Author: bacohido

Los Angeles, Calif., Jan. 17, 2024 – Spam calls continue to be a major nuisance in the US, and advice on how to avoid them abound.

Incogni’s latest research challenges prevalent assumptions about spam calls, revealing that traditional advice on avoiding specific area codes is largely ineffective. The study, based on the latest data from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, a staggering 59.81% of all unwanted calls originate from local numbers within the recipient’s state.

An in-depth study of the FTC data debunks the notion that certain area codes reliably signify spam. Incogni’s researchers found that spam area codes vary widely from state to state, discrediting the widely circulated lists suggesting specific area codes to avoid. Even well-known recommendations like area code 216 for Cleveland, Ohio, or 469 for Dallas, Texas, do not align with the datareported to the FTC.

Incogni’s research reveals that the top ten reported spam area codes differ significantly from state to state. Even neighboring states like California and Colorado exhibit a 100% variance in their reported spam area codes.

In addition to the variance in reported spam area codes, Incogni’s research sheds light on the prevalence of toll-free numbers. The study reveals a distinct trend where toll-free numbers, starting with 833, 888, 855, 800, 866, and 844, consistently emerge as common sources of unwanted calls nationwide. Unlike the state-specific variation observed in local area codes, these toll-free numbers are the only ones to transcend state borders.

The study sheds light on the prevalence of “neighbor spoofing,” where spammers intentionally manipulate their numbers to mimic local area codes, capitalizing on the trust associated with local calls.

With no universal catalog of spam area codes, Incogni advocates for a proactive approach to combating spam. The study underscores the importance of digital hygiene, urging individuals to secure their personal data online. Hope for the future, Incogni suggests, lies in comprehensive data protection laws coming into effect to curtail spam effectively.

Incogni’s researchers sought out and downloaded yearly Daily Data Files from the FTC’s Do Not Call (DNC) registry, a database listing the phone numbers of individuals who have requested not to be contacted by telemarketers.

The data represents 286,250 reports submitted to the Federal Trade Commission from 16th October to 8th December, 2023. Incogni researchers combined all the information into one database. Reports without a telephone number for the advertiser, or telephone numbers reported as “111111111” or “0” were removed from the database.

The full text of the study as well as images are available here: https://blog.incogni.com/spam-area-codes

Google drive with data used in this research, images, press release are available here: Spam area codes

About Incogni: Incogni is a leading data privacy company offering an automated data removal tool, with a mission to empower internet users to take control of their personal information online.

Washington, DC, Jan. 12, 2024 – Trimarc Security, the professional services company with extensive expertise in securing Active Directory for enterprise organizations, today announced the early access availability of its new product, Trimarc Vision.

Trimarc Vision is a powerful security posture analysis product that provides visibility into the most important security components of Active Directory. With Trimarc Vision, organizations gain continuous monitoring of security issues attackers leverage to compromise Active Directory (AD).

With dozens to hundreds of thousands of AD users often spread across multiple domains and forests, maintaining a strong security posture can be a daunting task. This is especially true when performing risk calculations, mergers and acquisitions, or conducting remediation planning.

Related: Trimarc Vision demo scenarios

But with Trimarc Vision, organizations can now have a unified view of their AD security, real-world based risk scoring, and prioritized remediation guidance – all in one powerful tool that’s quick to deploy and simple to implement

“Trimarc Vision represents multiple decades of Active Directory knowledge and experience,” notes Sean Metcalf, Trimarc Founder and CTO. “This product is the culmination of over 2 years of active development, and the consolidation of over 7 years and hundreds of Active Directory assessments of the Fortune 50 and beyond. We are very excited to see customers use Trimarc Vision to improve their Active Directory security in just days!”

With Trimarc Vision, you can get answers to these and other critical questions:

•What risk do I have in my environment with Active Directory?

•What actions can I take today/tomorrow/this week to best mitigate AD attack impact?

•What should I be most concerned about in AD when it comes to a potential attack?

•What is the current security posture of ALL of my AD forests?

In addition to being quick to deploy and integrate into existing workflows, one of the key benefits of Trimarc Vision is its ability to enable collaboration between security and operations teams, allowing them to “work off the same sheet of music.” By providing a unified view of security posture across all AD environments, teams can work together more efficiently to address any issues that may arise.

Considering a merger or acquisition? Trimarc Vision has several pain-reducing benefits just for M&A:

•No agent required! Run the Trimarc Vision tool to capture all required information.

•Discover the most important AD security issues with realistic risk scoring.

•Compare the M&A forest with another AD forest, and get an auto-generated summary of high-level concerns.

•Identify when acquired company’s AD forest security level is appropriate before connecting to the corporate network.

