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Published Monday, October 29, 2012 10:38 AM by Jason Woo
Every week I hear cyber security teams say they’re worried about spear-phishing . They’re struggling to defend against them with their current technology. But to exacerbate matters, their users also struggle to understand how to spot a malicious...

Published Wednesday, October 24, 2012 3:00 PM by Fiaaz Walji
Last week, the Canadian federal government announced its plans to create a secure, stable and resilient digital infrastructure in Canada. To help improve incident response and stop cyber-threats, the Government of Canada is investing $155M in our cybersecurity...

Published Tuesday, October 09, 2012 4:58 AM by Patrik Runald
Spear-phishing is a huge concern for today’s government and enterprises. While high profile attacks like last week’s spear-phishing attack against the White House and last year’s attack against Oak Ridge National Laboratory underscore...

Published Tuesday, September 18, 2012 1:14 PM by Jason Clark

I recently hosted a Websense customer round-table discussion with 20 CSOs from top U.S. companies. We swapped war stories, hashed out the security challenges they face every day and they shared how they’ve been successful. These CSOs work in a variety of industries, including federal, finance and healthcare. Recently, there have been a number of highly public targeted attacks, which led to a lengthy discussion on spear-phishing. I found their insights very valuable and I wanted to share some key points...

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Published Monday, September 10, 2012 7:59 AM by Spencer Parker
The seven stages hackers follow to steal data have been exposed! Traditional URL and AV defences are no longer effective in blocking targeted attacks. Cloud apps, mobility and remote users have all contributed to a growth in SSL traffic, which is a major...

Published Thursday, August 16, 2012 9:41 AM by Stacey Garcia

This week, Juniper Research estimated that the number of employee-owned smartphones and tablets used at work is set to reach 350 million by 2014, up from 150 million in 2012. With new smartphones and tablets inundating companies worldwide, IT security teams are struggling to determine acceptable use policies. It goes beyond corporate BlackBerries and laptops to the newest BYOD (like iPads, iPhones, etc).

To help teams manage the mobile influx, we just released a new five-part Websense Mobile Acceptable Use Policy Kit. It provides a guide to help your company embrace mobile devices, communicate with employees, and keep confidential data secure. You can confidently use this guide to help you get started on your company’s acceptable use policy or to supplement your existing mobile device acceptable use policy.

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Published Thursday, August 09, 2012 12:11 AM by Tom Clare

 

Last week we announced several new, important core security technologies that we added to our TRITON architecture. Websense ACE now includes 10 new defense innovations; seven are focused on outbound traffic to keep data theft and call-home communications contained, preventing theft or loss. Because so many of them are industry firsts, I wanted to take a moment to explain what many of these do and why we created them.

Truth is, the bad guys are stealing corporate data and avoiding detection using advanced techniques. In just the last year, we've seen key intellectual property and user identities stolen from corporations and government agencies, including some you would least expect-including entertainment (gaming) and security companies!

Below are a few examples of how cyber criminals are going undetected, stealing your IP, and how we can stop it from happening.

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Published Monday, August 06, 2012 10:18 PM by Tom Clare

Every day, organizations worldwide are targeted by data-stealing attacks. While these attacks have evolved in frequency and sophistication, many security defenses have failed to adapt. Old techniques don’t address containment against data theft and cybercrime call-home communications. The growing prevalence of cloud apps, along with increases in SSL traffic, mobility and remote users are also adding more blind spots to traditional defenses.

It’s imperative that we continue to stay up-to-date on the latest tactics and tricks. Join me this Wednesday, August 8, 2012 from 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. PT for a webinar on the seven stages of data theft. We’ll be covering each of these steps:

Reconnaissance - Targeted attackers access credentials and research online profiles, email IDs, org. chart information, hobbies and interests from social profiles to gain insight on their victims.

Lures - Designed to prey on human curiosity, web lures often link to videos or breaking news, while email lures are more business-focused on transaction and fake delivery notices.


Redirects - Users are usually directed to a survey, rogue anti virus offer or a fake web page where an exploit kit is waiting. Traditional redirects are injection attacks, while newer ones focus on social networking wall postings, fake plug-ins, fake certificates and heavily obfuscated java script.


Exploit Kits - The exploit kit objective is like that of a sniper: take the shot with a malware dropper file only when an open door for tested vulnerabilities is found.


Dropper Files - This stage is what most people consider the focus of their forward-facing defenses: analyze every file that comes into the network for malware. The problem is dropper files use dynamic packers, so known signatures and patterns are not available.


Call-Home - This stage involves calling home for malware downloads and tools, and for sending back information, standard procedure for any successful online attack. The problem is that most defenses are only forward-facing and do not analyze the outbound traffic from infected systems.


Data Theft - This is what they are after. The ability to contain an attack and stop data theft raises many questions that we will address. Can your defenses detect password files leaving your network or the use of custom encryption on outbound files?

In addition, we’ll be covering: why current defenses are failing; today’s new security requirements; and the newest, bleeding edge advanced threat and data theft defenses to emerge thus far.

We look forward to having you join the webinar. Bring your questions and be ready to talk threats!

 

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Published Thursday, July 26, 2012 7:46 PM by Bob Hansmann

Time for Black Hat again! Day one is almost complete and I’ve seen some big themes.

There’s some of the usual. Vulnerability scanning and pen testing are definitely present and the topics of identifying and learning from data breaches are still big—especially around the area of SIEM. There are also some new developments. For example, more exhibitors are simply about education, including your typical certification schools, but general higher learning institutions, like the University of Maryland, are also here.

As usual, Black Hat USA is full of security vendors and their products, but there seem to be more ‘service’ offerings showcased this year. This may not be surprising to those who have heard analysts increasingly discuss the weaknesses assumed by an organization that is overly dependent on purely in-house resources.

Education, services and research tools are obviously taking center stage in the battleagainst cybercrime. All this focus on education is precisely why we’ve developed a few new tools and resources to help resource-strapped customers tap into the expertise of the Websense® Security Labs™ researchers.

Sometimes you need more than what you have on-hand—especially when you are dealing with highly advanced malware and complex data stealing attacks. That’s when you need an expert security researcher to help. Our Websense Security Labs have morethan one hundred team members worldwide, hip–deep in the latest threats. The new Websense CyberSecurity Intelligence™ (CSI) servicesannounced today, help extend their expertise and educational benefits right into your organization.

Websense CSI services offer both online and 1:1 time with our researchers, through tools, training, in-person guidance and malware forensics.

All Websense CSI customers will have access to ThreatScope™, an online sandbox environment, to safely test potential malware. It uses our Websense Advanced Classification Engine (ACE) analytics to compile an extensive report of observed behavior on an uploaded file. Insights include the infection process; post-infection activities (such as calling home); system-level events and processes; registry changes and filemodifications.

Think about it, Black Hat USA only comes around once a year, but every day needs to be about education in the security field. Websense CSI services can be an extension of your learning process— giving you access to our researchers and the necessary tools to help you become more educated on the threats of today.

If you could study one aspect of today’s threats, what would you dive into?

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Published Saturday, July 14, 2012 4:41 PM by Joshua Rosenthal
On July 27, for the first time ever, all of the summer Olympic game events will be streamed online by a network. In addition, we’ll see thousands of other sites re-streaming or hosting the content. The internet will be awash with Olympics. And while...

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