S3 Ep102: How to avoid a data breach [Audio + Transcript]

Latest episode - listen now! Tell fact from fiction in hyped-up cybersecurity news...

Optus breach – Aussie telco told it will have to pay to replace IDs

Licence compromised? Passport number burned? Need a new one? Who's going to pay?

WhatsApp “zero-day exploit” news scare – what you need to know

Is WhatsApp currently under active attack by cybercriminals? Is this a clear and current danger? How worried should WhatsApp users be?

Uber and Rockstar – has a LAPSUS$ linchpin just been busted (again)?

Is this the same suspect as before? Is he part of LAPSUS$? Is this the man who hacked Uber and Rockstar? And, if so, who else?

Morgan Stanley fined millions for selling off devices full of customer PII

Critical data on old disks always seems inaccessible if you really need it. But when you DON''T want it back, guess what happens...

S3 Ep101: Uber and LastPass breaches – is 2FA all it’s cracked up to be? [Audio + Text]

Latest episode - listen now! Learn why adopting 2FA isn't a reason to relax your other security precautions...

Interested in cybersecurity? Join us for Security SOS Week 2022!

Four one-on-one interviews with experts who are passionate about sharing their expertise with the community.

LastPass source code breach – incident response report released

Wondering how you'd handle a data breach report if the worst happened to you? Here's a useful example.

S3 Ep100.5: Uber breach – an expert speaks [Audio + Text]

Chester Wisniewski on what we can learn from Uber: "Just because a big company didn't have the security they should doesn't mean you can't."

UBER HAS BEEN HACKED, boasts hacker – how to stop it happening to you

Uber is all over the news for a widely-publicised data breach. We help you answer the question, "How do I stop this happening to me?"

S3 Ep100: Browser-in-the-Browser – how to spot an attack [Audio + Text]

Latest episode - listen now! Cosmic rockets, zero-days, spotting cybercrooks, and unlocking the DEADBOLT...

Serious Security: Browser-in-the-browser attacks – watch out for windows that aren’t!

Simple but super-sneaky - use a picture of a browser, and convince people it's real...

Apple patches zero-day holes – even in the brand new iOS 16

Five updates, one upgrade, plus two zero-days. Patch your Macs, iPhones and iPads as soon as you can (again)...

How to deal with dates and times without any timezone tantrums…

Heartfelt encouragement to embrace RFC 3339 - find out why!

S3 Ep99: TikTok “attack” – was there a data breach, or not? [Audio + Text]

Latest episode - listen now! (Or read if you prefer - full transcript inside.)

DEADBOLT ransomware rears its head again, attacks QNAP devices

NAS devices make it easy for anyone to add high-capacity file servers to their network. Guess why cybercrooks love NAS devices too...

Chrome and Edge fix zero-day security hole – update now!

This time, the crooks got there first - only 1 security hole patched, but it's a zero-day.

Peter Eckersley, co-creator of Let’s Encrypt, dies at just 43

This site, like millions of others, has a certificate from Let's Encrypt. Farewell, Peter Eckersley, PhD, who helped make it all possible.

S3 Ep98: The LastPass saga – should we stop using password managers? [Audio + Text]

Latest episode - listen now!

URGENT! Apple slips out zero-day update for older iPhones and iPads

Patch as soon as you can - that recent WebKit zero-day affecting new iPhones and iPads is apparently being used against older models, too.

Chrome patches 24 security holes, enables “Sanitizer” safety system

24 existing bugs fixed. And, we hope, numerous potential future bugs prevented.

JavaScript bugs aplenty in Node.js ecosystem – found automatically

How to get the better of bugs in all the possible packages in your supply chain?

LastPass source code breach – do we still recommend password managers?

What does the recent LastPass breach mean for password managers? Just a bump in the road, or a reason to ditch them entirely?

Firefox 104 is out – no critical bugs, but update anyway

Two trust-spoofing bugs were the main culprits this month - but neither one was a zero-day.

S3 Ep97: Did your iPhone get pwned? How would you know? [Audio + Text]

Latest episode - listen now! (Or read the transcript if you prefer the text version.)

Breaching airgap security: using your phone’s gyroscope as a microphone

One bit per second makes the Voyager probe data rate seem blindingly fast. But it's enough to break your security assumptions...

Bitcoin ATMs leeched by attackers who created fake admin accounts

The criminals didn't implant any malware. The attack was orchestrated via malevolent configuration changes.

Laptop denial-of-service via music: the 1980s R&B song with a CVE!

We haven't validated this vuln ourselves... but the source of the story is impeccable. (Impeccably dressed, at least.)