Learn more about Trimarc Vision and get early access (and introductory pricing) at https://www.trimarcvision.com/

About Trimarc: Trimarc helps organizations in the Fortune 50 and beyond secure their Microsoft platform, whether on-premises or in the cloud. Based out of Washington, DC, the company is self-funded and was founded in 2016 by Sean Metcalf, a Microsoft Certified Master in Active Directory. Trimarc’s mission is to help organizations better secure their critical IT infrastructure. See how Trimarc is securing the enterprise at https://www.trimarcsecurity.com.

Media contact: Jennifer VanAntwerp, JVAN Consulting, LLC, jen@thejvan.com

 

Rehovot, Israel Dec. 18, 2023 – Salvador Technologies, the pioneering cyber-attack recovery platform provider for critical infrastructures and industrial organizations, today announced that it has secured $6m in funding.

Salvador Technologies’ investment round was led by Pico Venture Partners with participation from existing investors, such as Pitango VC and Sarona Partners, who continue to play an essential role in shaping the company.

Salvador Technologies has built its market-leading cyber-attack recovery platform with its patented security failover technology to prevent downtime damage and ensure ongoing operational continuity for Operational Technology (OT) and Industrial Control Systems (ICS). With the average downtime period after a cyber-attack being up to three weeks and leading to the majority of direct and indirect damages, Salvador Technologies’ platform bypasses standard recovery protocols and allows critical infrastructure operators and industrial enterprises to recover from attacks and any malfunction within only 30 seconds.

Salvador Technologies was founded in 2020 by Alex Yevtushenko (CEO) and Oleg Vusiker (CTO), two childhood friends and innovation enthusiasts with vast experience in cybersecurity.

“The number of cyber-attacks on critical infrastructures is exponentially increasing,” said Alex Yevtushenko, Co-Founder and CEO of Salvador Technologies. “The security challenges are growing, especially in light of the artificial intelligence (AI) that has penetrated into cybercrime and the need for an effective recovery solution is critical.”

“We are thrilled to announce this round of financing and welcome additional investors to our journey,” added Yevtushenko.

The company’s rapidly expanding customer base includes multi-national manufacturing corporations in the chemical, food, automotive and aerospace industries as well as critical infrastructure organizations, such as national maritime ports, healthcare centers, water and energy providers in multiple geographies.

“Salvador solves a tremendous problem in the underserved OT cybersecurity market,” said Tal Yatsiv, General Partner at Pico Venture Partners. “The company’s innovative solution acts as an insurance policy for organizations, eliminating risk by ensuring an immediate full recovery following an attack or a system malfunction.”

About Salvador Technologies: Founded in 2020, Salvador Technologies provides security failover technology for cyber-attack recovery and downtime prevention in Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Operational Technology (OT) organizations. Its innovative solution bypasses standard cyber-attack recovery protocols and forensics measures, minimizing downtime, and regains operations within an astonishing 30-second timeframe. The company’s platform is used by some of the world’s most secure critical infrastructure organizations, including manufacturing, aerospace, maritime, energy and water companies. For more information, please visit www.salvador-tech.com.

Media contact: Tony Miller +972 544 870 808 | tony@noteya.com

The Internet of Things (IoT) is on the threshold of ascending to become the Internet of Everything (IoE.)

Related:Why tech standards matter

IoT is transitioning from an array of devices that we can control across the Internet into a realm where billions of IoE devices can communicate with each other and make unilateral decisions on our behalf.

This, of course, is the plot of endless dystopian books and movies that end with rogue machines in charge. Yet IoE, at this nascent stage, holds much promise to tilt us towards a utopia where technology helps to resolve our planet’s most intractable problems.

This was the theme of Infineon Technologies’ OktoberTech 2023 conference, which I had the privilege of attending at the Computer History Museum in the heart of Silicon Valley. I had the chance to visit with Thomas Rosteck, Infineon’s Division President of Connected Secure Systems (CSS.)

Infineon supplies semiconductors embedded in smart systems, most notably in automotive, power and IoT. What I found most commendable about this Neubiberg, Germany-based semiconductor manufacturer is that it is fully directing its innovations squarely at reversing the negative impacts of climate change.

The theme of their conference, Driving decarbonization and digitalization – together, defines the company’s culture. I spoke with Rosteck about how  emerging IoE systems can help accelerate decarbonization – and about the security challenges that must be met along the way. For a drill down on our discussion, please view the accompanying videocast. Here are my takeaways:

Decentralizing IoT

Advancements in smart buildings and smart transportation systems continued apace in 2023 — and this has resulted in a choke point. Latency build-up has become intolerable, Rosteck noted, as more and more IoT devices send larger and larger rivers of data up into the Internet cloud for processing.

