Kirk was executive editor for security and technology for Information Security Media Group. Reporting from Sydney, Australia, he created "The Ransomware Files" podcast, which tells the harrowing stories of IT pros who have fought back against ransomware.
Web hosting company Hostinger has reset all customer passwords after one of its databases was breached, affecting 14 million accounts. The intruder gained access to an authorization token that allowed access to a customer database, the company says.
The transition to cloud-based software and infrastructure has revolutionized development and services. It's also created a bevy of new security challenges. Jay Heiser of Gartner says if organizations don't get cloud security right, it's their own fault. Here's why.
Progressive companies seeking to improve their security are increasingly adopting bug bounty programs. The theory is that rewarding outside researchers improves security outcomes. But in practice, bug bounty programs can be messy and actually create perverse incentives, says bug-hunting expert Katie Moussouris.
Big data analysis relies on big data being available. But a recent incident in Australia put the privacy of millions of public transport travelers at risk after steps weren't taken to properly anonymize three years of travel records, Victoria's information commissioner has found.
Deception technology is attractive in that it offers - in theory - low false positives and critical clues to attackers' methodologies. But the benefits depend on its ability to fool attackers and whether organizations can spare the time to fine-tune it.
A South Korean company that makes a biometric access control platform exposed fingerprint, facial recognition data and personal information after leaving an Elasticsearch database open, security researchers say. They found 23GB of data belonging to organizations that use Suprema's BioStar 2 system.
Choice Hotels says about 700,000 guest records were exposed after one of its vendors copied data from its systems. Fraudsters discovered the unsecured database and tried to hold the hotel chain to ransom, which it ignored.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the exposure of personal and mortgage-related records from First American Financial Corp., according to security blogger Brian Krebs. First American spent $1.7 million on the incident in its second quarter, but investigations and lawsuits are looming.
Apple is opening up its bug bounty program to all researchers, increasing the rewards and expanding the scope of qualifying products in a bid to attract tips on critical software flaws. The changes were announced at last week's Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas.
Broadcom says it plans to acquire Symantec's enterprise security business for $10.7 billion in cash. The deal relieves Symantec of a business line where it faced aggressive competition. For Broadcom, it means gaining well-developed security offerings as it seeks to grow its infrastructure business.
Australia's fair trading regulator says it's seeking penalties against HealthEngine, an online platform for booking medical appointments, for allegedly selling patient details to private health insurance brokers without disclosure and embellishing patient reviews of healthcare providers.
Microsoft warned on Monday that Russia-linked attackers are gaining access to corporate networks through poorly configured devices, such as office printers and VOIP phones. The remedy is paying more attention to deployed IoT devices, including establishing security policies and regular testing.
Capital One's enormous data breach is a subject of intense scrutiny as well as fear. A definitive post mortem is likely months away. But security professionals have ideas as to how the breach was achieved and the weaknesses that led to it.
Through hundreds of millions of selfies, the small Russian company behind FaceApp has likely created one of the largest private troves of geometric and facial landmark data - on the scale of Google and Facebook. The viral app has turned into an intellectual property boon.
The cause of Capital One's breach is known. But experts say the incident still raises questions over why Capital One held onto personal data so long and if the bank was adequately monitoring administrator accounts.
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