Barack Obama – РИСК-АКАДЕМИЯ – АНО ДПО ИСАР

Cybersecurity and risk mitigation – National Accord Newspaper

riskacademy — Sun, 30 Aug 2020 22:44:41 +0000

Austin Okere

By AUSTIN OKERE

“Twitter hack: 130 accounts targeted in attack” was the screaming headline on the BBC’s website on July 17, 2020.

Two days earlier, the social media site had admitted a major cyber-attack of celebrity accounts. The security breach saw accounts including those of Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Kanye West and Bill Gates tweet a Bitcoin scam to millions of followers. Several Bitcoin-related accounts began tweeting what appeared to be a simple Bitcoin scam, promising to “give back” to the community by doubling any Bitcoin sent to their address. Then, the apparent scam spread to mainstream celebrity accounts such as Kim Kardashian West and former vice-president Joe Biden, and those of corporations Apple and Uber.

Twitter is not the only high-profile company that has been hit. Just about every other company you can think about has suffered similar fate. The roll call of victims includes Rupert Murdock’s News Corp, Sony PlayStation Network, Government of turkey, Britain’s Serious Organized Crime Agency, and the CIA amongst others.

The story of hacking will not be complete without Anonymous; a sophisticated group of…

A Wake-Up Call for Security

riskacademy — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 12:56:59 +0000

It started with a phone call, moved on to scamming unsuspecting victims out of Bitcoin, and ended in the arrests of three people, including a Florida teenager.

The July 15 hijacking of about 130 high-profile and verified Twitter accounts, including those of Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, scammed dozens of people out of about $120,000 worth of bitcoin. The incident, which gained worldwide attention, contained a bit of everything, including a celebrity element and questions about the reliability of messages posted on one of the world’s largest social media platforms.

The arrests of a 17-year-old and two others in connection with the hacking case by the U.S. Justice Department and state prosecutors in Florida also reveal how rather basic hacking techniques, such as phone phishing and SIM swapping, can affect the security of an entire organization, leaving employees and internal resources open to attack.

“We still don’t know exactly what happened with Twitter, however, they’ve acknowledged that the incident was started by a phone spear phishing attack,” Hank Schless, a senior manager for security solutions at Lookout, told Dice….

Work from Home: Cyber security, contact-tracing apps are serious threats. What’s the way forward?

riskacademy — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 01:36:52 +0000

Sadness company agent woman finding working computer getting blackmail virus attack thinking solution at office desk and feeling depression.

By Shriya Roy

Earlier this week, social networking platform Twitter suffered a major security breach when hackers took control of the accounts of some major public figures such as Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Kanye West, and companies like Uber and Apple. The hackers sent a series of tweets through these accounts urging followers to make donations in cryptocurrency in exchange for double the money back. Twitter attributed the hack to a “serious breach in the company’s internal system” and shut down parts of its service. “If a message sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true. If Musk, Gates, Apple, Biden or any well-known person or company wanted to hand out huge amounts of money on a whim, they wouldn’t demand that you hand them money first. It’s a trick and an obvious sign that the person’s account has been hacked,” says Paul Ducklin, principal research scientist at security software and hardware firm Sophos.

Last month, the government of India, too, had issued a warning of a…

Top 25 Cyber Execs to Watch in 2020: AppGate Federal Group’s Greg Touhill

riskacademy — Sun, 31 May 2020 23:15:51 +0000

Greg Touhill, AppGate Federal Group

Retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Greg Touhill currently serves as president of AppGate’s Federal Division, supporting agencies across the federal government with secure infrastructure solutions delivered from data centers.

Appointed by President Barack Obama as the nation’s first federal chief information security officer in 2016, Touhill was tasked with ensuring proper digital security policies, strategies and practices were adopted across government. During his earlier time in the Air Force, he served in the U.S. Transportation, Central and Strategic commands, and led the creation of the Air Force’s cyberspace operations training programs.

He’s also an adviser to organizations, institutions and corporations on cybersecurity, and is known for his tireless public efforts to teach and inform good cyber hygiene to the next generation. In fact, he’s a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, where he teaches cyber risk management. He’s also the author of “Cybersecurity for Executives: A Practical Guide,” which is used at colleges and universities across the country.

Why Watch: