Security News

Interview with the Head of the NSA’s Research Directorate
2022-02-03 12:01

MIT Technology Review published an interview with Gil Herrera, the new head of the NSA's Research Directorate. The math department, often in conjunction with the computer science department, helps tackle one of NSA's most interesting problems: big data.

FBI, NSA and CISA Warns of Russian Hackers Targeting Critical Infrastructure
2022-01-12 02:47

Amid renewed tensions between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine and Kazakhstan, American cybersecurity and intelligence agencies on Tuesday released a joint advisory on how to detect, respond to, and mitigate cyberattacks orchestrated by Russian state-sponsored actors. To that end, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and National Security Agency have laid bare the tactics, techniques, and procedures adopted by the adversaries, including spear-phishing, brute-force, and exploiting known vulnerabilities to gain initial access to target networks.

CISA, FBI and NSA Publish Joint Advisory and Scanner for Log4j Vulnerabilities
2021-12-28 19:34

Cybersecurity agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.S., and the U.K. on Wednesday released a joint advisory in response to widespread exploitation of multiple vulnerabilities in Apache's Log4j software library by nefarious adversaries. "Sophisticated cyber threat actors are actively scanning networks to potentially exploit Log4Shell, CVE-2021-45046, and CVE-2021-45105 in vulnerable systems. These vulnerabilities are likely to be exploited over an extended period."

NSA and CISA share guidance on securing 5G cloud infrastructure
2021-10-28 17:06

CISA and the NSA shared guidance on securing cloud-native 5G networks from attacks seeking to compromise information or deny access by taking down cloud infrastructure. The two federal agencies issued these recommendations for service providers and system integrators that build and configure 5G cloud infrastructure, including cloud service providers, core network equipment vendors, and mobile network operators.

FBI, CISA, NSA share defense tips for BlackMatter ransomware attacks
2021-10-18 22:03

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Security Agency published today an advisory with details about how the BlackMatter ransomware gang operates.The joint cybersecurity advisory from CISA, the FBI, and the NSA shares the tactics, techniques, and procedures associated with BlackMatter activity that could help organizations protect against the BlackMatter ransomware gang.

NSA warns of wildcard certificate risks, provides mitigations
2021-10-12 06:23

In a document released last week, the agency provides mitigations against the risks that come with the use of wildcard certificates. A wildcard digital certificate can be used with multiple subdomains on the same domain, so it can cover multiple servers, while a multi-domain certificate is used for multiple domains on a single IP address.

NSA, CISA share VPN security tips to defend against hackers
2021-09-28 21:45

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Security Agency have released guidance for hardening the security of virtual private network solutions. The two agencies created the document to help organizations improve their defenses particularly against attacks from nation-state adversaries, who in the past have exploited bugs in VPN systems to "Steal credentials, remotely execute code, weaken encrypted traffic's cryptography, hijack encrypted traffic sessions, and read sensitive data from the device."

NSA, CISA share VPN security tips to defend against hackers
2021-09-28 21:45

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Security Agency have released guidance for hardening the security of virtual private network solutions.The two agencies created the document to help organizations improve their defenses particularly against attacks from nation-state adversaries, who in the past have exploited bugs in VPN systems to "Steal credentials, remotely execute code, weaken encrypted traffic's cryptography, hijack encrypted traffic sessions, and read sensitive data from the device."

FBI, CISA, and NSA warn of escalating Conti ransomware attacks
2021-09-22 17:24

CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Security Agency warned today of an increased number of Conti ransomware attacks targeting US organizations. The three US federal agencies urge enterprise IT admins to review their organizations' network security posture and implement the immediate actions outlined in the joint advisory to defend against Conti ransomware.

More Detail on the Juniper Hack and the NSA PRNG Backdoor
2021-09-09 11:13

We knew the basics of this story, but it’s good to have more detail. Here’s me in 2015 about this Juniper hack. Here’s me in 2007 on the NSA backdoor.