PALM BEACH, FL - The Robinhood financial service company has confirmed a data security incident that has exposed full names or email addresses for approximately seven million customers, with a smaller subset having additional personal information revealed. These customers could be targeted with spam, phishing attempts, identity theft and more. No Social Security numbers, bank account numbers or debit card numbers were exposed according to the company. Robinhood … [Read more...]
Critical Vulnerability Exposes over 700,000 Sites Using WP Divi, Extra, and Divi Builder
WEST PALM BEACH, FL - This morning, the Wordfence Threat Intelligence Team published details about a critical vulnerability discovered in two themes by Elegant Themes, Divi and Extra, as well as the Divi Builder plugin. Combined, these products are installed on an estimated 700,000 sites. Elegant Themes provides some of the most popular WordPress themes in the world and includes a visual page builder. We initially reached out to Elegant Themes on July 23, 2020 and, … [Read more...]
How Expired Domain Names Have Been Used to Redirect to Malicious Websites
WEST PALM BEACH, FL - Expired domains or domain names which have not been renewed by their previous owner are encountered by all of us often – most times we just don’t notice it. When we do, we open a website only to find out it no longer exists. We are redirected to a site with links on it, or it showcases a sales page for auction of the domain name. These types of websites are generally considered harmless, but recent research proves otherwise. In a report released by … [Read more...]
It’s Only A Matter of Time Until You Need to Be Licensed to Operate A Web Server
PALM BEACH, FL – I have been thinking about this off and on for a few years now, but I have never really posted or written about it. That is because it is an awful prediction that I hate the idea of, but I think it is going to eventually happen. Here it goes…. I predict that to operate a web server sometime in the near future, you will be required to have a license, or have passed a basic course in IT security or Cybersecurity intrusion mitigation. Not at the single site … [Read more...]
10 Simple Yet Effective Security Tips To Keep You Cyber Safe and Worry Less in 2020
PALM BEACH, FL - There is no shortage of security breaches and data leaks reported in the news this past year. As we all move into 2020, here are some simple tips to help keep you stay cyber safe, so you can worry less and have more to look forward to this year. Don't Shorten 2020 in Dates You shouldn’t shorten the year 2020 when signing things. Scammers can easily change the abbreviated date, for example from “3/30/20” to “3/30/2018”. Make sure to write out the full … [Read more...]
Data of 267 Million Facebook Users Exposed in Online Database; Found on Hacker Forum
PALM BEACH, FL - Data security researchers discovered an online database containing the names, phone numbers, and Facebook IDs of 267 million Facebook users available for download on a hacker forum. The database was not password protected and had been posted on December 12th. On December 14th, the researchers contacted the internet service provider that was hosting the database and the database was removed on December 19th. According to the Associated Press, a … [Read more...]
Malicious Web Code Added To Macy’s Website Leads to Critical Data Breach
PALM BEACH, FL - Right at the start of the year's busiest shopping season, retailer Macy's notified impacted customers (by letter) that an unauthorized third party was able to access sensitive customer payment information from the Macys.com checkout and wallet pages. The following information may have been accessed if it was typed into the affected web-pages by a customer: Payment card numbersPayment card security codesPayment card expiration datesFull … [Read more...]
It’s National Cybersecurity Awareness Month; Stay Safe With Simple Online Tips
PALM BEACH, FL –The Attorney General of the State of Florida, Ashley Moody has issued a Consumer Alert in recognition of National Cyber-security Awareness Month. The video details some simple steps consumers can take to help avoid becoming a victim of various security threats and online scams such as those which target Internet users with tech support, malware, phishing and ransomware. Today more than ever, our daily lives are dependent on the internet. While advances … [Read more...]
Email Phishing Campaign Using Legitimate Top-Level Domain to Evade Spam Filters
PALM BEACH, FL – A sophisticated email phishing campaign is making the rounds while evading email filters by using a Google domain redirect. According to ThreatPost.com, a leading source of information about IT and business security, the campaign uses percentage-based URL encoding to deceive users. The campaign makes use of what’s called percentage-based URL encoding – a basic URL-encoding technique in which normal ASCII characters (i.e., “abc” and “123”) are converted … [Read more...]
885 Million Customer Records Exposed by Country’s Largest Title Company, FAF
PALM BEACH - Earlier this week, it was reported that one of the country's largest titles companies, First American Financial Corp (NYSE: FAF), unknowingly exposed up to 885 million files related to real estate title insurance records dating from 2003 to 2019. Anyone with a URL for a valid document could view other documents by modifying a single digit in the URL. The records exposed by the website included critical financial information and documents such … [Read more...]
Personal Info of 500 Million Guests Exposed in Marriott’s Starwood Reservation System
NEW YORK, NY - One of the world's leading global hotel groups disclosed that a guest reservation database, which covers a number of major hotel brands, suffered a large data breach. An internal investigation showed that unauthorized access had been occuring since 2014. The intrusion went unnoticed for four years by Starwood, which was acquired by Marriott in 2016 for $13.6 billion. It was uncovered in early September, when a security tool alerted Marriott officials to an … [Read more...]
New Facebook Data Breach Effecting 50 Million Accounts; Doubling Security Staff
NEW YORK, NY - On Friday, September 28, 2018 Facebook said that an attack on its computer network had affected the personal information of nearly 50 million users. The attackers exploited the "View As" feature that allows users to see their Facebook page the way someone else would. This could allow the attackers to take over Facebook accounts. Facebook has fixed this issue and informed law enforcement. They also do not know if the affected accounts were misused or if user … [Read more...]
15 Minute Hot Seat with Mark Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica Data Privacy Breach
NEW YORK – Yesterday, March 21, 2018, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, sat with CNN Money’s Laurie Segall in a candid, and what appeared to be a difficult interview to answer tough questions on Facebook’s position in regard not only to the recent leaks related to the user privacy breach caused by Cambridge Analytica, but also its position on whether or not it’s platform has been used to influence past elections and what the company is doing to avoid this type of … [Read more...]
Bad News: Beware and “Be Aware” of “Meltdown” and “Spectre” Vulnerabilities
NEW YORK, NY - As the title suggests, you should both Beware, and "Be Aware" of these new security vulnerabilities that effect pretty much every Intel processor since 1995. I say "Be Aware" because although their patches available, there is not much that can be done to fully mitigate this issue until all or most computer hardware is redesigned. This is bad news because everyone is effected, and all computers are going to need to be replaced, it seems. Meltdown and Spectre … [Read more...]
Big Deal: Another Popular WordPress Plugin Purchased by Nefarious User
NEW YORK - A few months ago in September, I wrote about a plugin (Display Widgets Plugin) which was sold to someone who used it to compromise over 200,000 websites as that’s about how many installs it had and sites it targeted with compromising intentions. Well, it was a big deal then and it’s an even bigger deal now because it has come to light that this same tactic of acquisition has been used yet again, with (Captcha Plugin) to compromise 300,000 sites. According to … [Read more...]