Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Brand impersonation and account takeover (ATO) are often treated as separate security problems. One is viewed as a phishing or brand abuse issue. The other is viewed as an authentication or fraud issue. Attackers often see them differently. Many ATO attacks begin long before a login attempt appears on a dashboard. They begin when a customer encounters a fake website, fraudulent search result, impersonating social media profile, cloned mobile app, or spoofed communication that appears legitimate.

At enterprise scale, the audit season never really ends. An enterprise security program carries responsibility for a growing number of compliance frameworks, across all business units and regions, with overlapping cycles. In essence, the team is always preparing for another one. Before an external auditor starts the clock, teams run internal readiness checks, which industry sources estimate take four to eight weeks. Why so long?

I ran an audit against every MS-ADTS LDAP extended control. Most behave exactly as documented; two stood out for potential offensive use. Both abusing legitimate controls, but neither a privilege escalation: The unifying theme: a documented LDAP control, used as intended at the mechanism level, produces an effect Microsoft's telemetry and most defenders don't expect. Demonstrated against a two-DC cloud.lab (Windows Server 2022, forest functional level 2016). Lab / authorized-research context only.

CMMC is increasingly important for the overall security of the government, and by extension, the people. Threats are continually evolving, so security standards have to rise to meet them. Programs like CMMC exist to enforce standards capable of resisting most common threats and protecting sensitive information. It's no surprise, then, that more and more businesses are finding CMMC to be mandatory for the government contracts they want to win.

Security leaders evaluating cloud access security broker (CASB) and data loss prevention (DLP) tools often discover the two categories overlap just enough to create budget friction and just little enough to leave real gaps. A CASB can flag risky file-sharing behavior in Salesforce without ever inspecting the content inside the file. A traditional DLP tool can classify that same file as containing source code without knowing whether the sharing link is public.

Top tips is a weekly column where we highlight what's trending in the tech world and list practical ways to explore these trends. This week, we are tackling something almost everyone does without thinking twice: connecting to public Wi-Fi (and what it could be costing you without you ever knowing). You are at an airport, a coffee shop, or a hotel lobby. You notice your data plan is running low and scroll through the available networks. And there it is: Free Wi-Fi—no password required.