Towerwall's InfoSec Blog

secuProvided by William Gallagher Associates Insurance Brokers, Inc. News broke last week that Anthem, the nation’s second-largest health insurance carrier, was the victim of a data breach by external hackers. This breach affects both current and potentially former clients of Anthem. WGA is monitoring the situation on an ongoing basis, and here is what we know at this point. Anthem is working with the FBI to determine the extent of the compromised data. To provide members with the most currentfalse

The funkily-named bug of the week is GHOST. Its official moniker is the less catchy CVE-2015-0235, and it's a vulnerability caused by a buffer overflow in a system library that is used in many, if not most, Linux distributions. A buffer overflow is where you assume, for example, that when you handle a four-byte network number written out as decimal digits, you will never get anything longer than 255. 255. 255. 255. That takes up 15 characters, so you may decide that you'll never need more thanfalse

Anthem, the nation's second-largest health insurance company, is the latest target of a security breach. Eighty million customers, including the company's own CEO, are at risk of having their personal information stolen. VPC SAN FRANCISCO - As many as 80 million customers of the nation's second-largest health insurance company, Anthem Inc., have had their account information stolen, the company said in a statement. "Anthem was the target of a very sophisticated external cyber-attack," Anthemfalse

As we approach the end of the year, let’s have a look back at the top hacking incidents of 2014. This year, we might have witnessed the most damaging attack of the decade. It will not be easy beating the Sony attack.

Sophos Researcher James Wyke recently did an analysis of the malware Vawtrak. He found that Vawtrak has been targeting financial institutions, especially banks. Vawtrak injects a DLL code into the targeted bank’s website, which allows a bypass of the victim’s two-factor authentication and infects the victim with a mobile malware. The malware then automatically transfers money out of the victims account and hides any traces of the transfer. If you notice unusual activity in your bank account orfalse

3 ways to make your Outlook.com account safer by John Hawes

By: Solange_Desc1 Security researchers have discovered a new software bug known as the “Bash Bug” or “Shellshock,” or to those more technically “in-the-know” as GNU Bash Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2014-6271)(link is external). This bug, more correctly termed, ‘vulnerability’, potentially allows attackers to gain control over targeted computers. The bug is present in a piece of computer software called, Bash, that is typically found on computers running an operating system calledfalse

1.2 billion logins scooped up by CyberVor hacking crew - what you need to do Hackers have amassed a vast collection of stolen data, including 1.2 billion unique username/password pairs, by compromising over 420,000 websites using SQL injection techniques. Researchers monitored the gang for over seven months, thought to be "fewer than a dozen men in their 20s who know one another personally" based in a small city in central Russia. They found that the group, working together since at least 2011,false

When an international law enforcement action earlier this month knocked out theGameover botnet, one happy consequence was the takedown of the servers that the CryptoLocker ransomware needed in order to do its dirty work. Well, any celebration over CryptoLocker’s demise is certainly premature - encrypting ransomware is alive and well. With many victims paying up, ransomware is a lucrative business for the crooks, and CryptoLocker has inspired copycats who want in on the loot.

A new ransomware program, known as Cryptolocker, was identified recently. Ransomware can freeze your computer and ask you to pay a fee, but this malicious ransomware does more than just that. (You can use a anti-virus tool to remove the virus.) Cryptolocker is different from other ransomware due to the fact that it allows your computer and software to run while your personal files, such as documents, spreadsheets, and images, are encrypted. The only copy of the decryption key is then saved ontofalse