Robert Lemos

The Obama administration squarely blamed the Russian government on Oct. 7 for a series of hacks aimed at influencing the 2016 presidential election. Over the past 18 months, online attackers have compromised the networks and computers of the Democratic National Committee, leaked email and other documents, targeted election systems, and attempted to interfere or undermine […]

Companies need to help their cyber-security specialists not only keep their skills up to date, but also develop new ones—a hard idea to sell when these workers change jobs so often, according to a new survey released Oct. 5 by the Information System Security Association. The survey of more than 430 security professionals, conducted by […]

Sharing information on cyber-threats has garnered a great deal of U.S. government support over the past 18 months. In February 2015, President Obama signed Executive Order 13691, encouraging collaboration between private companies and with the government through organizations known as information sharing and analysis organizations, or ISAOs. Nearly a year later, Congress passed a 2,009-page […]

The well-known CryptoWall ransomware has run into a wall of its own. Over the past year, the criminals behind CryptoWall have seen their profit drop dramatically, according to a report published by the Cyber Threat Alliance, a group of eight security companies that exchange information on current cyber-threats. During the first 10 months of 2015, […]

In 2014, Facebook created a program, known as osquery, to help it monitor its Linux, Mac OS X, and FreeBSD systems, releasing the software as open source to spur adoption. This week, the company announced the host-based agent had been ported to Windows with the help of in security firm Trail of Bits. Companies can […]

Companies that spend little on security workers and technologies may not be acting irresponsibly, but making rational choices, because the cost of the average cyber-security incident is much less than previously estimated, according to research released this week by the RAND Corp. The analysis found that the average incident costs companies about $200,000, much less […]

Apple made a big splash at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June with its focus on consumer privacy and its plug for a technology known as differential privacy. But while the company’s promise to forgo creating consumer profiles is important, the announcement was a bit of a yawn for businesses. Yet, other features of the […]

Nearly every large company has had at least one employee whose email address and password have been leaked in a recent breach, putting those companies at risk of attack, especially if their workers reuse their passwords, according to research by security firm Digital Shadows. The firm analyzed its database of compromised credentials available online, searching […]

In March 2014, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team notified the U.S. Office of Personnel Management that its systems had been breached. The attackers eventually made off with the personnel files of at least 4.2 million former and current federal employees, fingerprint data on 5.6 million individuals and files containing information on the background investigations […]

While most internet and managed service providers see cyber-attacks on a weekly basis, the most common concern among the companies is that government surveillance will weaken network security and make providers a target of attackers, according to a report released by the UK Internet Services Providers Association (ISPA). The report, released Sept. 6, found that […]

The U.S. election system will likely face a significant trial this year, thanks to a summer of startling revelations including nation-state-linked attacks targeting the Democratic National Committee and state voter databases, along with a statement of no-confidence by the Republican nominee. The result has been a slew of media stories positing how the election could […]

On Aug. 13, a group known as the “Shadow Brokers” announced on Twitter that they would auction off a set of cyber-espionage tools taken from the server of the Equation Group, widely considered part of the United States’ intelligence services and likely to be operating as part of the National Security Agency. The announcement was […]