DotSec’s AOC saves you money!

DotSec’s AOC saves you money! DotSec provides managed SIEM services to customers in a range of industries but as described in cyber security standards such as APRA’s CPS 234 and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (or PCI DSS), cyber-security service providers are increasingly on the hook when it comes to the certification and […]

Happy memories of an old hack

The good old (Internet banking Hack) days! So a long time ago (25 years ago actually!) in a research centre not so far away, I helped to write a paper that described an old Internet banking hack, outlined how the authentication systems that were used by browser-based internet banking applications could be bypassed and presented […]

Hey nice business!

It’d be a shame if something happened to it! In the real, physical world, extortion is a real problem and across the world, certain gangs and organisations see extortion as a legitimate way to earn real money, even apparently in the nuclear power industry! [10]  The Internet is of course similar in many ways to the […]

Relax! it’s not my first time!

Oh for heavens sake!  Can we all agree that the Optus event doesn’t really matter?  I mean, it really does matter, of course!  But still, it kinda feels like deja view all over again [1] and I can’t help but think I should relax! It’s not my first time! Once upon a time… [2] Five years […]

Penetration testing over two years

Some penetration testing stats It was the great Gordon Ramsay that said, “I don’t like looking back. I’m always constantly looking forward. I’m not the one to sort of sit and cry over spilt milk. I’m too busy looking for the next cow.”   But still, it can’t hurt to keep track of how the cow-hunting […]

Cyber insurance: A risky business

Cyber insurance. A risky business! As the frequency of cyber attacks increases and incident recovery becomes more expensive, it is important for businesses to have cyber insurance to reduce the potential losses associated with such events. In fact, such coverage is something we expect will become mandatory for all kinds of contracts and agreements in […]

It’s in the trees! It’s coming!

It’s in the trees! It’s coming! * Since March, we’ve been very busy providing incident-response and recovery services for organisations that have fallen victim to cyber crime.  During that time, we have observed: Similarities in the security services, infrastructure and practices that were in place before the target organisations were compromised. Similarities in tactics and […]

Dangling DNS (3) – The final pluck!

Dangling DNS (part 3) – The final pluck! In the final (?) part of our investigation into dangling DNS records and the risk that they present to organisations, we’ll review ‘elastic’ IP addresses as supported by the various cloud providers including AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. For the most part (because we’re most familiar with […]

Dangling DNS (2) – Still dangling!

Dangling DNS (part 2) – Still dangling! In our previous Dangling DNS records post, we examined the risks of leaving ‘dangling’ CNAME records pointing to DNS zones which are not under the domain-owner’s sole control. The consequences include increased risk of successful phishing attacks as well as reputational damage. The examples given in that post focused […]

Dangling DNS (1) – Abandon, despair!

Dangling DNS (part 1) – Abandon and dispair! Recently, there has been some interesting news describing how attackers have been able to take over various subdomains by taking advantage of dangling DNS records. To recap, this is a security mis-configuration issue: A victim organisation sets up (perhaps in a testing scenario) a service on a […]