The 443 - Security Simplified

Hacking Back at North Korea

This week on the podcast, we cover the heist of $322 million in cryptocurrency from the distributed exchange Wormhole, including a long discussion on the why it feels like cryptocurrency is still the wild west of technology. After that, give an update on our brief mention in last week's episode about North Korea's internet seemingly being taken offline by cyber attack. We end this week with a quick update on a sophisticated malware attack targeting macOS devices.

The Pwnkit Problem

This week on the podcast, we cover Pwnkit, a privilege escalation vulnerability impacting almost every modern Linux release worldwide. We also dive in to the world of macOS malware with DazzleSpy, a remote a remote access trojan targeting Hong Kong pro-democracy advocates. Finally, we end with an update on North Korea's Lazarus APT and their latest attack tactics targeting organizations.

Q3 2021 Internet Security Report

This week on the podcast we discuss the latest Internet Security Report from the WatchGuard Threat Lab. Built with threat intelligence gathered from tens of thousands of Firebox UTM appliances that have opted-in to sharing data, the quarterly report lets us talk about the latest malware and attack trends targeting organizations globally. On this episode, we'll cover some of the key findings and defensive takeaways from the latest report.

The Death of the Carding Marketplace

This week on the podcast we give a quick update to the Log4Shell saga after the researchers detected the first significant campaign that uses the critical vulnerability. After that, we dive in to the world of carding marketplaces where cybercriminals buy and sell stolen credit card information and discuss possible reasons for why these marketplaces appear to be dying off.

Is Cybersecurity Vocational?

This week on the podcast we give an update on log4j2 and it's most recently-disclosed vulnerabilities before covering a recent report on credential stuffing by the New York Attorney General. Then, we discuss this recent article in DarkReading on whether or not cybersecurity jobs should be considered professional or vocational.

Log4Shell Deep Dive

This week we take a deep dive into CVE-2021-44228, better known as Log4Shell, a critical vulnerability in the massively popular log4j2 logging library for Java applications. We discuss how the flaw came about, how it works, and why this specific issue has the potential to cause lasting headaches for the security industry for years to come. We also answer a mailbag full of questions from our listeners and WatchGuard partners about Log4Shell.
NCSC log4js Usage Index - https://github.com/NCSC-NL/log4shell/blob/main/software/README.md
Log4Shell IOCs - https://github.com/WatchGuard-Threat-Lab/log4shell-iocs
Log4Shell Scanning Utility - https://github.com/proferosec/log4jScanner

Our 2022 Security Predictions

As we move in to the end of the year it's time for us to discuss WatchGuard Threat Lab's 2022 cybersecurity predictions. While many of our predictions tend to come off as extreme, they're all grounded in the trends that we've been following and what we expect to see continue into the coming year. If you haven't checked out the predictions in full, you can view them on watchguard.com/predictions

2021 Security Predictions Grading

Its getting to be the end of the year which means its time to take a look back at WatchGuard Threat Lab's 2021 security predictions and give ourselves a grading on how well we did! On this episode, we'll go through our 8 predictions for 2021, recap the trends that fueled them, and discuss either the events that occurred or failed to come true.

CISA Alert Tips Off Adversaries

This week on the podcast we discuss how a recent CISA alert on specific threat actor activity tipped off a separate adversary, leading to a new wave of attacks against vulnerable systems across multiple industries. We also cover the latest US and international law enforcement crackdowns on ransomware operators as well as a breakthrough on video game console hacking.

Trojan Source

On this week's episode of the podcast, we cover a newly discovered method for hiding malicious source code in plain sight, CISA's new Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, and action from the US Department of Commerce on the Pegasus spyware manufacturer NSO Group.