The solution that hardware and software suppliers are pursuing is to push more and more computing tasks out to the far edges of IoT systems — all the way out to the semiconductors controlling and directing the electrical current coursing through each discreet IoT device.

Semiconductors are the processing chips that convert alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) in everything from the tiniest sensors to cloud servers and back to our laptops and smartphones. The technology industry has been focused on finding ways to circulate electricity much more efficiently at this chipset level.

Infineon’s bailiwick happens to be supplying advanced power modules and microcontrollers – the chipsets found embedded in thousands of different types of digitally-controlled appliances and machines, including IoT devices. Along with its partners and even its competitors, Infineon is on a path to push out more and more intelligence to the far edges of IoE systems. Instead of just carrying out simplistic tasks, IoT sensors and actuators are evolving into controls capable of making complex decisions, autonomously, where they are situated.

“We’re in a new wave of digitalization where devices at the edge are getting more and more powerful,” Rosteck says. “We can execute a lot of machine learning, at the edge, in IoT devices . . . it’s possible to reduce complexity and increase efficiencies because you don’t have to bring everything up to the cloud.”

Security by design

I asked Rosteck about the security implications of pushing computation out to the edge of IoT/IoE systems. After all, decentralizing smart functionalities does nothing to slow the expansion of the cyber-attack surface open to clever, motivated hacking collectives.

Rosteck stressed the importance of adopting a “security by design” approach. This means security must get factored in during the earliest stages of IoT product development, more pervasively so at the software level and, more so than ever at the hardware level.

Infineon’s power module and microcontroller chipsets provide a case in point. They come with a “secure element” which embeds encryption keys and authentication certificates at the chip level. “We protect these chips by making sure no one can access these keys,” Rosteck told me.

Locking down device authentication at the chip level provides a very deep, final layer of assurance that connections to each IoT device are trustworthy. What’s more, embedding robust security directly onto a chipset requires minimal use of additional energy in the field. This is important when considering the alternative of deploying yet more layers of software security delivered as a cloud service, Rosteck noted.

It struck me that this all fits very nicely into Infineon’s business model, which essentially is to grow revenue and profits by aggressively reducing its own carbon footprint and then encouraging its partners and customers to do the same.

“Driving decarbonization is a mission we have given ourselves and it is one that’s really important for all of us and actually for the generations to come,” Rosteck says, acknowledging that it also makes good business sense. “I also have to be able to make money with it because if I don’t make money, I can’t do the things that I believe in.”

Very well said! I’ll keep watch and keep reporting.

Pulitzer Prize-winning business journalist Byron V. Acohido is dedicated to fostering public awareness about how to make the Internet as private and secure as it ought to be.

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(LW provides consulting services to the vendors we cover.)

 

Here’s part two of Last Watchdog’s year-end tête-à-tête with top cybersecurity experts. Part three to follow on Friday. We asked two questions:

•What should be my biggest takeaway from 2023, with respect to mitigating cyber risks at my organization?

•What should I be most concerned about – and focus on – in 2024?

Their guidance:

Brandon Colley, Principal Security Consultant, Trimarc Security

Some 10-year-old vulnerabilities are still wildly prevalent. “Kerberoasting” and “Golden Ticket” attacks were both introduced in 2014 and yet enterprises continue to have hundreds of accounts configured with unconstrained delegation.

In 2024 we’ll see more of the same. As we shift to hybrid workloads, identity is becoming more complex. Instead of arguing about MFA strength, VPN vendor, or nation-state treat actors, let’s finish our conversation about using dedicated administrator accounts and unique passwords.

Or Shoshani, CEO and founder, Stream Security 

As 2023 ends, we’re already seeing businesses adopting technology to diagnose and detect threats to their cloud infrastructure before they occur. In the coming year, we also expect to see organizations work to close the disconnect between their DevOps and security teams.

By empowering these teams to work more cohesively, companies will have an easier time ensuring that applications and data are protected from security threats and vulnerabilities. DevOps and security teams must work together in securing the border guarding each system.

Michiel Prins, Co-Founder, HackerOne

Ethical hackers are consistently first to pressure-test emerging technology. As the adoption of generative AI accelerates, organizations must prioritize security and risk management.

In 2024, red teaming and the insights ethical hackers offer will play an increasingly central role in ensuring the security of this new technology — as exemplified by the Biden Administration’s endorsement of red teaming in its recent executive order. As AI continues to shape our future, the ethical hacker community will remain at the forefront of identifying new risks.”

Javed Hasan, CEO and co-founder, Lineaje

Organizations have become concerned about a threat actor using AI to prompt actions that could lead to a compromise.  The truth is that the best time to compromise AI is when it is being built. Determining who created the initial AI models, with what bias and what intent, is critical to preventing security gaps.

