Security News

On this page you will find links to selected IT-security related news articles from various sources, including news from conferences and some test results. Posts in this category might be written by externals and students. If you find some interesting news, please let us know!

AV-Comparatives found a flaw in a macOS security feature that allowed unidentified apps to run (bypassing Gatekeeper checks)

In spring of 2019, AV-Comparatives ran a team-building event, in which their research team was asked to find security bugs on macOS. This was actually planned as a nice event with co-operative activities, but it happened that they found a security flaw on macOS Mojave 10.14.4 and earlier versions. The issue allows Gatekeeper to be bypassed, and unsigned apps from outside the App Store to be executed. The method used does not require any specialist knowledge or programming ability. Anyone who can create, copy and rename folders in Finder could do it, with a few very simple instructions.

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Spotlight on security: the inconvenient truth about CEO-impersonation fraud

security

Reported incidents of CEO-fraud or business email compromise (BEC) scams are so bizarre that most people think they are urban myths, told by security specialists to spice up their business and catch the attention of board-level executives. Sadly, these “April Fools’ Day” story lines have the opposite effect on C-level management. Let’s take a look at a recent € 19.2 million CEO-fraud case and put BEC-scams in a cyber-crime perspective to see whether you still think “it won’t happen to me”.

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Spotlight on Security: why the claims of Google Play Protect are misleading

security

In October, Google announced two contract changes for European Android device vendors. One concerned a minimum security-patch requirement, and the other involved charging a fee for Google services (e.g. Google Play Store). These announcements indicate that many Android smartphones suffer from significant security weaknesses.  Let us explain (and prove) why Google’s claims about the effectiveness of their Play Protect service are misleading, to say the least.

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Spotlight on security: Politics and cyber security, a troubled relationship

security

The relationships between various countries in the world are worsening, not only with regard to economic and political issues, but also in the field of cybersecurity. The recent bans on Chinese (such as Huawei) and Russian security products (such as Kaspersky Lab) are examples of the troubled relations between politics and cyber security.

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Malware in the media – why healthcare systems are under attack

it security blogs

Also this summer incidents were reported in general news media involving cyber- and ransomware-attacks on healthcare organizations. Cyber-attacks on healthcare organizations are not uncommon. According to CSO-online “the healthcare experiences twice the number of cyber-attacks as other Industries”.  We therefore ask why healthcare systems are under attack so often?

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