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Prior to any cyber attack, an organization should already have a solid crisis management plan and set of disaster recovery precautions in place. In addition to this, a risk analysis should be carried out involving a holistic approach and careful investigation of information systems and the overall environment. The purpose of such an analysis is to evaluate all endpoints that could potentially fail in a disaster or cyber-attack. (Pfleeger & Pfleeger, 2007) The analysis should describe the current state of an organization’s security approaches and examine areas of the company’s infrastructure as well as external factors. ...

Cryptocurrency is virtual currency or digital currency that is designed to be used as a medium of exchange to make secure transactions. It does not have any centralized control and there isn’t any regulatory authority as opposite of banks and electronic money. Its control works as a blockchain that is a distributed ledger. The technical system that is base of cryptocurrency was created by an unknown person or a group named Satoshi Nakamoto. In 2017 thousands of cryptocurrencies were created, most of them were like Bitcoin. Is the system of cryptocurrencies the balance and safety of ledgers are managed by miners which are a community of distrustful parties. Miners get a financial benefit for maintaining the security. ...

Because of erroneous PHP and Java extensions, I’ve switched from Atom to Microsoft’s VSCode aka Visual Code Editor for writing applications. VSCode is a powerful editor. With the help of some extensions, you can use VSCode as a replacement for RAM hogging Integrated Development Environments. If you’ve just installed VScode and you’re searching for extensions that will improve your productivity, you’re at the right place. Below, I’ve shared the list of best Visual Code extensions. ...

Organizations continue to struggle with policies and processes to effectively secure their infrastructure to protect their information assets and intellectual property. In recent years, we have seen the increase of cyber-attacks and breaches to the point that they have become common news worldwide. As systems have grown in complexity with increased capacity to store large amounts of data, so to has the appeal of targeting such systems by cyber criminals. Traditional approaches of defense including signature-based detection, behavioral-based detection, and defense in depth strategies are not enough to protect against advanced distributed attacks and zero-day attacks. Current technologies used to detect traffic, whether packet-based, time-based, or behavior-based, can provide some level of defense. Unfortunately, however as our tools and techniques improve, so too do the accuracy and advancements in sophisticated attackers. ...

WordPress is the most powerful content management system. According to analytics tools, WP powers 30% of websites running on the internet. WP is a popular and user-friendly CMS. It is written in PHP and uses MySQL to save data. Unlike scripting languages such as JAVA EE, ASP, PHP is easy to learn. Shared hosting companies offer a 1-click WP installer tool. If you use this tool, you can launch a new website within few minutes. Configuring DNS server and the web server isn’t enough. To make sure that your new website is found by search engines and internet users, you must do the below things: ...

The nature of the Internet and worldwide connectivity has changed the traditional centuries old paradigm regarding proximity. We now see threats from all parts of the global. What are three cybersecurity policies for a firm that would mitigate risks for cybersecurity attacks at the global level? Cybersecurity threats continue to rise year after year and the problem continues grow due to the global nature of attacks. Organizations must implement security policies in order to protect themselves against such threats. Below are three policies that would help organizations better defend against global threats. ...

Vulnerability assessments can be a very effective way of gathering information on an organizations internal security posture. The purpose is to accumulate data on any weaknesses revealed that should be proactively mitigated to prevent exploitation. There are a number of tools that can be used to carry out vulnerability assessments. Typically, a software-based tools are used to scan a selected part of an organizations infrastructure. This can range from specific areas that are exposed to the public, to entire sections of the organizations network (Cima, 2001) lists four of the most common types of vulnerability scanner. These include network-based scanning tools, host-based scanning tools, database scanning tools, and wardialers. ...

Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) are security threats that use advanced techniques to hide their attack from their target. They are commonly used to target specific information in high-profile companies and governments. APTs usually follow a long-term strategy of attack in order to gather information from the breached system. There have been many examples of APTs over the years targeting well known organizations. In 2013 the Mandiant report revealed evidence that a specific Chinese military unit has been behind many major Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) within the United States. Since then APTs have been used against large companies including Yahoo, Google, Northrop Grumman, and many others. One of the most complex APTs in recent years was the Stuxnet computer worm (“Stuxnet: Advanced Persistent Threat - Ran Levi,” n.d.), which targeted Iran’s nuclear program. ...

As a developer, knowledge of web application security vulnerabilities is essential in order to build software that is both resilient to attacks and protected through a layered approach of defense. The cybersecurity landscape is constantly shifting, however a good understanding of the most common vulnerabilities is a great place to get started with security. Before reviewing the articles below, be sure to look at 10 Most Common Security Vulnerabilities. The list that follows are a handful of articles I’ve written over the years both in my graduate and professional work. They focus on application security specifically as well as an understanding of the people behind such attacks. ...

The word Cybersecurity is thrown around so much these days it has almost become overused in many conversations. This is due to the vast number of topics associated with its meaning. So how can we define it better? Traditionally Cybersecurity has described as a process for securing information or assets owned by governments, organizations, and individual people. The term itself can be considered a discipline that drives security initiatives and categorizes risks, vulnerabilities, and threats. (Assante & Tobey, 2011) describe Cybersecurity as people (both defenders and attackers), engaged in a contest of playing out on a field of information systems and technology. Cybersecurity influences organizational processes, policies and overall strategy through principles and frameworks. This better informs and fosters the awareness of threats, management of risk, and development of resilient multi-layered security systems. Homeland Security describes the importance of cybersecurity in protecting infrastructure that is vulnerable to a wide range of risk stemming from both physical and cyber threats and hazards (“Cybersecurity Overview,” n.d.). These threats can include internal personnel within an organization, external people, and natural threats such as electricity outages. Within the organization, employees are typically categorized as the highest threat. ...