On Mar. 23, CalNet will disable TLS 1.0 and 1.1 protocols from being used to access CAS, Shibboleth, CalGroups, CalNet Account Manager, and LDAP. TLS 1.0 and 1.1 are insecure and vulnerable to attacks which risk the integrity and authentication of data sent between client and destination. Disabling these protocols is meant to mitigate these issues, adhere to campus policy, and to protect institutional data and IT resources.
We have become aware that identity thieves are calling individuals on campus via landline or cellular devices asking for personal information. Remember to be vigilant and careful about protecting your personal information.
We work very hard to protect our voice network; however, attackers may try to use a technology called spoofing to trick you into giving up information. Spoofing is the practice of deliberately falsifying the information transmitted to your caller ID to pretend to be someone else.
With the California Consumer Privacy Act taking effect this year, data privacy will become a central issue for businesses in 2020. Consumers conduct much of their lives on the internet, yet few understand the critical issue of privacy and how their personal information is used, collected and shared by businesses. Your data can be stored indefinitely and used in both beneficial and unwelcome ways.
Every year phishing messages are crafted by tax scammers to trick victims into giving out personal information. Taxpayers should continue to watch out for fake emails and/or websites looking to steal personal information. Be wary of any message asking for W-2 or other tax information. Additionally, because of the UCPath conversion attackers may send emails with fraudulent links. Do not open any attachments or click on any email links.
A spoofing vulnerability exists in the way Windows CryptoAPI (Crypt32.dll) validates Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) certificates. This vulnerability affects the Microsoft Windows 10 desktop operating system, as well as Windows Server 2016 and 2019.
Microsoft has released a security update that addresses the vulnerability by ensuring that Windows CryptoAPI completely validates ECC certificates.
*** Vulnerable RD Gateway servers should be patched IMMEDIATELY even where there is a potential business impact (unscheduled maintenance). Notify security@berkeley.edu if you anticipate any delays in patching. ***
A remote code execution vulnerability exists in Windows Remote Desktop Gateway (RD Gateway).
Mozilla has published an out-of-band patch for Mozilla Firefox and Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR). It fixes a type confusion vulnerability in Mozilla’s Javascript compiler, IonMonkey. This vulnerability is identified as CVE-2019-17026. [1]
Mozilla’s advisory states they are “aware of targeted attacks in the wild abusing this flaw.” Based on this note in the advisory, it appears the vulnerability was exploited in the wild as a zero-day. [2]
All of us exist in digital form on the Internet. When you're online you leave a trail of "digital exhaust" in the form of cookies, GPS data, social network posts, browser searches, and email exchanges, among others. Services that you don’t even use may have information about you. And once something is online, it can be there forever.
Recently ISO underwent a structural reorganization. This new structure allows us to continue to evolve and respond to challenges in the information security space, to streamline operations, and to create additional efficiencies. Vacant positions will be posted shortly to jobs.berkeley.edu and to our website.
Even outside the traditional "Holiday" season we find ourselves purchasing items online. And so, it's good to remember online shopping best practices year round. In addition to our holiday shopping tips, here are a few others to keep you safe while online shopping:
We wanted to mark the occasion by talking with him about what he learned while at ISO.
There will be some changes coming to information security policies at Berkeley brought on by a major update to the UC systemwide information security policy (IS-3). The revision brings sweeping changes to the way information security risk is handled on Campus.
I love this time of year; the air gets crisp, the leaves start to turn, and I get to wear sweaters all the time. However, the thought of leaving the house to battle the crowds elicits panic level 12. Perhaps that's why online shopping is gaining even more popularity. An estimated 165.8 million people shopped between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday in 2018! [1]
A vulnerability has been discovered in Exim, which could allow for unauthenticated remote attackers to execute arbitrary system commands on the mail server. Exim is a mail transfer agent used to deploy mail servers on Unix-like systems. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability will enable the attacker to perform command execution as root in the context of the mail server. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.
A vulnerability has been discovered in PHP 7.3 (the latest release series) that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code. PHP is a programming language originally designed for use in web-based applications with HTML content. PHP supports a wide variety of platforms and is used by numerous web-based software applications. [1]
Wi-Fi is great. Think about it, you pretty much carry an entire library and a direct line to anywhere in the world in your pocket. Nowadays many businesses offer Wi-Fi for their customers, so you can stay connected even while eating udon or waiting in line for toast.
But! That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Using public Wi-Fi is sort of like doing, well, anything else in public: you want to be safe and not accidentally wander into trouble. Let’s talk about what you can do to protect yourself on Wi-Fi.
