US-Cert

The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) is an organization within the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD). Specifically, US-CERT is a branch of the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications’ (CS&C) National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC). US-CERT is responsible for analyzing and reducing cyber threats, vulnerabilities, disseminating cyber threat warning information, and coordinating incident response activities. The division brings advanced network and digital media analysis expertise to bear on malicious activity targeting the networks within the United States and abroad.

Side-Channel Vulnerability Variants 3a and 4 – Spectre and Meltdown

Advanced Persistent Threat Activity Exploiting Managed Service Providers

On May 21, 2018, new variants of the side-channel central processing unit (CPU) hardware vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown were publicly disclosed. These variants—known as 3A and 4—can allow an attacker to obtain access to sensitive information on affected systems. Systems Affected CPU hardware implementations Description Common CPU hardware …

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Brute Force Attacks Conducted by Cyber Actors

Advanced Persistent Threat Activity Exploiting Managed Service Providers

In a traditional brute-force attack, a malicious actor attempts to gain unauthorized access to a single account by guessing the password. This can quickly result in a targeted account getting locked-out, as commonly used account-lockout policies allow three to five bad attempts during a set period of time. During a …

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