S3 Ep96: Zoom 0-day, AEPIC leak, Conti reward, healthcare security [Audio + Text]

Latest episode - listen now (or read if you prefer!)

Apple patches double zero-day in browser and kernel – update now!

Double 0-day exploits - one in WebKit (to break in) and the other in the kernel (to take over). Patch now!

Chrome browser gets 11 security fixes with 1 zero-day – update now!

Don't delay - patch today.

US offers reward “up to $10 million” for information about the Conti gang

Wanted - Reward Offered - Five unknown individuals (plus a man with a weird hat)

Zoom for Mac patches critical bug – update now!

There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. Or at least between the TOC and the TOU...

S3 Ep95: Slack leak, Github onslaught, and post-quantum crypto [Audio + Text]

Latest episode - listen now! (Or read the transcript if you prefer.)

APIC/EPIC! Intel chips leak secrets even the kernel shouldn’t see…

If you've ever written code that left stuff lying around in memory when you didn't need it any more... we bet you've regretted it!

Slack admits to leaking hashed passwords for five years

"When those invitations went out... somehow, your password hash went out with them."

Traffic Light Protocol for cybersecurity responders gets a revamp

Traffic lights make a handy global metaphor for denoting the sensitivity of cybersecurity threat data - three colours that everyone knows.

S3 Ep94: This sort of crypto (graphy), and the other sort of crypto (currency!) [Audio + Text]

Latest episode - listen now! (Or read if that's what you prefer.)

GitHub blighted by “researcher” who created thousands of malicious projects

If you spew projects laced with hidden malware into an open source repository, don't waste your time telling us "no harm done" afterwards.

Post-quantum cryptography – new algorithm “gone in 60 minutes”

And THIS is why you don't knit your own home-made encryption algorithms and hope no one looks at them.

Cryptocoin “token swapper” Nomad loses $200 million in coding blunder

Transactions were only approved, it seems, if they were initiated by... errrrr, by anyone.

GnuTLS patches memory mismanagement bug – update now!

GnuTLS may well be the most widespread cryptographic toolkit you've never heard of. Learn more...

How to celebrate SysAdmin Day!

I've just popped in to wish you all/The best SysAdmin Day!

S3 Ep93: Office security, breach costs, and leisurely patches [Audio + Text]

Latest episode - listen now!

Critical Samba bug could let anyone become Domain Admin – patch now!

It's a serious bug... but there's a fix for it, so you know exactly what to do!

Mild monthly security update from Firefox – but update anyway

You're probably thinking we're going to say, "Don't delay/Do it today"... and that's exactly what we are saying!

T-Mobile to cough up $500 million over 2021 data breach

Technically, it's not a fine, and the lawyers will get a big chunk of it. But it still adds up to a half-billion-dollar data breach.

Office macro security: on-again-off-again feature now BACK ON AGAIN!

20 years to turn it on, then 20 weeks to turn it off, then just 2 weeks to turn it back on again. That's progress!

S3 Ep92: Log4Shell4Ever, travel tips, and scamminess [Audio + Text]

Latest episode - listen, read or both!

Apple patches “0-day” browser bug fixed 2 weeks ago in Chrome, Edge

One vendor's zero-day is another vendor's routine patch...

Last member of Gozi malware troika arrives in US for criminal trial

His co-conspirators went into and got out of prison years ago, while he remained free. Now the tables have turned...

8 months on, US says Log4Shell will be around for “a decade or longer”

When it comes to cybersecurity, ask not what everyone else can do for you...

7 cybersecurity tips for your summer vacation!

Here you go - seven thoughtful cybersecurity tips to help you travel safely...

S3 Ep91: CodeRed, OpenSSL, Java bugs, Office macros [Audio + Text]

Latest episode - listen now! Great discussion, technical content, solid advice... all covered in plain English.

Facebook 2FA scammers return – this time in just 21 minutes

Last time they arrived 28 minutes after lighting up their fake domain... this time it was just 21 minutes

Paying ransomware crooks won’t reduce your legal risk, warns regulator

"We paid the crooks to keep things under control and make a bad thing better"... isn't a valid excuse. Who knew?

That didn’t last! Microsoft turns off the Office security it just turned on

An Office anti-malware setting that took more than 20 years to arrive... and fewer than 20 weeks to vanish again.

Apache “Commons Configuration” patches Log4Shell-style bug – what you need to know

It's a bit like Log4J, but for configuration files, not for logging.

S3 Ep90: Chrome 0-day again, True Cybercrime, and a 2FA bypass [Podcast + Transcript]

Listen now! Or read if you prefer...

OpenSSL fixes two “one-liner” crypto bugs – what you need to know

"As bad as Heartbleed"? We heard that concern a week ago, but we think it's less ungood than that...