Research / Normal People and Infosec (2)

India: Political Parties, Risk and Degrees of Attacks

The defacement of political party websites is nothing new, but what motivates them can be dynamic, as Indian Prime Minister Modi found out two days before an official visit to the United States. But since then, media have made the idea of the Indian Hacker increasingly more popular. F …

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Petya Ransomware Outbreak

Petya Ransomware Outbreak

The Petya variant encrypts the MBR and rest of the hard disk drive, then attempts an operation similar to WannaCry. It displays a message informing victims that their files have been encrypted and that they should send $300 in bitcoin to a specific address to decrypt their files. Firs …

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Government Authorities Raid DDoS Providers and Customers

DDoS for hire services operate as a niche within the cybercrime ecosystem, are increasing in popularity as an efficient and effective option to carry out attacks, and are often sold with promises that they will never be detected. *Cough*

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The Median Cyber-Attacker Isn't Even Remotely as Skilled as the Public Thinks

The Median Cyber-Attacker Isn't Even Remotely as Skilled as the Public Thinks

Despite the almost ubiquitous adoption of advanced persistent threat (APT) and zero-day threat actor motifs into cyber security culture, it remains true that the vast majority of cyber-attackers are incapable of even executing the most basic of attacks.

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How Tech and Non-Tech Staff Unwillingly Become a Hacker’s Best Friend

 How Tech and Non-Tech Staff Unwillingly Become a Hacker’s Best Friend

A cyber-attack cripples a power grid leaving an entire town in the dark, and a jammed home security system stops detecting intruders. What's the commonality across all these seemingly unrelated events? Surprise! It's inadequately trained staff.

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Hacking Smear Campaigns and their Effects

With its user growth down 80% and accelerating and its stock price taking a nosedive, Houseparty issued a statement offering $1m for proof that recent hacking and/or breach allegations against it were part of an organised smear campaign. First Published 2nd April 2020 Fast rise, fast …

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Covid-19 and Cyber Attacks

To an extent, the Covid-19 virus has already served its purpose – to spread fear and paranoia in people. The attackers are using the opportunity to test out different ways of circumventing cyber security measures. First Published 23rd March 2020 Covid - the beautiful distraction. 4 mi …

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The Iowa Primary from an Information Security Perspective

The app suffered a significant hack that compromised the integrity of the vote and threatened to invalidate the results completely. The app developers are now suggesting "a firewall issue", which had nothing to do with their code, is to blame. First Published 10th February 2020 Actual …

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The Inevitability of 'Shlayer'

There seems to be a perception by many Apple users that Macs are somehow immune to infection with malware. Unfortunately, Shlayer is an example of just how wrong that idea is. First Published 31st January 2020 macOS in the spotlight. 4 min read | Reflare Research Team We have repeated …

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The Changing Meaning of 'A Hack'

The Changing Meaning of 'A Hack'

For decades, the term “hack” was used to denote a clever (often functional) solution to a problem. However, "hack" has since evolved into meaning something very different. First Published 8th January 2020 When it comes to being hacked, words matter. 4 min read | Reflare Research Team …

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