In the News

APPLE support doc CONFIRMS ‘ORGANIZED NETWORK ATTACKS’

The Register | Oct 22, 2014

Apple is warning its iCloud users over heightened spying risks following the discovery of attacks which security watchers have claimed are down to crude snooping by the Chinese government.

Steve Hultquist, chief evangelist at network visibility and analytics firm RedSeal, opined: “China uses a nationwide firewall system through which they force all internet traffic to pass so they can filter both what enters and what leaves China.”

Why Some Small Businesses Love Hack Attacks

Inc. | Oct 7, 2014

For Aaron Lee, problems with his JP Morgan Chase business bank account started in mid-September, just a few weeks before the nation’s largest bank announced to the world that information related to 80 million of its consumer accounts and 7 million business accounts had been hacked.

A number of Silicon Valley startups are working on solutions, including some that have developed behavioral analytics tools that can crunch big data to do things like identify normal worker behavior, and flag abnormal activity that could be related to a security breach.

In fact, many of the people who start these new companies hail from federal entities such as the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency, says Ray Rothrock, a venture capitalist who jumped ship from Venrock Ventures to run security company RedSeal Networks in February.

JPMorgan’s Supersize Data Breach Hits 76 Million Households

Bloomberg Businessweek | Oct 3, 2014

The biggest U.S. bank said that a breach of its systems, first reported by Bloomberg News in late August, has affected 76 million households and 7 million small businesses.

“The fact that JPMorgan Chase could be breached should send a shiver of fear through every organization on the planet,” says Steve Hultquist, chief evangelist at RedSeal Networks, a cybersecurity company.

What to do in the aftermath of the JPMorgan breach

CSO Magazine | Oct 3, 2014

The compromise of 10s of millions of JPMorgan Chase accounts poses the greatest risk of phishing attacks on consumers and small businesses, experts say.

“Any small business who is already a customer of JPMC should make sure all their employees are aware that the breach happened, and be specifically careful to make sure that anything that looks like communication from JPMC is actually from the bank,” Mike Lloyd, chief technology officer for RedSeal, said.

THIS IS WHY THE ENORMOUS JPMORGAN CHASE HACK IS SO SCARY

Fast Company | Oct 3, 2014

An enormous privacy breach has compromised the bank accounts of 83 million JPMorgan Chase customers, including 76 million households, spilling out customer names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses.

“The fact that JPMorgan Chase could be breached should send a shiver of fear through every organization on the planet,” Steve Hultquist, chief evangelist at RedSeal Networks, said in an email sent to Fast Company.

3 money facts your phone knows about you

Bankrate | Oct 1, 2014

Toting the details of your financial life around with you on a smartphone may be convenient, but it also puts that information at risk for anyone who gains access to that phone.

“Our whole lives are on our phones,” says Robert Capps, senior director of customer success at RedSeal Networks, a digital security firm. Which means our whole lives, including our finances, are up for grabs.

Technology Similarity Creates a “Groundhog Day” for Data Breaches

PaymentSource | Sep 22, 2014

Were the Home Depot and Target breaches the work of the same attackers? Only a few people seem to be in a position to know, and so far, they aren’t telling. However, we can still learn a lot from the similarity of the incidents. Read Dr. Mike Lloyd’s commentary on this topic in PaymentSource.

JPMorgan hackers altered, deleted bank records, says report

CNET | Aug 28, 2014

Investigation into attack on JPMorgan Chase may have expanded to seven of the world’s top banks, amid a report that hackers altered records.

“Getting access to bank records is uncommon but not unheard for hackers, who often change computer logs to cover their tracks but can’t always get to more sensitive data,” said RedSeal cybersecurity expert Robert Capps.

Data Breach-stricken UPS Unaware of PoS Malware for months

| Aug 22, 2014

Just as news of one large point of sale (SuperValu) hack begins to recede, another pops up to reclaim the headlines. This time the victim is shipping giant United Parcel Service (UPS), which has confirmed a long-running data breach at 51 of its UPS Stores, across 24 states.

“This shows that sophistication of IT isn’t an inoculation against a breach,” said Steve Hultquist, chief evangelist at RedSeal Networks. “The combination of complexity and continuous change–including both growth and technological advancement–mean that it’s virtually impossible to be aware of all the potential paths of attack.”

Big Data Overwhelms Security Teams

eSecurity Planet | Aug 20, 2014

A major contributing factor in many recent data breaches has been the fact that many IT security teams are simply overwhelmed by the volume of data they’re handling.

Mike Lloyd, CTO of RedSeal Networks, said that kind of data provides IT security teams with a serious challenge. “I don’t meet any security teams these days that say, ‘You know, what I lack is data,'” he said. “In fact, we’re drowning in data. The problem is turning that data into facts you can use.”