NetWorks Group Blog

PCI Compliance is here to stay:

Typically, IT managers dread the annual PCI assessment. With publicized credit card breaches on the rise, meeting PCI compliancy will be even more so of a requirement with potential increases in punitive actions for companies not meeting that compliancy. To add to the existing complexity of PCI DSS, with emerging threats of capabilities to breach corporate networks on a consistent basis, PCI requirements will remain in a perpetual state of change. 

Topics: Ethical Hacking, Vulnerability Management, Compliance, Penetration Testing, Threat Management

Healthcare data theft totaled more than 112 million records in 2015, according to the Office of Civil Rights. Moreover, 42.5 percent of all data breaches have occurred in the healthcare industry in the last three years, and 91 percent of healthcare organizations have reported at least one breach in the last two years. Hackers, unauthorized access from staff, improper disposal, data loss — all of these factors contributed to large-scale data breaches in hospitals and medical facilities across the United States. Now, more IT managers and administrators are investing in cybersecurity to safeguard patient data.

Topics: Managed Detection & Response, Information Security, Vulnerability Management, Compliance, Healthcare

What is PCI Compliance?

Topics: Managed Detection & Response, Information Security, Vulnerability Management, Compliance

Essential Infrastructure in Peril 

Critical infrastructure industries are a required foundation for a functional society. Without these sectors, vital services and products are unavailable. Health care, finance and manufacturing are three examples of markets that fall under this designation. The huge shortage of personnel with cybersecurity skills puts this essential infrastructure in peril. The demand for these experts is higher than the supply, making it difficult for organizations to appropriately protect themselves from cybercriminals. In the United States, only 66.7 percent of employer demand is met. It's even worse in other countries, with Israel only filling 28.4 percent of demand. 

Topics: Security Monitoring, Managed Detection & Response, Ethical Hacking, Device Management, Information Security, Vulnerability Management, Threat Management

We often hear from prospective clients that they have a third party perform external penetration testing every year, and it never finds anything serious, so if the attackers can’t get in from the outside, why bother testing anything else? At first, the logic seems sound – Using a castle as an analogy for the network: You’ve built a castle with really strong walls. – If nothing can breach the walls, then the squishy villagers, the rulers, and the royal jewels inside are safe and secure. This thinking follows the traditional 90’s style of network architecture, where the only route into the corporate network was through the border firewall, through the modem – the one hardline into the office.

Topics: Ethical Hacking, Information Security, Vulnerability Management, Penetration Testing, Threat Management

Adobe, MySpace, LinkedIn, and many other large organizations have had major password breaches in the last few years. Breaches where attackers have exfiltrated usernames, email addresses, passwords, and in some cases, plaintext password hints and other data from the company’s database. The initial response is always, "Log into that service, and change your password before the hackers get in and take over that account!" The sad truth is that it’s rarely that account that matters – it’s the other accounts where you (or your users) used the same password and email address that you’re (or they’re) already using on the compromised account with another service.

Topics: Ethical Hacking, Information Security, Vulnerability Management, Penetration Testing, Threat Management

VENOM (Virtualized Environment Neglected Operations Manipulation)

If you are currently utilizing Xen, KVM or QEMU virtualization products you need to apply patches. VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization products are not affected.

Topics: Threat Hunting, Vulnerability Management, Threat Management, Threat Advisory

I had a completely different article typed up, however after catching up on my morning news and seeing a huge amount of controversy regarding Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure (CVD) from Microsoft, I decided to reach out to the NetWorks Group Community and help our customers (past, current, and prospective) understand what that means to them.

Topics: Managed Detection & Response, Ethical Hacking, Vulnerability Management, Threat Management

If you're a fan of delicious restaurants, awesome concert venues, Big 10 sports, or just a bike-friendly city, then you should probably be working with us in beautiful downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan. The team at NetWorks Group works at the corner of Main and Huron, a central-point to blocks of great places to shop, eat, and relax at. Located a short distance from the University of Michigan, NetWorks Group benefits from the feeling of both a college-town and an active business hub for southeastern Michigan. For a vibrant mixture of cultures, architecture, and activities, Ann Arbor is hard to beat!

Topics: Security Monitoring, Managed Detection & Response, Ethical Hacking, Device Management, Information Security, Threat Hunting, Vulnerability Management, Security Architecture Review, Compliance, Penetration Testing, Incident Response, Threat Management

At NetWorks Group, we put a lot of value in interacting in person with the various technology communities important to our team. More than that, we love to be able to meet with customers and people looking to find out more about what we do and how our team could help yours achieve tough goals.

Topics: Security Monitoring, Managed Detection & Response, Ethical Hacking, Information Security, Vulnerability Management, Compliance, Penetration Testing, Threat Management