The Qualys Policy Compliance scan runs through 4 principal phases:

1. determine if the target is responsive (i.e. "alive"); there is little point in spending time on a target that is not reachable over the network or even switched on;
2. perform a limited scan to determine if we have the access needed to perform a Compliance Scan;
3. retrieve the Operating System type from the target; this is matched against the Technologies for which will have Controls;
4. retrieve data points for all Controls of a given Technology.

It is worth noting that by default the Qualys Policy Compliance scan will retrieve data for all Controls - regardless of what, if any, a Policy might specify. It is only later, during the reporting phase, that data points for Controls are evaluated against Policies that the user defined.

Below is a flow-chart that illustrates the steps the scan engine goes through. Please click to enlarge.

Conducting business on the Internet has become an essential requirement for almost every organization. However, those web applications are exposed to near-constant bombardment from entities looking to exploit vulnerabilities for malicious purposes. A frequent, in-depth security review of those applications is necessary to ensure that your critical assets are protected.

What Makes Our Testing Unique?

• Automation is Only the First Step : We do extensive manual testing to find high-impact vulnerabilities that scanning tools can’t find. The results of our assessments are actionable and the remediation path is straightforward.
• Security Consultants are Practicing Software Developers : Our security consultants are trained and experienced developers with in-depth knowledge of the software development lifecycle and secure development strategies to develop, assess and remediate application source code.
• You’re Not Left Alone to Fix the Problem : As developers, we are equipped to team with clients to weigh risks and interpret the results of scans, and if needed, help with the remediation process.

Malware (a portmanteau for malicious software) is any software intentionally designed to cause damage to a computer, server, client, or computer network. ... This includes analyzing malicious files, cleaning infected websites, and protecting our clients from future infections.

• My website has been blacklisted
• My website has a malware infection
• I am seeing unusual files or folders on my site
• My website is not loading
• My website is loading slowly
• My website is sending emails on its own
• I received a malware alert on Google Webmaster Tools
• My site has been shut down due to malware
• Unusual redirects are happening on my site

Overview

If your website has been hacked recently, review the recommended steps below to recover a hacked website and prevent future hacks.

Recovering from an attack

• Request details about the hack from your hosting provider including how they believe the site was hacked.
• Request your hosting provider remove the malicious content placed on your website.
• Resolve site warnings in Google Webmaster Tools and resubmit your site for Google’s review once the hack has been resolved.

Preventing and mitigating the risks of a future hack

To reduce the probability of future hack, take the following actions:

Always update your Content Management System (CMS)

If you’re using WordPress, for example, ensure you’re on the most recent version of WordPress. CMS platforms push out updates to address known vulnerabilities. Always upgrade to the latest version when it becomes available.

Ensure your plugins are updated

If you’re using plugins or extensions on your website or CMS, keep them updated.

Activate Cloudflare’s Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Customers on a paid Cloudflare plan can activate the WAF to challenge or block known malicious behavior.

Secure your admin login

Many hacks are due to brute force attacks on login pages. Review services like Rublon or Jetpack to help secure your site from attacks designed to target CMS platforms like WordPress.

Backup your site

If your site becomes hacked, avoid losing valid content by using a service like CodeGuard to restore your site from a backup.

How to Install an SSL Certificate

An SSL Certificate is a text file with encrypted data that you install on your server so that you can secure/encrypt sensitive communications between your site and your customers. Learn more about SSL certificates.

After you create a CSR (certificate signing request) and purchase a certificate, our Validation team validates and processes your certificate request. (Learn more about the certificate validation process.) Once validated, we issue your SSL Certificate and send it to you via email. You can also download your SSL Certificate in your DigiCert account.

