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Targeted Phishing: Your auth password for [ user@host.com ] expires today !

It’s been a while since I received a targeted phishing. This time it is on one of my email accounts hosted on Google, and strangely, their phishing filter did not catch this one.     ITNotification <ITNotices@mail.com>  sorin@mustaca.com Expiration Your Password for sorin@mustaca.com has expired today. You can change your Password or continue using current Access   KEEP PASSWORD  ->erased domain on geocities.com   sorin@mustaca.com Admin. 2023 Admin – 2023

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Takeovers in the IT-Security Industry

I just sow a post by AV-Comparatives called  “AV-Comparatives Explains the Implications of Takeovers in the IT-Security Industry” The entire article is very interesting and it is worth reading. And it is also objective and valid as well! Great job, AV-Comparatives! What made me write this post is the graphic at the end of the post (courtesy of AV-Comparatives):   I became immediately nostalgic  when I sow that it starts with 2003, the acquisition of GeCAD by Microsoft. I was there when this happened! For those who don’t know, I started my career in cybersecurity in 1999 at RAV Antivirus, produced until 2003 by GeCAD. I was in the industry when all these M&A happened and I was actually working with some of them when they were acquired. I am still working with some of them. 😉 Of course, the most interesting one was Avira being acquired twice in 12 months. I was no longer working as an employee of Avira, but I was working with Avira in 2020, when it was first acquired. I don’t know if these acquisitions are the only ones that happened in the AV industry, but this list it is for sure the most complete…


Cyber Monday – enjoy the discounts safe !

Today is Cyber Monday , a day when all webshops (and not only)  give big discounts to many products they sell. Even if the discount campaigns of some webshops are incredible and too good to let it go, you should think twice before giving the order: the discount is for a product that everybody wants and seems very hard to find. Think of PS5, latest XBOX, etc…. the discount is waaaaayyy too big to miss you haven’t seen that website/webshop before you haven’t bought from that webshop before you haven’t seen on the Internet any review about that webshop you are being requested to give your personal details, card or bank PIN number If you answered YES to at least one, then STOP right here, right NOW. As a rule of thumb If something is too good to be true, then probably it isn’t!   How can you recognize if a webshop is fake or fraud? Transform the 5 statements above in questions and ask yourself. Is the discount for a product that everybody wants and seems very hard to find? Why would any shop (online or offline) exactly the product that everybody wants at almost any price, reduce it…


BSI: Die Lage der IT-Sicherheit in Deutschland (German)

Quelle: https://www.bsi.bund.de/DE/Service-Navi/Publikationen/Lagebericht/lagebericht_node.html   Malwarelage: Das vergangene Jahr war geprägt von einer deutlichen Ausweitung cyber-krimineller Erpressungsmethoden. Nicht nur die Anzahl der Schadprogramm-Varianten stieg zeitweise rasant an – mit bis zu 553.000 neuen Varianten pro Tag der höchste jemals gemessene Wert (siehe Kapitel Neue Schadprogramm-Varianten, Seite 11). Auch die Qualität der Angriffe nahm weiterhin beträchtlich zu. https://multimedia.gsb.bund.de/BSI/Video/Lagebericht/2021/lagebericht-1-Schadprogramm-Varianten.mp4   Die Hauptbedrohungen: Cyber-Erpressungen entwickeln sich zur größten Bedrohung (Ransomware) https://multimedia.gsb.bund.de/BSI/Video/Lagebericht/2021/lagebericht-2-Ransomware.mp4   Schwachstellen https://multimedia.gsb.bund.de/BSI/Video/Lagebericht/2021/Lagebericht-3-MS-Exchange-Schwachstellen.mp4 Der Faktor „Mensch”     Mehr in dem PDF Dokument von BSI hier: https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/BSI/Publikationen/Lageberichte/Lagebericht2021.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=3


Cyber Diplomacy – a course from UN Office for Disarmament Affairs

I just finished the online course “Cyber Diplomacy“, a course from the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. For me it was interesting to find out how much from the real world has been already applied to the cybersecurity world. Unfortunately, by seeing this, I realized that actually nobody cares about these UN resolutions. For example, did you know that a country should not allow hackers to perform attacks on another country from within its territory? And how should this be controlled? We hear almost every week that Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and many more are performing cyberattacks on “their enemies” (observe the quotes). If they are members of UN (click the links above to see details. Conclusion: The course is interesting, even if you don’t actually learn new concepts about cybersecurity. You do learn how serious cybersecurity is being taken by the UN. And this is good…



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New Android app for IT Security News with push notifications

ITSecurityNews.info is my security news aggregator, which collects RSS feeds and publishes them in WordPress automatically. A long time ago I created an app using AppSpotr, but since then things have changed. So, I decided to write one myself. Of course, not from scratch, I took an open source project called fNotifier and changed it to my needs. The app remains running as a service and polls regularly (see screenshot below – Settings) for new feeds.   And after one rejection due to Policies, it was approved in the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.itsecuritynews   It is actually enough to visit the website on a mobile device and you will see immediately on the top of the page an offer to install the app.  


The Virus Bulletin Conference 2020 VBLocalhost is live and my video presentation is there

Here is the conference link: https://vblocalhost.com/conference/ You need to register first (free).   Here is my paper: One year later: challenges for young anti-malware products today I have to say that the VB team did a good job with the editing 🙂   I think I was too nice with Defender :))) What do you think ?   Here are some , more or less. funny facts about the session filmed: I did the recording in a one day, just before leaving on vacation. I needed more than 8 hours to do it I filmed myself 10 times, 8 of them from start to end a few times I made mistakes a few times my children made some noises once came the post once the cat started to meow so loud in front of my office door, that I had to stop The 8th attempt was the one you see there and it was taken in two parts.


Speaking at the Virus Bulletin Conference 2020: ‘One year later: Challenges for young anti-malware products today’

Source: https://vblocalhost.com/presentations/one-year-later-challenges-for-young-anti-malware-products-today/ A year ago, at VB2019 we presented for the first time an overview of how the anti-malware world looks from the perspective of a young company trying to enter the market: how they try to build products, how they try to enter the market, how they try to convert users, and what challenges they face in these activities. In this new paper we will present an overview of the situation for such a company after one year of experience. We will look at the situation from several angles: that of the consulting company helping them to build the product and enter the market that of working with certification companies regularly, checking the products for detection and performance that of working with Microsoft to make the company compliant and keep them compliant One year later, many still have a hard time understanding that the security market is no longer the Wild Wild West, but we also see that a lot of visible efforts are being made to improve. This means that compliance with ‘clean software’ regulations is becoming an issue. We will present some interesting statistics and compare data from the past with current data. The young companies still…


My IT_SecurityNews account nominated for “Best tweeter” account in the European Cybersecurity Blogger Awards

European Cybersecurity Blogger Awards – VOTE FOR YOUR WINNERS: Vote here . Yes, it is a Google Form… but there is no malware or spam 🙂 Don’t forget to vote IT_SecurityNews! The seventh annual European Cybersecurity Blogger Awards sponsored by Qualys and powered by Eskenzi PR, will be bestowed upon the best cybersecurity bloggers, podcasters, Tweeters, Instagrammers and vloggers in a live virtual event on Tuesday 2nd June 2020. Visit IT Security news and the Twitter account.


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