Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Cryptocurrency mining has become very popular among malicious actors that aim to profit by exploiting cloud attack surfaces. Exposed Docker APIs have become a common target for cryptominers to mine various cryptocurrencies. According to the Google Threat Horizon report published Nov. 29, 2021, 86% of compromised Google Cloud instances were used to perform cryptocurrency mining.

Threat actors go to great lengths to hide the intentions of the malware they produce. For instance, binaries are often encrypted or packed. Typically, encrypting binaries is enough to thwart automated analysis platforms such as Cuckoo or other automated malware sandboxes. The implication is that automated detection of malicious programs might not be successful.

Today’s privacy and security conversations often happen in silos, but key privacy principles from decades ago remind us that they are intertwined, especially in the face of today’s risks. January 28, 2022, marks 15 years since the first Data Protection Day was proclaimed in Europe and 13 years since Data Privacy Day was first recognized by the United States. Since then, dozens more countries recognize the day, including Canada and Israel.

Before we talk about design patterns for Open Policy Agent (OPA) (what they are, why they’re beneficial, what their key ideas are, and how you might try to see them in action with sample data/apps in Styra Declarative Authorization Service (DAS) Free), it’s helpful to start with some background. When we designed the OPA at Styra, we aimed to make it flexible enough to solve every authorization and policy problem in the cloud-native space (and beyond).

Building an application security program can be overwhelming. The steady stream of content encouraging teams to shift left is inspiring, but it doesn’t help you get started. Looking toward organizations with mature AppSec initiatives can make the gap seem insurmountable — all while an actionable plan remains elusive. Like anything else in software development, application security is a journey. A journey that’s much more enjoyable with some guiding principles.

“Crowdsourced security provides a way for security teams to expand their efficiency, especially when it comes to managing their external attack surface,” said Rickard Carlsson, Co-founder and CEO of Detectify. “Hackers have eyes and ears all over the web, and they’re constantly monitoring attack surfaces for exploitable entry points.

This is a follow-up to our previous blogposts covering the Log4j vulnerability and the Deep Scan tool we made available to help identify vulnerable systems. As we close the first month of 2022, we looked into the activity related to the Log4Shell vulnerability CVE-2021-44228 observed across our 2,3000+ customers. Many of you will empathize with the struggle to find all instances of the vulnerable Log4j component, especially at the scale that comes with having a large customer base.