Each week we scour the web to discover the latest developments, news and tips that will help you keep your technology (and your business) safe and secure.
Here are the most interesting articles we’ve found this week that could be helpful to you:
Audit Reveals IRS Struggles to Implement Security Controls
The IRS has access to vast amounts of confidential information of American citizens. Yet they fail to implement some basic security controls to keep it safe.
Until the IRS takes appropriate steps to resolve control deficiencies, taxpayer data will remain “unnecessarily vulnerable” to inappropriate use, says Gregory Wilshusen, GAO director of information security issues and co-author of the audit report, which was published March 28.
McAfee Labs Unlocks LeChiffre Ransomware – McAfee
One good piece of Ransomware news this week. There’s always a war going on between creators of malware and security companies. This week, McAfee won a battle by figuring out how to unlock a specific piece of ransomware.
As we analyzed this ransomware, we found that we could unlock all LeChiffre-encrypted files without having to pay a ransom.
Like It Or Not, Firewalls Still Front And Center
Having a secure firewall – how important is it?
According to survey respondents, 91% of security practitioners say that firewalls are as critical as always or more critical than ever to their security architecture, and the same ratio believe this will continue to be the case for the next half decade.
PowerWare – New Ransomware Written in PowerShell
Another piece of ransomware has been found using Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word documents rarely contain macros for a very good reason. If you see a prompt requesting permission to run a word macro, answer “no” then review the document. Most legitimate document authors don’t use macros in their documents and almost all hackers do.
Criminal gangs behind PowerWare are spreading it using spam messages including a Word document attachment purporting to be an invoice. The attackers use an old trick in order to convince victims in enabling the macros, they request to enable macros to correctly view the document.
