Petronella Cybersecurity News

Think about how integral a router is to a modern home.  It provides internet for your computers, wifi for your mobile devices and, increasingly, helps control thermostats, refrigerators, security cameras, lights and just about anything else electrical.  You can even order products you’re low on by pushing a button, all from the internet-magic of your […]

It looks like there could have been another hack of federal employee records.  This time the Health and Human Services Department is checking into the possibility of a hack compromising the data of 6,700 doctors, nurses and other health workers under the Surgeon General. A problem was discovered in the system on September 20.  It’s been fixed, […]

From Progressive Law Practice: Since legal matters necessarily involve the client sharing sensitive financial and personal information with their lawyer and support staff, the attorney should ensure the client understands: Who from the firm may communicate with the client to obtain the information Appropriate methods for disseminating information to the law firm The steps the […]

Everyone has heard of Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor who leaked documents detailing NSA secrets.  Some hail him as a hero, some call him a traitor.  And now, the NSA has arrested another contractor for data theft. Harold Thomas Martin was contracted to the NSA through Booz Allen Hamilton, the same firm that employed Snowden.  Martin […]

You may remember a few months ago when we reported that 68,680,741 Dropbox accounts had been compromised.  You could buy all that information for $1200 as of last month, but now you can get it for free. The password information was uploaded to a website run by Thomas White, who goes by the handle Cthulhu.  He […]

Every now and then an idea comes along and you think, “Wow, that’s really, really cool.” Here’s the problem: when you send a password through wifi, that signal can be picked up by anybody.  That means hackers can potentially capture your password and like that, your account is compromised. A team at Washington University recently […]

Last month, the world found out that employees at Wells Fargo created millions of credit cards and bank accounts in their customers’ names without their knowledge in order to get bonuses.  As a result, thousands of employees were fired, CEO John Stumpf resigned and the bank was hit with $185 million in fines. We should […]

It’s known that Trump Hotel Collection suffered a data breach and credit card theft last year.  Generally, when a company suffers such a breach, they redouble their cybersecurity efforts.  Not so in this case, and because of the carelessness, it’s happened again. Owned by Donald Trump, real estate mogul and Republican presidential nominee, Trump Hotel Collections […]

When’s the last time you changed your Yahoo password?  If you haven’t done it since 2012, now is the time to do it. Yahoo is expected to confirm a massive hack that’s been rumored to have happened since August, when a hacker known as Peace claimed to have hacked them back in 2012.  The data […]

In the war between cybercriminals and cybersecurity, the good guys are losing, and it’s not even close. In 2015, over $3 billion was sunk into startups with the aim of battling hackers in one way or another.  The European Union is investing $2 billion in cybersecurity.  The United States is going to spend a whopping […]

The September 2016 Threat Report from McAfee Labs had some sobering statistics. Ransomware continues to grow, which is no big surprise given how easy it is for people with limited programming experience to partake in it.  Instances of ransomware have increased more than 125% from last year, up to around seven million. Not to be outdone, […]

The Secret Service has issued a new warning to the banking industry about a new type of skimming device that has started showing up at ATMs. Being called “periscope skimming,” it involves a connecting a probe directly into an ATM’s circuit board in order to steal bank card data. The thieves behind the technology were […]

Have you wanted to get in on the ransomware craze?  Infect a few computers, hold their files for ransom and make a few hundred bucks real quick?  Well now you can, and you can customize it to your heart’s desire. The Philadelphia Headquarter, a version of the Stampado strain of ransomware, was developed by a malware […]

What do Tibetan monks, sophisticated hackers and famous rock stars all have in common? The ability to harvest soundwaves into power. Case in point: Israeli Video Researchers from the Negev Cyber Security Research Center at Ben-Gurion University discovered a MacGyver-esque way to syphon data from a PC to a mobile device using nothing but the […]

If Hilary Clinton’s email troubles weren’t bad enough, it appears that two archive of her emails, one on a laptop and the other on a thumb drive, were lost in the mail. According to the FBI’s report, meant as a reference for writing a future book, the archives were created in 2013, before she turned […]

It was already know that Dropbox was hacked back in 2012, but what was never reported was just how many accounts were compromised.  We now that number now: 68,680,741. Leakbase, a notification service for data breaches, found a five gigabyte file with the login information for the over 68 million Dropbox accounts.  The information included email […]

A newly discovered piece off malware that was created by the NSO Group, a sketchy company that builds hacking tools for governments, intelligence agencies, and militaries, has the ability to basically turn any iPhone into a surveillance device without the user ever knowing they’ve been infected. Being called Pegasus, it was discovered after targeting a […]

Last week we reported on the newly found exploit in Cisco System firewalls that was part of the data dump of stolen files from the NSA’s Equation Group. Well, it turns out the vulnerability affects more Cisco models than was previously thought. Dubbed ExtraBacon, the exploit has code that keeps it from working on newer versions […]

Apparently the Russians really want Donald Trump to be the next President of the United States. The FBI, in tandem with other US security agencies, are investigating a number of security breaches that appear to be targeting the DNC, as well as certain news organizations, such as The New York Times. Email services for The […]

In 2015, a startling statistic emerged when examining data security. Of all the compromised data as a result of data breaches, over 75% were due to stolen credentials. This should underline the importance of businesses securing privileged credential, particularly when using Microsoft Active Directory Services. Microsoft has released a set of guidelines for Credential Theft […]