Sean Michael Kerner

Security vendor FireEye today is warning about the increased use of a new type of attack known as a bootkit. The FIN1 financial hacker group has been using the Bootrash bootkit as part of its Nemesis malware to infect organizations, FireEye has reported. The idea of rootkits—malware that infects the base operations of an operating […]

With the recent VTech breach exposing million of parents and children to risk, there is increased sensitivity and awareness around the security of Internet-connected toys this holiday season. Today, Bluebox Security revealed flaws in the Hello Barbie connected toy manufactured by ToyTalk. The good news, though, is that Bluebox responsibly disclosed the issues and ToyTalk […]

NEW YORK—Few, if any, industry verticals consume and spend as much on technology as the financial services community. At a panel session during the Tectonic Summit here, executives from Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Merrill Lynch discussed the opportunities they see with container usage. For Goldman Sachs, which has been evaluating cloud technology for […]

NEW YORK—Getting visibility into applications and infrastructure that is running in the cloud is not always an easy task. At the Tectonic Summit here, Intel announced a new open-source project called Snap, designed to help improve visibility into cloud infrastructure. In a video interview with eWEEK, Jonathan Donaldson, vice president and general manager, Software Defined […]

VTech Holdings is now admitting to at least one of the root causes behind the breach that exposed information on millions of children and parents. In an update to the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about the breach on Dec. 1, VTech now admits that its database security was lacking. “Regretfully our Learning Lodge, Kid Connect […]

NEW YORK–Few areas of technologies are as hot today as that of containers and security. Today at the Tectonic Summit at the Times Center in New York City, CoreOS is announcing a new approach called Distributed Trusted Computing that deeply integrates security into containers at every layer of the technology stack, from bare metal on […]

IT security is one of the hottest markets in technology today, as organizations of all sizes try to protect themselves against a seemingly endless onslaught of adversaries and online threats. Where there is a need, there is also a sizable market opportunity for venture capitalists, as they aim to invest in the next big thing. […]

The full extent of the VTech Holdings breach continues to spiral outward, as even more information is at risk than initially reported. VTech issued a statement on Nov. 30 that admitted the company became aware of a breach on Nov. 24. According to VTech, information was stolen from its customer database, including user profile information. […]

The promise of encryption is that it keeps information hidden from public view. But what happens when multiple devices share the same encryption key? According to a report from security firm SEC Consult, millions of devices are at risk because vendors have been reusing HTTPS and Secure Shell (SSH) encryption keys. “Research by Stefan Viehböck […]

Consumer electronics vendor VTech Holdings warned today of a data breach that affects 5 million customers on its Learning Lodge app store database. Those affected include children as well as parents registered with VTech to obtain kid-friendly apps and educational content. The breach occurred on Nov. 14, but VTech did not become aware of the […]

When adult infidelity site Ashley Madison was breached back in July, as many as 37 million users were exposed to risk. Four months later, Ashley Madison members are still feeling the impact of the breach, as an increased volume of spam is targeting them. According to email security firm MailChannels, the volume of spam and […]

It’s a busy time for shippers, making it quite possibly the worst time of the year to have an outage, but that’s what happened to FedEx for several hours on Nov. 24. The Fedex.com site was unavailable for several hours to some users in the United States, but it’s unclear what exactly happened. FedEx did […]