Intermediate Certificate

When you install an SSL certificate on a server or SSL-enabled application, you’ll also need to install an intermediate certificate. This intermediate certificate establishes the trust of your SSL certificate by tying it to your Certificate Authority’s root certificate (your DigiCert issued SSL certificate → the intermediate certificate → DigiCert root certificate). To complete the certificate trust chain, a Browser requires the intermediate certificate to be present. Learn more about the role of intermediate and root certificates.

primary objective of the UK Government's National Cyber Security Strategy is to make the UK a safer place to conduct business online and from 1 October 2014 all suppliers must be compliant with the new Cyber Essentials controls if bidding for government contracts which involve handling of sensitive and personal information and provision of certain technical products and services.  You can find further information here.

To achieve this, CREST was engaged by CESG (now known as the NCSC), the information security arm of GCHQ, to develop an assessment framework to support the Government's "Cyber Essentials" scheme, which forms a key deliverable of this strategy.

By deploying these controls, organisations can defend against the most common form of basic cyber attacks originating from the Internet.

The Cyber Essentials scheme identifies some fundamental technical security controls that an organisation needs to have in place to help defend against Internet-borne threats.

CREST is an approved accreditation body under the UK Government Cyber Essentials scheme. CREST certifies its member companies to provide Cyber Essentials services. Each of these organisations is a member of CREST and further information about the role of CREST can be found at www.crest-approved.org.

Selected by industry experts, the technical controls within the scheme reflect those covered in well-established standards, such as the ISO/IEC 27000 series, the Information Security Forum’s Standard of Good Practice for Information Security and the Standard for Information Assurance for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises.

You can download a copy of the CREST Cyber Essentials Overview here

The NCSC are planning significant changes to the Cyber Essentials Scheme.  You can read more here.

Managing vulnerabilities involves a wide array of security testing, including both dynamic and static source code analysis. So what is the difference between static code analysis and dynamic code analysis? Is one method preferred over another in terms of security and performance?

Static and dynamic code analyses are performed during source code reviews. Static code analysis is done without executing any of the code; dynamic code analysis relies on studying how the code behaves during execution.

When performing comprehensive source code reviews, both static and dynamic testing should be performed. Static analysis source code testing is adequate for understanding security issues within program code and can usually pick up about 85% of the flaws in the code.

Dynamic code review has the additional ability to find security issues caused by the code’s interaction with other system components like SQL databases, application servers or Web services. (Parameters are sent to back-end servers for processing, which could be modified before returning.)

Planning for a successful DSS compliance audit

Regardless of where you fall in the merchant level definitions, completing your own thorough compliance checks in advance of a DSS compliance audit can save you both time and money.   The PCI Security Standards Council has defined a comprehensive set of standards to enhance the security of cardholder data, at the center of which is the PCI DSS. Level 1 and 2 merchants are required to demonstrate DSS compliance with a QSA report (RoC), while Level 2-4 merchants must complete the self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ).  However, the requirements can be confusing, which is why we developed the CyberSheath PCI Readiness Assessment.

The Solution

CyberSheath’s PCI Readiness Assessment establishes baseline security controls in your business operations to ensure that compliance is achieved as efficiently as possible. Not only does this improve your cybersecurity and increase the likelihood of a successful audit, but it also helps to lower security admin and spending, enabling you to spend more on actual defense.

Our unique approach to PCI DSS compliance stems from our Measure Once, Comply Many™ ethos, which aims to guarantee compliance as a natural consequence of secure day-to-day operations.

What does a PCI Readiness Assessment involve?

A successful PCI Readiness Assessment entails an in-depth review of your existing infrastructure, applications, and policies. Activities include:

• Target scanning to identify targets of interest.
• Port scanning to identify services on each target.
• Version scanning to fingerprint the services and OS.
• Vulnerability scanning of targeted hosts.
• Application scanning for vulnerabilities at the application level.
• Automated and manual penetration testing.
• Review of existing policies and procedures.
• Documentation of gap analysis against PCI DSS requirements.
• Readiness report documenting assessment findings and suggested remediations.
• A detailed plan of remedial actions and milestones with deliverables.

Remediation of Assessment Findings

Should your PCI Readiness Assessment identify areas of vulnerability or deficiency in your security operations, CyberSheath engineers will work with your team to develop a remediation plan according to your available resources.

