Between December 2017 and May 2018, Americans lost nearly $3 billion due to business email compromise (BEC) scams. The NJCCIC receives numerous incident reports from organizations around that State impacted by BEC attacks.
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With the holiday season quickly approaching, it is important to maintain awareness of the many threats posed by cyber criminals while shopping online and in stores. It is estimated that Americans will exceed last year’s holiday spending to total between $717-720 billion dollars between November and December. As the popularity of online shopping continues to increase, so does the number of potential unsuspecting victims for cyber criminals to exploit.
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Malicious software, known as malware, is a program that is inserted into a system, usually covertly, with the intent of compromising the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the victim’s data, applications, or operating system or of otherwise annoying or disrupting the victim.
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Given the steady uptick in ransomware across the country, and right here in our State, we simply cannot overstate the importance of maintaining good backups that are stored offline (physically off of the network) and regularly tested to ensure you can fully recover in the event of a data loss incident. But what, specifically, does that mean to you and how do you go about implementing a sound data backup and recovery strategy?
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The first-ever power outage caused by a cyber attack occurred in Ukraine on December 23, 2015, causing many to reevaluate the risk to critical infrastructure and ask, could this happen in the United States and what can be done to prevent it?
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Imagine you wake up one day to find that your company’s website no longer displays your logo, products, or contact information. Instead of providing an online presence for your business, your website is now promoting a hacking group or terrorist organization. Your customers are angry and your employees are confused.
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Disclaimer: If technical jargon makes you queasy, proceed with caution!
When downloading new software or updating existing software, how do you ensure that what you are installing is safe, unaltered, and from a reputable source? The simple answer is to compare the checksum of the file you downloaded to the hash of the original source file.
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The NJCCIC has been talking a lot about the topic of cyber extortion lately, and with good reason. Just two months into 2016, there have already been a number of cyber extortion attacks across the country, impacting all kinds of individuals, businesses, and organizations.
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If the past two years have taught us anything, it’s that the frequency and impact of data breaches will continue to grow if organizations do not do more to implement effective cybersecurity practices. The theft and sale of personal data is big business for profit-motivated hackers, while state and non-state actors clamor to get their hands on sensitive and potentially damaging information for various intents and purposes, from extortion to espionage.
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This weekend, if you’re a parent, you’re probably going to spend some time reminding your children to be careful when they head out the door to go trick-or-treating. You might tell them to walk in a group and not wander off, and to stay in safe, familiar, well-lit neighborhoods. You’ll remind them to look both ways before crossing the street and to not venture into strangers’ houses, no matter how friendly they seem.
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October is one of my favorite months of the year – the air is crisp, the leaves are beginning to change, pumpkins are everywhere, and Halloween is right around the corner. It’s also National Cyber Security Awareness Month and, as a way to pay tribute to this wonderful time of year, I’m dedicating this NJCCIC CyberLog to the topic of zombies.
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Malicious advertising, more commonly known as malvertising, has been around since at least 2007 but has quickly ascended on the list of everyday Internet threats due to the prevalence of online advertising in today’s digital media environment, where consumers expect free content in exchange for exposure to advertising.
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There are several reasons why individuals may choose to become hackers. Some people might do it out of curiosity or for personal gratification. Others do it for financial gain or to steal intellectual property. Some consider themselves “hacktivists,” a relatively new term used to describe those who hack to promote a personal or ideological agenda.
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In my previous CyberLog post, I shared some of the information I learned while attending DefCon 23, an annual hacker conference held in Las Vegas. What I didn’t mention, though, were the things I had to take into consideration prior to my arrival. As this was my first time attending, I wasn’t sure what to expect so I did some research and talked to a few former DefCon attendees.
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