Authentic8 Blog Category: Identity

VPN & Privacy: What Nobody Told You

Posted by: Amir Khashayar Mohammadi
Published on:

Large-scale privacy violations on the web have become commonplace. Social media platforms and app or service providers have been shelling out, some intentionally, others unintentionally, user data to third parties hand over fist.

While such incidents may have a numbing effect on some users, others take them as a reminder to seek better protection against surveillance and tracking threats on the internet. After all, service providers selling our data to third parties is not a new development. This post provides more in-depth background on how ISPs use VPN to spy on you.

Third parties taking advantage of VPN’s many flaws for nefarious purposes is so real that earlier this month, two U.S. senators (Ron Wyden and Marco Rubio) raised alarm in a bipartisan letter [PDF] to the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Christopher Krebs.

In the light of all this, what doesn’t cease to amaze me is how many

Quick Dissections: Collections 2 - 5

Posted by: Amir Khashayar Mohammadi
Published on:

You’ve seen the headlines about a loot archive of stolen credentials called "Collection #1" that was leaked online in January. This collection contains 772,904,991 entries, one of the most significant credential leaks yet. The credentials are all stored within an email:cleartext_password format, making credential stuffing attacks relatively easy without having to worry about deciphering hashes.

As worrisome for potential targets as this can be, this post doesn’t deal with this particular pile of data (read Troy Hunt’s analysis of "Collection #1" leak here). Instead, I’ll take a closer look at why there’s a “#1” next to the collection name. While #1 is a massive heap of data, it’s only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. There are five collection archives in total, containing a total of 1TB worth of raw credential data waiting to be downloaded by attackers. So what’s in Collections 2 - 5?

What About Collections 2 - 5?

Hoodwinked: Why Our Eyes Won't Protect Us Against Phishing and Fake Websites

Posted by: Guest Contributor
Published on:

By Benjamin Dynkin & Barry Dynkin

Our eyes were the gatekeepers between fact and fiction, reality and myth - then the internet came along. The visual information we encounter and interact with on the web is digitally created and manipulated - and we’re not ready for it.

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Web pages and individual visual elements can be easily replicated, and their impact on users tracked and measured. The problem with that is that scammers take advantage of it, while we still trust our eyes. This trust can now easily be turned against us.

In the domain of email-based fraud, perpetrators have evolved beyond broad, “Nigerian Prince”-esque campaigns. No longer are they limited to crude schemes that are easily detected.

Instead, they are using sophisticated, targeted campaigns that combine social engineering with visual deception and manipulation. The goal is to generate sensory overload and trick individuals into divulging critical information, such as usernames and passwords, or to overcome their resistance with psychological pressure

Local Browser Wins Olympic Gold for Worst Security

Posted by: Guest Contributor
Published on:

by Amir Khashayar Mohammadi

Nearly every web browser comes equipped with a built-in password manager. Combined with all its other inherent vulnerabilities, this makes the local browser an even more attractive target for automated attacks. The bad guys would love to gain access to the container that keeps track of the keys to your online bank. Given the browser’s weak security underpinnings, how hard could it be?

Not too hard. This was confirmed, once again, by news that broke earlier this week. A new piece of malware, dubbed "Olympic Destroyer" by security firm Talos, does just that. Its purpose was to target a network of non-critical systems at this year's Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

Cybersecurity researchers pointed out that Olympic Destroyer was designed to take computers offline by erasing critical system files. But that was not the whole story. Olympic Destroyer also features two critical methods of stealing credentials.

One technique targets those credentials stored in the

Book Review: What They Really Do With Your Medical Data

Posted by: Scott Petry
Published on:
Topics: News, Identity

Thumbnail: Book Review: What They Really Do With Your Medical Data - Illustration for Authentic8 blog review of Our Bodies, Our Data by Adam TannerSECURITY, IDENTITY, NEWS

Happy Data Privacy Day.  A new book provides an in-depth look at the commercial trade in patient medical data.  Sensitive data, a vibrant market, and not much cause for celebration.

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A while ago, I wrote about the wave of data breaches at healthcare organizations and medical identity theft that is impacting millions and what we can do to protect ourselves better.

One of the readers of that post was acclaimed journalist Adam Tanner, who has reported on data collection and consumer privacy since 2012.

Adam and I have had an ongoing discussion on data privacy and security matters since we met a few years ago.  He was covering the issue for Forbes, and I had a chance to brief him on our secure browser solution.

A few weeks ago, he kindly directed my attention to an unknown - to me, at least - aspect of our personal medical records. I thought our medical data was sacrosanct.  Protected by regulatory