Category: Security

Categories
Humor Security

I’ll admit it: This Facebook trick question impressed me.

Look at that stat: 87,672 shares. I wonder how many people posted an answer.

I should come up with a list of the other common security questions, cleverly re-phrased.

Categories
Reading Material Security Tampa Bay

My list of links from class discussions during UC Baseline’s InfoSec week

Photo: The Undercroft sign, featuring the Undercroft’s “mascot” — a stag standing upright in a suit, leaning jauntily against an umbrella, walking stick-style.During the Information Security week of the UC Baseline cybersecurity program, the instructors asked us a lot of questions whose answers we had to look up. As a way to maximize participation, we were encouraged to share lots of links of the class’ Slack channel, which also functioned as a backchannel, as well as a way to chat with the students who were taking the course online.

The links that we shared in class were valuable material that I thought would be worth keeping for later reference. I’ve been spending an hour here and there, gathering them up and even organizing them a little. The end result is the list below.

Since these are all publicly-available links and don’t link to any super-secret UC Baseline instructional material, I’m posting them here on Global Nerdy. Think of this list as a useful set of security-related links, something to read if you’re bored, or a peek into what gets discussed during the InfoSec week of the UC Baseline course!

The links

  • U.S. Department of Health & Human Services: Cyber Security Guidance Material
    A collection of “educational materials specifically designed to give HIPAA covered entities and business associates insight into how to respond to a cyber-related security incidents.”
  • DFIR — Digital Forensics and Incident Response
    “Digital forensics and incident response is an important part of business and law enforcement operations. It is a philosophy supported by today’s advanced technology to offer a comprehensive solution for IT security professionals who seek to provide fully secure coverage of a corporation’s internal systems.”
  • Understanding RPO and RTO
    “Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) are two of the most important parameters of a disaster recovery or data protection plan. These are objectives which can guide enterprises to choose an optimal data backup plan.”

  • The 3-2-1 backup rule
    “For a one-computer user, the VMware backup strategy can be as simple as copying all important files to another device – or, ideally, several devices – and keeping them in a safe place. However, for multiple computer systems, things can be (and usually are) much more complicated, especially when it comes to virtual environments containing thousands of virtual machines. To protect physical machines, you would need to perform Windows Server backup or Linux Server backup, which might be difficult without effective backup tools. In these cases, a comprehensive data protection plan should include the 3-2-1 backup rule.”

  • Evaluating Risks Using Quantitative Risk Analysis
    “Project managers should be prepared to perform different types of risk analysis. For many projects, the quicker qualitative risk assessment is all you need. But there are occasions when you will benefit from a quantitative risk analysis.Let’s take a look at this type of analysis: What is it? Why should we perform it? When should it be performed? And how do we quantify risks?”

  • Buffer/stack overflows
  • Here are six basic human tendencies that are exploited in social engineering attacks:
    1. Authority: An attacker may call you pretending to be an executive in order to exploit your tendency to comply with authority figures.
    2. Liking: An attacker may try to build rapport with you by finding common interests, and then ask you for a “favor”.
    3. Reciprocation: An attacker may try to do something for you, or convince you that he or she has, before asking you for something in return.
    4. Consistency: An attacker might first get your verbal commitment to abide by a fake security policy, knowing that once you agree to do so, you will likely follow through with his next request in order to keep your word.
    5. Social Validation: An attacker may try to convince you to participate in a fake survey by telling you that others in your department already have. He or she may have even gotten some of their names and use them to gain your trust.
    6. Scarcity: An attacker may tell you that the first 10 people to complete a survey will automatically win a prize and that since some of your co-workers have already taken the survey, you might as well too.
  • Social Studies – A Lesson in Social Engineering Basics
    As we have become more and more vigilant against clicking on malicious links in suspicious emails, some social engineers have gone back to the classic person-to-person approach. Their basic strategy is to prey on vulnerabilities in human nature.