With many different accounts and logins, it can be challenging to remember all of your different passwords...

Blue

What Is a Password Manager?

'Highly visible people' are the people easiest to identify in your business or school. You...

'Highly visible people' are the people easiest to identify in your business or school. You need to know who these people are, as they will be the ones hackers will most likely target.

Hackers are predictable. They always start by gathering as much information as possible about your organisation. This can be technical details but is increasingly focussed on the people who work for you.

Once hackers know who works for you, they use two main ways to break into your computers. Firstly, hackers search lists of stolen passwords they can use to get in through the digital front door. Or they use your team's personal information to carry out phishing attacks. Phishing attacks are designed to trick people into revealing even more sensitive information.

Who Are Highly Visible People?

A deceptive domain is a domain name that is registered to deceive or confuse. They are often used in...

A deceptive domain is a domain name that is registered to deceive or confuse. They are often used in fraud and phishing attacks.

Deceptive domains typically fall into 2 main groups:

 is when a domain name is registered with a missing letter, added letter or where one of the letters has been replaced. For example, 

 is registered as a deceptive domain against 

. (The l is replaced with a 1, which in some fonts looks almost identical).

 is when a brand name and what they do are combined to create a new domain name. For example, BMW makes cars, and their UK website is 

 can be registered to create confusion with the brand.

In the past, it was possible to register all of the domains similar to your company brand. However now as there are over 1,500 

 etc... variations, this is no longer practical.

At Fresh Security, we search for typo-squatting and concept-squatting domains to confirm which are registered and monitor to ensure no fraud occurs.

What Is a Deceptive Domain?

The four types of authentication claimed by cyber security vendors are...

The four types of authentication claimed by cyber security vendors are:

 – like a smart card to enter a building.

Traditionally cyber security has thought of only 3 authentication factors. Something that you know, you have, or you are. But as vendors have tried to find new ways of measuring "something you are" they have started to measure behaviour. Specifically how people use a mobile phone or computer.

This means that strong authentication can be used on more devices. It removes the need for fingerprint scanners or cameras for facial recognition. And allows more people to access to strong authentication.

But it doesn't change the foundation of the three factors of authentication:

Typing speed (something you do) is based on something you are – muscle strength.

Location information (something you do) is based on something you have - a device with GPS or other location-finding apps.

Connecting to a website from a specific device (something you do) is based on something you have - access to one particular phone, tablet or computer.

What Are the 4 Types of Authentication?

A data breach event is one time your team’s email and password was lost as part of a data...

A data breach event is one time your team’s email and password was lost as part of a data breach. For example, Jane in sales losing her password as part of the LinkedIn data breach.

This information can show that some people in your team have lost passwords in many data breaches. Whereas other team members have lost a password only once. This can help in prioritise who could pose a more significant risk to your organisation.

What Is a Data Breach Event?

In cybersecurity, an asset is something valuable that a business owns or anything that...

 In cybersecurity, an asset is something valuable that a business owns or anything that can be directly used to create value. This is very similar to the accounting and finance idea of an asset.

 The most common types of assets are software applications and laptops. But intellectual property and the data companies control are also considered assets.

From a cybersecurity view, there are two essential types of assets:

Assets that must be configured to meet security outcomes

Assets that could be impacted by a cyberattack or ransomware

This means that assets that are managed in cybersecurity include:

Laptops, computers, printers, network infrastructure - 

these are often called "hardware assets".

Finance software, word processing apps, design and marketing apps, industrial control software - 

these are often called "software assets".

Data about customers, your order book, supply chain information - 

these are often called "intellectual property assets".

As IT and technology services have become easier to buy using credit cards (e.g. cloud computing and SaaS services), companies have become reliant on this 'shadow IT' infrastructure for business processes.

'Shadow IT' or 'grey IT' are the IT assets that are not managed and monitored as part of its asset management processes, but the company relies on them to operate and create value.

Listing your most important assets is often the first step when using a security framework, as it allows you to set the limits of what you're going to protect. But how do you discover what assets are in your company?

You can start to understand what assets you have by looking at:

Logging and monitoring systems - e.g. DNS servers or Microsoft Active Directory

Mobile Device Managers or device management tools - e.g. Microsoft Insight

Feedback from your engineering or development teams

A manual audit - i.e. visiting offices and looking under desks. This is time-consuming but often finds assets that people have forgotten about.

Once you have started to find the assets in your company, it is crucial to document what has been found. This can be as simple as writing on a sheet of paper or on a spreadsheet. For more complex environments, it may be necessary to use one of the database tools available.

What Is an Asset?

The Fresh Security Risk score estimates how much risk your organisation faces based on your team's...

The Fresh Security Risk score estimates how much risk your organisation faces based on your team's usernames and passwords for sale on the dark web.

One of the critical elements to calculate the risk score is the number of your teams' usernames, email addresses, or passwords that have been found on the dark web.

A lost account is one of your team's email addresses and passwords that have been part of a data breach. On the Fresh Security dashboard, the lost account value helps answer: – Looking at the 

 in my organisation, how many have lost their username, email address or password?

What Is a Lost Account?

Yes. Fresh Security gathers information from open source, using open-source intelligence (OSINT)...