Areas of focus include:

• Project management.
• Device configuration.
• Design, building, deployment, and testing of new or updated systems.
• Development of new policies, procedures, and controls.
• Training for in-house staff.
• Process validation.
• Policy generation.
• Documented step-by-step instructions.

Planning for a successful DSS compliance audit

Regardless of where you fall in the merchant level definitions, completing your own thorough compliance checks in advance of a DSS compliance audit can save you both time and money.   The PCI Security Standards Council has defined a comprehensive set of standards to enhance the security of cardholder data, at the center of which is the PCI DSS. Level 1 and 2 merchants are required to demonstrate DSS compliance with a QSA report (RoC), while Level 2-4 merchants must complete the self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ).  However, the requirements can be confusing, which is why we developed the CyberSheath PCI Readiness Assessment.

The Solution

CyberSheath’s PCI Readiness Assessment establishes baseline security controls in your business operations to ensure that compliance is achieved as efficiently as possible. Not only does this improve your cybersecurity and increase the likelihood of a successful audit, but it also helps to lower security admin and spending, enabling you to spend more on actual defense.

Our unique approach to PCI DSS compliance stems from our Measure Once, Comply Many™ ethos, which aims to guarantee compliance as a natural consequence of secure day-to-day operations.

What does a PCI Readiness Assessment involve?

A successful PCI Readiness Assessment entails an in-depth review of your existing infrastructure, applications, and policies. Activities include:

• Target scanning to identify targets of interest.
• Port scanning to identify services on each target.
• Version scanning to fingerprint the services and OS.
• Vulnerability scanning of targeted hosts.
• Application scanning for vulnerabilities at the application level.
• Automated and manual penetration testing.
• Review of existing policies and procedures.
• Documentation of gap analysis against PCI DSS requirements.
• Readiness report documenting assessment findings and suggested remediations.
• A detailed plan of remedial actions and milestones with deliverables.

Remediation of Assessment Findings

Should your PCI Readiness Assessment identify areas of vulnerability or deficiency in your security operations, CyberSheath engineers will work with your team to develop a remediation plan according to your available resources.

Areas of focus include:

• Project management.
• Device configuration.
• Design, building, deployment, and testing of new or updated systems.
• Development of new policies, procedures, and controls.
• Training for in-house staff.
• Process validation.
• Policy generation.
• Documented step-by-step instructions.

Business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR) are closely related practices that support an organization's ability to remain operational after an adverse event.

Resiliency has become the watchword for organizations facing an array of threats, from natural disasters to the latest round of cyberattacks.

In this climate, business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) has a higher profile than ever before. Every organization, from small operations to the largest enterprises, is increasingly dependent on digital technologies to generate revenue, provide services and support customers who always expect applications and data to be available.

"Mission-critical data has no time for down time," said Christophe Bertrand, a senior analyst who covers data protection for Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), a market research firm in Milford, Mass. "Even for non-critical data, people have very little tolerance."

Disruption isn't just an inconvenience for customers. A fire, flood, ransomware attack or other malady can rack up financial losses, damage the corporate brand and, in the worst-case scenario, shutter a business permanently. About a third of the respondents to Uptime Institute's 2019 Global Data Center Survey reported having "business impacts" linked to some form of infrastructure in the past year. A bit more than 10% of the respondents said their most recent outage resulted in $1 million-plus in direct and indirect costs.

"These outages increasingly span multiple data centers, and best practices dictate comprehensive and ongoing resiliency reviews of all company-owned and third-party digital infrastructure," according to Uptime Institute, a Seattle-based data center standards organization.

he security profile of any single system or application can change daily. New vulnerabilities can be discovered and published, new exploits can be developed and released, and new systems can be added or reconfigured within any network. This constant variation requires an in-depth, comprehensive defense strategy – one where no single vulnerability can compromise an entire network or critical application.