I suspect that few organizations have considered this approach, and as a result, we’ll see all kinds of interesting challenges and issues emerge in the coming months.

Tyler Farrar, CISO, Exabeam

Traditional SIEM solutions face numerous challenges with limited ability to adapt to new threats and attack vectors —  and complex deployment and maintenance processes. In 2024, cloud-native SIEM solutions will continue to emerge as a strong alternative.

The best cloud-native SIEM tools enable security and business teams to have a shared understanding of their organization’s security posture and the same interpretation of each and every threat. Cloud-native SIEM empowers organizations to effectively protect their valuable assets and data from an ever-growing array of cyber threats.

Richard Bird, CSO, Traceable AI

The bad guys are showing no restraint in exploiting API security weakness to their advantage. In 2024 we’ll see a steep upward trend of APIs being used to attack organizations and more companies will move from ‘thinking about doing something about API security’ to doing actually something about API security.

Stop trusting that your APIs are secure and start asking the hard questions about how exposed your organization currently is to API key theft, API transactional fraud and authorization level exploits.

Marcus Scharra, Co-CEO, Senhasegura

The primary takeaway from 2023 is that most cybersecurity attacks are still linked to credentials — whether it’s the use of stolen credentials, or social engineering attacks to mine new credentials.

As organizations adopt cloud infrastructure and services, they need to carefully manage access rights and permissions. The move to the cloud has created bigger, more rewarding, and easier to penetrate targets. In 2024, security teams need to double down on defending increasingly complex threats to their assets in the cloud.

Jason Mashak, Senior Manager, Analyst & Public Relations, Runecast

It has become crucial for organizations to proactively discover, identify, and prioritize misconfigurations and other potential vulnerabilities. In 2024, geopolitical shifts and economic uncertainties are expected to continue; generative AI and changing workforce dynamics will impact organizations.

Balancing efficiency, innovation and risk will be essential. Lastly, building organizational and societal resilience through rapid skillset evolution will be vital. Professionals must manage chaos, adapt, and embrace change management – all to align more with innovation, sustainability, and security.

Gabi Reish, Chief Product and Business Development Officer, Cybersixgill.

Supply-chain attacks have become paramount. Ransomware is more advanced and prevalent, even reaching “as-a-service” availability on the Dark Web. Not surprisingly, threat actors increasingly use AI to launch attacks more efficiently and stealthily.

Most organizations can benefit from gaining greater insights into the threats they face. The role of cyber threat intelligence (CTI) vendors is to deliver insights that are relevant to each organization’s use cases and security maturity level —  and that are integrated across the security stack .

 Kern Smith, VP Sales Engineering, Americas, Zimperium.

Regulatory requirements to embed more robust protections in mobile apps evolved greatly in 2023. Most recently the FCC adopted new rules for wireless carriers aimed at enhancing security measures for cell phone accounts.

Meanwhile QR-code phishing arose as a popular form of attack. As the use of QR codes for everyday things increases, bad actors will continue to take advantage of vulnerabilities to launch attacks. Having a mobile-first security strategy will be necessary for a QR-code friendly business.

Geoff Haydon, CEO, Ontinue

The scope of potential threats is growing faster than human defenders can keep up with. AI is set to completely transform cybersecurity.

Organizations will – and should — demand transparency around how vendors responsibly apply AI and what business value they’ll see. The genuine potential of AI in cybersecurity lies in its ability to enhance its knowledge and capabilities as it gains a better understanding of your specific environment. AI can continuously learn an organization’s environment so that the models can better determine relevant next steps.

Sean Cronin, CEO, ProcessUnity

A major trend this year has been the over hype-ification of Gen AI in risk and compliance. Risk managers want and will use AI, but in 2024, its usage will need to be reined in and human intervention is critical.

The notion of AI powered teams would be ideal. AI will be able to help with that underlying third-party or fourth-party risk that doesn’t appear significant until it causes downstream breaches, but it can’t be the be-end, end-all  in risk management.

Brandon Hart, CTO, EBI   

In 2024, zero trust will become increasingly important in ensuring the security of remote workers. Zero trust is a strategy, not a product or service that can be purchased outright. Every access attempt is treated as if it’s originating from an untrusted network.

Implementation may require increased use of cloud-based security solutions and a stronger focus on user training and awareness. A continuous evaluation and improvement mechanism is necessary as the security landscape evolves and new threats emerge.

Pulitzer Prize-winning business journalist Byron V. Acohido is dedicated to fostering public awareness about how to make the Internet as private and secure as it ought to be.

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(LW provides consulting services to the vendors we cover.)