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8 Security Measures for IT Shops This Holiday Season
We've offered a lot of security advice for those shopping online this holiday season. But what about the IT practitioners responsible for securing sites those customers are using?This post is for them.Here are some words of wisdom I've picked up from security pros over the years. Some of the advice may seem obvious. But as I said yesterday, repetitive advice tends to be necessary in this hyper-connected, fast-paced world of
Online Shopping Scams and How to Avoid Them
We recently shared five tips from Akamai Security Advocate Dave Lewis on how to avoid traps attackers set for online holiday shoppers. Today, we share articles from various publications to help you identify and avoid the most typical scams.Tomorrow, I'll have a new post on things IT practitioners can do for their retail employers to harden systems against attack. The advice is important, because for every 100 failed online scams
Yummba Webinject Tools Used for Banking Fraud
Attackers are using Yummba webinject tools to target banks and other enterprises, Akamai's Prolexic Security Engineering & Response Team (PLXsert) warned in an advisory this morning. Download the advisory from our State of the Internet site Zeus crimeware has a history of being used to build botnets, steal banking credentials and launch DDoS attacks -- targeting platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) infrastructures. The added capabilities of Yummba custom webinjects make
Demo Illustrates the Powerful Simplicity of "Let's E ...
Yesterday, I told you about "Let's Encrypt" -- the new, free Certificate Authority (CA) launched by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG) with help from Akamai and other companies. To recap, this is another big step in the industry-wide transition from cleartext HTTP to secured HTTPS over TLS. It will allow organizations to obtain basic server certificates for their domains through a simple one-click process.For a look at how simple
"Let's Encrypt" = Secure HTTPS Over TLS
The industry-wide transition from cleartext HTTP to secured HTTPS over TLS moves another step forward this week, with the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG) announcing the launch of a new Certificate Authority (CA) service called "Let's Encrypt." Akamai, Mozilla, Cisco, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, IdenTrust and researchers at the University of Michigan are working through ISRG to deliver the infrastructure in mid-2015.
Voting Season for (ISC)2 Members
Many readers of this blog are CISSPs and members of (ISC)2 -- the organization that administers and maintains the certification. This is the time of year when they have a chance to vote for the Board of Directors and have a say in how (ISC)2 conducts itself.Akamai Security Advocate Dave Lewis is finishing his second year as a member of the current board. He's not up for re-election until next
Trends in Security for the Commerce and Travel Indus ...
Late last year, Akamai CSIRT Director Michael Smith gave a presentation about security trends affecting eCommerce and the travel industry. Around the same time, I conducted a two-part podcast interview with him on those and other security challenges. I finally got around to watching the video of his presentation, and think the big picture he presented is as true today as it was then. Have a look, and then a
Microsoft Security Update for November 2014
Microsoft released its November 2014 Security Update Tuesday. Windows, Office, Server Software and the .NET Framework are among the items affected.More Akamai perspective on patching and vulnerability management: Akamai University: Vulnerability Management vs. Pen TestingTen Years After the Blaster WormBug Bounty Programs: A Turning Point for Microsoft
Attackers Use DNS Flooder Tool to Amplify DDoS Impac ...
Akamai's Prolexic Security Engineering and Research Team (PLXsert) issued an advisory this morning warning of a new technique bad actors are using to launch DNS amplification attacks. Amplification attacks generate large response packets with relatively small requests. Attackers create large DNS TXT (text) records to increase amplification, magnifying the impact of a DDoS attack. Several campaigns observed since Oct. 4, 2014 contain fragments of text taken from press releases issued by