With our Security Architecture Review & Design services, Securicon can work with you to identify the secure network and system architecture that your organization needs.

Our senior engineers will partner with your network and system architects to:

• Review firewall, router, and network switch configuration results, as well as security assessments
• Create cascading security controls over networks, systems, and applications that overlap for vital redundancy
• Strengthen not only your architecture’s design, but the effectiveness of any architecture that has already been implemented

Cooperative, Joint Partnerships

Securicon has an extensive track record of cooperative partnerships, working closely with network engineers and system developers to ensure that security requirements are adequately and accurately addressed throughout network and enterprise system architecture levels. Our expert engineers also make sure that cost-effective security mechanisms are incorporated, meeting both protection and budgetary needs.

The Securicon team works within the context of business objectives and security requirements, providing world-class Security Architecture Review & Design services to our clients. If you are looking for recommendations for strengthening your existing security mechanisms, or simply want to compensate for any inherent security weaknesses, Securicon is ready to partner in your success.

One of biggest budget busters for an information security program is technology solutions that are not a good match for the organization. Often, the technology is more than adequate in terms of functionality; however, other attributes of the solution may clash with the organization’s needs and culture. Some acquisitions fail because there is a poor match between the solution’s functionality and the capabilities required to meet the real needs to ensure the organization’s security posture. Thus, it is critical to identify and evaluate security technology solutions to maximize the potential for a successful implementation.

The number of information security solutions available has grown exponentially as the marketplace for these products has matured. Much of the demand for these products has resulted from one or more of the following factors:

• Regulatory compliance requirements and legislation
• Increasing incidence of data breaches
• Increase in hacktivism
• Increasing cyberthreat landscape
• Trend toward IT consumerism, such as bring your own device (BYOD)

While the increase in solution alternatives makes it easier for an organization to find a security product that offers the perfect fit for its specific requirements, the myriad of options can be confusing for the information security manager. In addition, there is a key trend among solution vendors to merge new functionality into their core products, which previously existed as stand-alone applications, such as malware-detection capabilities in a vulnerability management suite. It can be more difficult to evaluate these hybrid solutions when seeking to fill gaps in the information security organization’s tool set. Besides enhanced functionality, vendors may offer their products under a variety of service models, such as private or public clouds or on-premise options.

Do you feel stagnancy in your career growth, struggling to find a new job or switch careers? A career coach (career counselor or consultant), mentor, recruitment consultant or headhunter can help. A career coach, mentor or recruitment consultant support, motivate and provide encouragement. They listen to detect thoughts, feelings, and aspirations related to career decision-making. They also ask questions and provide feedback on clients’ strengths, insecurities, concerns, areas of need and career-related obstacles. They help clients develop goals and achieve a higher level of performance and satisfaction. But, are they all the same? In this post, Parinita Gupta will talk about the differences in working with a career coach vs mentor vs recruitment consultant.

Career Coach vs Mentor vs Recruitment Consultant vs Headhunter

We all have, at some point in our lives, been in a stage of our career where we are not sure of our next step. It could be as early as the start of our career, or when looking for growth opportunities or when switching to a different career domain. In these situations, we often seek pieces of advice from our friends and families who try their best to help us in their own ways but ultimately leave us more confused than ever. It’s advisable to always approach the experts in this field for right career advice.

5 ways to stop spam from invading your email

1. Train your filter

When you find spam in your inbox, don’t just delete it. Select it, and tell your mail client that this particular message is spam. How you do this depends on your client. For instance, if you’re using Gmail’s website, click the Report spam button in the toolbar (the icon looks like an exclamation point inside a stop sign).

2. Never respond to spam

If you recognize something as spam before you open it, don’t open it. If you open it and then realize it’s spam, close it. Do not click a link or a button, or download a file, from a message that you even remotely suspect is spam.

If you opened a spam because it appeared to be coming from a friend or co-worker, contact them immediately and let them know that their account has been compromised.

3. Hide your email address

The more people who have your email address, the more spam you’re going to get. So keep your address close to your chest.

