Research Saturday

As much of the world grapples with the new coronavirus, COVID-19, and how to handle it, attackers are taking advantage of the widespread discussion of COVID-19 in emails and across the web.

Joining us today is Fleming Shi, CTO of Barracuda discussing their report on these types of attacks, which are up 667-percent since the end of February.

The research can be found here:

Threat Spotlight: Coronavirus-Related Phishing

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By day, he is Dton, an upstanding Nigerian citizen. He believes in professionalism, hard work and excellence. He’s a leader, a content creator, an entrepreneur and an innovator; an accomplished business administrator; a renaissance man who is adored by his colleagues. But by night, he is Bill Henry, Cybercriminal Entrepreneur. We sat down with a researcher at CheckPoint for the inside scoop into this fascinating, brazen individual. 

The research can be found here:

The Inside Scoop on a Six-Figure Nigerian Fraud Campaign

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2020 is shaping up to be a rough year. Ransomware attacks will continue to grow as cybercriminals get more sophisticated in their methods and expand their reach. Allan Liska, Senior Analyst at Recorded Future, shares their findings and predictions in a new report. 

The research can be found here:

5 Ransomware Trends to Watch in 2020

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Eclypsium has issued a study that suggests the prevalence of “unsigned firmware in WiFi adapters, USB hubs, trackpads, and cameras used in computers from Lenovo, Dell, HP and other major manufacturers.” Here to discuss their findings is Rick Altherr, a Principle Engineer at Eclypsium.

The research can be found here:

Perilous Peripherals: The Hidden Dangers Inside Windows and LINUX Computers. 

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Cloud computing is now at the center of nearly every business strategy. But, as with the rapid adoption of any new technology, growing pains persist. The key findings in these reports shed light on security missteps that are actually in practice by organizations across the globe.

Joining us in this special Research Saturday are Palo Alto Network's Matthew Chiodi and Ryan Olson. They discuss their findings in two different threat reports. 

The research can be found here:

Cloud Threat Report

IoT Threat Report

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As websites and apps more widely adopt TLS (Transport Layer Security) and communicate over HTTPS connections, unencrypted traffic may draw even more attention, since it’s easier for analysts and security tools to identify malicious communication patterns in those plain HTTP sessions. Malware authors know this, and they’ve made it a priority to adopt TLS and thereby obfuscate the contents of malicious communication.

Joining us on this week's Research Saturday is Chester Wisniewski from SophosLabs discussing their research on the subject. 

The research can be found here:

Nearly a quarter of malware now communicates using TLS

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Why do some developers and development teams write more secure code than others? Software is written by people, either alone or in teams. Ultimately secure code development depends on the actions and decisions taken by the people who develop the code. Understanding the human factors that influence the introduction of software vulnerabilities, and acting on that knowledge, is a definitive way to shift security to the left. 

On this Research Saturday, our conversation with Anita D’Amico from CodeDX on which developers and teams are more likely to write vulnerable software.

The research can be found here:

Which Developers and Teams Are More Likely to Write Vulnerable Software?

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Today's Research Saturday features our conversation with Robert Heaton, a software engineer with Stripe who penned a blog post about his disappointing discovery involving his Wacom tablet tracking his applications. The post struck a nerve and has since been widely distributed.

The research can be found here: 

Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application that you open

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SafeBreach Labs discovered a new vulnerability in the Realtek HD Audio Driver Package, which is deployed on PCs containing Realtek sound cards. 

On this week's Research Saturday, our conversation with Itzik Kotler, who is Co-Founder and CTO at SafeBreach. 

The research can be found here: 

Realtek HD Audio Driver Package - DLL Preloading and Potential Abuses

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BGN Technologies, the technology transfer company of Ben-Gurion University (BGU) of the Negev, Israel, is introducing the first all-optical “stealth” encryption technology that will be significantly more secure and private for highly-sensitive cloud computing and data center network transmission. Joining us in this special Research Saturday is BGN's Dan Sadot who helped pioneer this technology. 

The Research can be found here:

Ben-Gurion University Researchers Introduce the FirstAll-Optical, Stealth Data Encryption Technology

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