Yes. Fresh Security gathers information from open source, using open-source intelligence (OSINT) techniques. For completeness, the UK's National Police Chief's Council defines open source as:

"Open Source is defined as publicly available information (i.e. any member of the public could lawfully obtain the information by request or observation). It includes books, newspapers, journals, TV and radio broadcasts, newswires, Internet WWW and newsgroups, mapping, imagery, photographs, commercial subscription databases and grey literature (conference proceedings and institute reports)."

https://www.suffolk.police.uk/sites/suffolk/files/003525-16_npcc_guidance_redacted.pdf

To ensure privacy, Fresh Security only gathers and processes information when requested. Detailed information is only accessible by proving control of an email address in a relevant domain. This is something Fresh Security validates every time a customer logs into the service dashboard.

Does Fresh Security Act Legally?

When the internet was first created, there weren’t any platforms such as Google, Amazon...

When the internet was first created, there weren’t any platforms such as Google, Amazon, or Netflix where you could easily access content. So instead, people would host content from their houses or offices, and those who wanted access to the content would connect directly to them. This is essentially what people do to connect to the dark web today. But instead of connecting over a phone line, the dark web is accessed through encrypted tunnels of VPNs.

The dark web is a hidden section of the internet that can only be accessed by a system of VPNs. This means that the dark web has a high level of anonymity. No one knows where the sites are hosted or who is accessing them. People commonly associate the dark web with illegal activity because of this anonymity and the ability to access and purchase dark content. The dark web is somewhat tricky to navigate since all the information is not well organized.

How Do You Access the Dark Web? What Is the Tor Network?

Let’s start with the basics. In order to access the dark web, you need a network of VPNs (a virtual private network) called the Tor network. You have likely heard of VPNs or seen advertising for VPNs at the end of Youtube videos such as NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Surfshark, etc. But to break it down, VPNs essentially give internet users online privacy. They do this by placing the user’s internet protocol (IP) addresses in a different location and creating a private network from a public internet connection.

Cybercriminals who access the dark web are typically paranoid about getting caught conducting illegal activity. That’s why they use VPNs connected to other VPNs, which are connected to even more VPNs through the Tor network. The Tor network is essential to being completely anonymous and accessing the dark web.

Accessing the dark web is not too difficult. The starting point is to download the Tor browser, turn on a VPN and visit a hidden website with a list of links to other websites. Dark websites look similar to regular websites, so it is important to note that the endings of the websites are different. Regular, ‘open web’ websites end in ‘.com’ such as wikipedia.com or google.com. But the darknet websites end in ‘.onion.’

There isn’t an easy search engine on the dark web to make navigating the dark web easy. Those who use the darknet find what websites they want to explore by getting recommended links or typing a .onion address into their browser. Most dark websites use names that are difficult to remember and are often a scramble of letters and numbers. Navigating the dark web is similar to getting referred websites and links from Reddit. Because people who use the darknet are anonymous and no one knows where the websites are, there is plenty of illegal activity.

What Is the Dark Web?

At Fresh Security, we believe that people should be at the heart of security. Which is why people and their environment are the foundation of the Fresh Security risk score.

To calculate the risk score, we first calculate the risk each person faces. The personal risk score examines each email address that a person uses. When an email address is stolen, the algorithm looks at the other data stolen in the breach, because the kind of data taken changes the risk level. For example, a hacker knowing your favourite ice cream flavour is much less severe than if they knew the password to your bank account. Combining the risks from each email address, we calculate the base personal risk score.

The personal score is then adjusted to reflect the situation and recurring behaviour of each person. The adjustment is necessary because hackers rarely launch one-off and targetted attacks. It is much more common for a company to fall victim to an indiscriminate crime. This casual approach is like a criminal trying every door on a row of parked vehicles. When the criminal finds a car that is unlocked, it is easy to steal any valuables that are inside. But if it is locked, the criminal moves on down the row.

How often a vehicle is left unlocked is also very important. If a car was only left unlocked once, the risk is much smaller than if it was left open every night. Furthermore, it may not merely be the owner of the car that failed to lock it, so the influence of family members must also be considered.

The Risk Score Assesses Your Whole Company

A company's base risk score is the combination of all the personal risk scores of employees and contractors. This score is then adjusted to create the final risk score by analysing the visibility of a company compared to its peers. If it easy to find many contact addresses for employees, it is also easy for a hacker to target many people in the company. Comparing this to peers helps calculate the level of risk a company faces.

Fresh Security Risk Score ranges from 0 to 1000.

How Do You Calculate the Risk Score?

How Do You Calculate the Fresh Security Risk Score?

No, not currently. We are working with our customers to understand how their team can...

No, not currently. We are working with our customers to understand how their team can best use information from Fresh Security. We would love to have you part of the conversation. If you would be willing to share your view, please send us your comment.

Can I Send My Team Their Exposed Data?

The most common reason for this is that your account is currently using a base configuration...

Why can't I find information in Fresh Sec?

Why can I find information in haveibeenpwned.com and not in Fresh Security?

Yes. Fresh Security has been assessed to be GDPR compliant.
Your privacy...

Yes. Fresh Security has been assessed to be GDPR compliant.

Your privacy is important to us. We process any information we collect in line with the Fresh Security 

Fresh Security FAQ