x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

Research Saturday

Every Saturday, we sit down with cybersecurity researchers to talk shop about the latest threats, vulnerabilities, and technical discoveries.

technology tech news

All Episodes

31:08

Leveraging legitimate tools.

Research Saturday ·

2020/09/12

Researchers at Symantec spotted a Sodinokibi targeted ransomware campaign in which the attackers are also scanning the networks of some victims for credit card or point of sale (PoS) software. It is not clear if the attackers are targeting this software for encryption or because they want to scrape this information as a way to make even more money from this attack. Joining us in this week's Research Saturday to discuss the report is Jon DiMaggio of Symantec. The research can be found

en

25:21

Going after the most valuable data.

Research Saturday ·

2020/09/05

A look at the realities of ransomware from Sophos, including an industry-first detailed look at new detection evasion techniques in WastedLocker ransomware attacks that leverage the Windows Cache Manager and memory-mapped I/O to encrypt files. A complementary article examines the evasion-centric arms race of ransomware, providing a months-long review of how cybercriminals have been escalating and markedly changing evasion techniques, tactics and procedures (TTPs) since Snatch ransomware in December

en

14:12

They fooled a lot of people.

Research Saturday ·

2020/08/29

Docker containers have been gaining popularity over the past few years as an effective way of packaging software applications. Docker Hub provides a strong community-based model for users and companies to share their software applications. This is also attracting the attention of malicious actors intending to make money by cryptojacking within Docker containers and using Docker Hub to distribute these images. Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 researchers identified a malicious Docker Hub account,

en

21:37

Using global events as lures.

Research Saturday ·

2020/08/22

The goal of malicious activity is to compromise the system to install some unauthorized software. Increasingly that goal is tied to one thing: the user. Over the past several years, we as an industry improved exploit mitigation and the value of working exploits has increased accordingly. Together, these changes have had an impact on the threat landscape. We still see large amounts of active exploitation, but enterprises are getting better at defending against them. This has left adversaries with a

en

23:22

Waiting for their victims.

Research Saturday ·

2020/08/15

Bitdefender researchers have recently found the APT group StrongPity has been targeting victims in Turkey and Syria. Using watering hole tactics to selectively infect victims and deploying a three-tier C&C infrastructure to thwart forensic investigations, the APT group leveraged Trojanized popular tools, such as archivers, file recovery applications, remote connections applications, utilities, and even security software, to cover a wide range of options that targeted victims might be

en

26:10

Like anything these days, you have to disinfect it...

Research Saturday ·

2020/08/08

“Cyberbunker” refers to a criminal group that operated a “bulletproof” hosting facility out of an actual military bunker. “Bullet Proof” hosting usually refers to hosting locations in countries with little or corrupt law enforcement, making shutting down criminal activity difficult. Cyberbunker, which is also known as “ZYZtm” and “Calibour”, was a bit different in that it actually operated out of a bulletproof bunker. In September of last year, German police raided this actual Cyberbunker and

en

23:40

Detecting Twitter bots in real time.

Research Saturday ·

2020/08/01

NortonLifeLock Research Group (NRG) released a prototype browser extension called BotSight that leverages machine learning to detect Twitter bots in real-time. The tool is intended to help users understand the prevalence of bots and disinformation campaigns within their Twitter feeds, particularly with the increase in disinformation of COVID-19. Joining us on this week's Research Saturday to discuss this tool is Daniel Kats from NortonLifeLock Research Group. You can find the research here:

en

14:58

It was only a matter of time.

Research Saturday ·

2020/07/25

On April 29, 2020, the Salt management framework, authored by the IT automation company SaltStack, received a patch concerning two CVEs; CVE-2020-11651, an authentication bypass vulnerability, and CVE-2020-11652, a directory-traversal vulnerability. On April 30, 2020, researchers at F-Secure disclosed their vulnerability findings to the public, with an urgent warning for Salt users - patch now. Before the weekend was out, criminals were deploying malware and targeting vulnerable Salt installations,

en

32:10

Every time we get smarter, the bad guy changes...

Research Saturday ·

2020/07/18

Researchers at Symantec identified and alerted customers to a string of attacks against U.S. companies by attackers attempting to deploy the WastedLocker ransomware (Ransom.WastedLocker) on their networks. The end goal of these attacks is to cripple the victim’s IT infrastructure by encrypting most of their computers and servers in order to demand a multimillion dollar ransom. At least 31 Symantec customer organizations have been attacked, meaning the total number of attacks may be much higher. The

en

16:09

Are you running what you think you're running?

Research Saturday ·

2020/07/11

Built into virtually every hardware device, firmware is lower-level software that is programmed to ensure that hardware functions properly. As software security has been significantly hardened over the past two decades, hackers have responded by moving down the stack to focus on firmware entry points. Firmware offers a target that basic security controls can’t access or scan as easily as software, while allowing them to persist and continue leveraging many of their tried and true attack

en

23:35

Enter the RAT.

