent and up-to-date versions of your software solutions, but it’s not often that we get to say that people using Internet Explorer 11 have the right idea. As it turns out, nearly a quarter of all Windows PCs are still using unsupported versions of Internet Explorer, with half of them being found on computers still running Windows XP. What has this world come to?