Don’t publish it on the web unless you absolutely have to. (I have to, and it’s not fun.) And if you have to, use a different address for that purpose.

Use disposable email addresses when you’re not comfortable sharing your real one. I use Blur, a free Chrome and Firefox extension, for that purpose. Other options include spamex and mailshell.

4. Use a third-party anti-spam filter

Most of the major security suites come with an anti-spam filter that can augment the one on your client—but only if that client is local. In other words, they can work with Office’s Outlook program, but not with Outlook.com.

Back in April, AV-Comparatives published an Anti-Spam Test report to see how well these tools worked. ESET Smart Security 9 got the highest score for catching spam and integrating with Outlook.

5. Change your email address

This is a very drastic option, but if you’ve responded to spam in the past or haven’t hidden your address, and are therefore overloaded with spam, it may be your best option.

Of course you’ll have to inform your legitimate contacts about the change, and you’ll probably have to keep both addresses for a few months. But once you can get rid of the old address, your spam count should plummet. You may want to read my article on changing your address.

A phishing campaign is an email scam designed to steal personal information from victims. Cybercriminals use phishing, the fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information such as credit card details and login credentials, by disguising as a trustworthy organization or reputable person in an email communication.

Typically, a phishing campaign is carried out by email spoofing; an email directs the recipient to enter personal information at a fake website that looks identical to the legitimate site. Phishing emails are also used to distribute malware and spyware though links or attachments that can steal information and perform other malicious tasks.

Phishing is popular with cybercriminals because it enables them to steal sensitive financial and personal information without having to break through the security defenses of a computer or network. Public awareness about phishing campaigns has grown considerably in recent years, as many incidents have been covered by a variety of media sources. In addition to technical solutions, user security awareness is one of the cyber security measures being used to help counter attempted phishing incidents.

How a Phishing Campaign Works

A phishing campaign uses social-engineering techniques to lure email recipients into revealing personal or financial information. For example, during the holidays, an email pretending to be from a well-known company tells you to go to its website and re-enter your billing information or your package won’t be shipped in time to make it your gift recipient. The only problem is that the fake email is directing you to a fake site, where the information you enter will be used to commit identity theft, fraud and other crimes.

Types of Phishing Campaigns

As businesses continue to deploy anti-phishing strategies and educate their users about cyber security, cybercriminals continue to improve phishing attacks and develop new scams. Here’s more information about some of the most common types of phishing campaigns.

Spear phishing attacks are targeted at an individual or small group, typically with access to sensitive information or the ability to transfer funds. Cybercriminals gather information about the intended target in advance and leverage it to personalize the attack, create a sense of familiarity and make the malicious email seem trustworthy. Spear-phishing emails typically appear to come from someone the target knows, such as a co-worker at their company or another business in their network.

Whaling is a spear-phishing attack that specifically targets senior executives at a business.

Vishing, or voice phishing, uses a telephone message to try to get potential victims to call back with their personal information. Cybercriminals often use fake caller-ID information to make the calls appear to be from a legitimate organization or business. Smishing, also known as SMS phishing, uses text messages to try to lure victims into revealing account information or installing malware.

As cybersecurity is becoming more and more popular each day it’s also important to mention that there is a shortage of skilled people within the industry. Many recruiters create specific cybersecurity departments so they can stay competitive and fill the gap. According to the Forbes, it is expected that cybersecurity market will hit $170 billion by 2020 and cybersecurity jobs are expected to reach 6 million by the end of 2019. It’s not a secret that the rapid growth rate of the industry requires a professional approach from some of the best infosec recruiters.

In a recent interview, Karla Jobling from BeecherMadden (a top UK cybersecurity recruiter) reveals that at first cybersecurity companies wanted to hire as many people as possible. However, now they are more concentrated on how to find not many, but just the right people for the right position. It is extremely important for a recruiter to match the candidate’s expectations with the requirement and the corporate culture of the client company.