Research Saturday ·

2020/06/27

A new report examines how five related APT groups operating in the interest of the Chinese government have systematically targeted Linux servers, Windows systems and Android mobile devices while remaining undetected for nearly a decade. The report comes on the heels of the U.S. Department of Justice announcing several high-profile indictments from over 1,000 open FBI investigations into economic espionage as part of the DOJ’s China Initiative. Joining us in this week's Research Saturday to discuss

en

18:58

Click here to update your webhook.

Research Saturday ·

2020/06/20

Slack is a cloud-based messaging platform that is commonly used in workplace communications. Slack Incoming Webhooks allow you to post messages from your applications to Slack. Generally, Slack webhooks are considered a low risk integration. A deeper dive into webhooks shows that this is not entirely accurate. Joining us in this week's Research Saturday is Ashley Graves from AT&T Cybersecurity's Alien Labs to discuss her research. The research can be found here: Slack phishing attacks using

en

26:39

The value of the why and the who.

Research Saturday ·

2020/06/13

Proactive, efficient threat mitigation and risk management require understanding adversaries’ fundamental thought processes, not just their tools and methods. Cyber threat intelligence analysts combed through 15 years (2004 to 2019) of public sources that have documented the activities of one prolific threat actor, Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU. Analysis shows that the timing, targets, and impacts of this activity mirrored Russian strategic concerns about specific events and

en

20:16

Due diligence cannot be done as a one-off.

Research Saturday ·

2020/06/06

Earlier this year, a Virgin Media database containing the personal details of 900,000 people was discovered to be unsecured and accessible online for 10 months. The breach was discovered by researchers at the security firm TurgenSec. This breach had major implications under GDPR. Joining us in this week's Research Saturday are George Punter and Peter Hansen from TurgenSec to talk about the discovery of the breach. The research can be found here: Virgin Media Disclosure Statement &

en

20:08

Twofold snooping venture.

Research Saturday ·

2020/05/30

Working with many different honeypot implementations, a security researcher did an experiment expanding on that setting up a simple docker image with SSH, running a guessable root password. The catch? What happened in the next 24 hours was unexpected. Joining us in this week's Research Saturday to talk about his experiment is Larry Cashdollar of Akamai. The research can be found here: A Brief History of a Rootable Docker Image Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

26:19

Naming and shaming is the worst thing we can do.

Research Saturday ·

2020/05/23

In December 2019, the GOLD VILLAGE threat group that operates the Maze ransomware created a public website to name and shame victims. The threat actors used the website to dump data they exfiltrated from victims' networks before they deployed the ransomware. Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) researchers have observed several ransomware operators following suit. Joining us in this week's Research Saturday is Alex Tilley of SecureWorks' Counter Threat Unit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

en

19:54

Gangnam Industrial Style APT campaign targets South...

Research Saturday ·

2020/05/16

Section 52, CyberX’s threat intelligence team, has uncovered an ongoing industrial cyberespionage campaign targeting hundreds of manufacturing and other industrial firms primarily located in South Korea. CyberX has identified more than 200 compromised systems from this campaign, including one belonging to a multi-billion dollar Korean conglomerate that manufactures critical infrastructure equipment such as heavy equipment for power transmission and distribution facilities, renewable energy, chemical

en

21:27

The U.S. campaign trail is actually quite secure.

Research Saturday ·

2020/05/09

Multiple media reports have indicated that the United States’ (U.S.) 2020 general election could be targeted by foreign and domestic actors after the successful cyber and misinformation attacks during the 2016 general election. The responsibility of secure and ethical online campaigning has become a central issue in the 2020 election. In some cases, it has become part of candidate platforms. Joining us in this week's Research Saturday is Paul Gagliardi from Security Scorecard, discussing their

en

21:03

Fingerprint authentication is not completely secure.

Research Saturday ·

2020/05/02

Passwords are the traditional authentication methods for computers and networks. But passwords can be stolen. Biometric authentication seems the perfect solution for that problem. Our guest today is Craig Williams, director of Talos outreach at Cisco. He'll be discussing and providing insights into their report which shows that fingerprints are good enough to protect the average person's privacy if they lose their phone. However, a person that is likely to be targeted by a well-funded and motivated

en

33:55

Contact tracing as COVID-19 aid.

Research Saturday ·

2020/04/25

Successful containment of the Coronavirus pandemic rests on the ability to quickly and reliably identify those who have been in close proximity to a contagious individual. Mayank Varia from Boston University describes how his team suggests an approach based on using short-range communication mechanisms, like Bluetooth, that are available in all modern cell phones. The research can be found here: Anonymous Collocation Discovery: Harnessing Privacy to Tame the Coronavirus Learn more about your ad

en

431 results

Similar Podcasts

Lead With AI

Tamara Nall

Linux in the Ham Shack

Black Sparrow Media

Data Engineering Podcast

Tobias Macey

Eye On A.I.

Craig S. Smith

Reflections

Livewire Labs