I’ve been using ChatGPT ever since OpenAI launched it in 2022. It’s helped me write meta descriptions for blog posts, create simple code snippets, and generate outlines. Heck, I’ve even used it to plan a trip to Portugal.
But I’ve been keen to try out Microsoft’s new Bing AI chatbot to see if it lives up to the hype. With Bing Chat, you’re able to chat, compose content, generate images, and get summarized answers to complex questions—all in one interface. It’s supposed to be a far more advanced version of ChatGPT, so I was excited to see how their features stack up.
Here are the main differences I discovered while comparing ChatGPT vs. Bing Chat.
If you want free access to GPT-4 (OpenAI’s most advanced and more powerful language model), Bing Chat is currently the way to go. You can access GPT-4 via ChatGPT Plus, which is a paid subscription, but Bing Chat gives you free access via Microsoft Edge. Beyond that, here’s the main difference:
Bing Chat is built into Microsoft Edge, so it’s a more integrated, tailored way of searching for answers. That makes it a powerful research assistant.
ChatGPT—though a more isolated experience—can be accessed on any browser and has more powerful integrations and plugins. It’s better suited as a personal assistant than a research assistant.
I’ll walk through some of the core differences between ChatGPT and Bing Chat in depth in the coming sections, but here’s a quick breakdown of how they compare.
Bing Chat
ChatGPT
Language model
OpenAI’s GPT-4
OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 (ChatGPT Plus: GPT-4)
Platform
Integrated with Microsoft’s search engine
Standalone website or API
Internet access
Can perform web searches and offer links and recommendations
Browsing feature for ChatGPT Plus users
Image generation
Can generate creative content, including images using DALL·E
Can only generate text
Best used as
A research assistant
A personal assistant
Usage limits
Users get to ask 20 chats per session and 200 total chats per day
Unlimited conversations per day; ChatGPT Plus users get 25 GPT-4 messages every 3 hours
Pricing
Free
Free; ChatGPT Plus available for $20/month
Bing Chat is part of search, while ChatGPT is an isolated interface
Both ChatGPT and Bing Chat use OpenAI’s language models, which means that, for the most part, they generate very similar results.
The biggest difference between them is that Bing Chat is also powered by Microsoft’s Prometheus, a model that integrates Bing Search with the AI tool.
Marketed as a “co-pilot” for the web, Bing Chat distills the latest information from across the web and summarizes it when answering your prompts. It even cites its sources and generates a list of relevant links (as well as pulling in visuals). This is what it looks like within the Bing Chat web interface.
ChatGPT, on the other hand, doesn’t pull in current results from the internet as it’s only been trained on information up until 2021. There’s a simple workaround, though: you can access OpenAI’s native web browser plugin, available on ChatGPT Plus.
The web browser can look through web results and share them with you like Bing can, but I’ve found that it doesn’t integrate visuals like Bing does. The result is a more text-heavy experience, but no less effective.
The downside is that when it comes to researching facts, news stories, or historical events, ChatGPT doesn’t always cite its sources. It doesn’t seem to have a problem citing weather reports, but for other information, it can be a bit hit or miss—unless you specifically instruct it to provide sources. (Which, by the way, I’d recommend, given its tendency to hallucinate.)
In addition to being more reliable with its citations, Bing offers recommendations on what to search for next.
And, if you scroll down on the chat page, Microsoft will return you to its regular search page, with a link to the most recent question you asked the chat.
ChatGPT, on the other hand, feels more mechanical: it doesn’t offer follow-up recommendations, and the web browser you’re using ChatGPT with will have no memory of what you’ve been asking it.
As a whole, Bing AI feels a lot more like a search tool that’ll summarize complex answers for you—giving you the sources if you want to dig deeper into any topic. All without having to search through multiple pages yourself.
You get that same ease with ChatGPT, but it’s a much more isolated experience—it definitely feels like a chatbot, not a search tool.
Bing is integrated into a web browser, which allows for more tailored outputs based on what you’re doing
Bing is integrated into a sidebar, called Discover, on the Microsoft Edge browser, and it includes a few features, called Chat, Composition, and Insights.
Chat
You can chat with Bing Chat directly from the sidebar, without having to go to the Bing Chat webpage. The best part is that when you’re on a website full of information, it answers questions from that page contextually.
Reading a complex article and want the key takeaways? Done. Need to understand a complex concept in simpler terms? Done.
This can be pretty helpful when you need an AI assistant while going through information-dense internet research.
You can still do this with ChatGPT Plus—just feed it a link and ask it to summarize the information—but it’s not seamlessly integrated into the same page you’re on.
The difference just depends on how you like to search for information. But if you don’t mind doing your research in Microsoft Edge, Bing AI is hard to beat for a tailored AI experience.
Insights
Bing has an Insights tab that’ll give you even more information about the page you’re on. It surfaces things like a Q&A, key points, page topics, and related articles.
Scroll all the way down, and you can also get a quick overview of analytics about the website you’re visiting (like domain name, hosting service, and even traffic rank). This is something that ChatGPT doesn’t have, as it’s primarily focused on text generation.
Composition
With ChatGPT, you have to be extremely specific in your prompts; otherwise, the output will be pretty vague and most likely won’t tick all your boxes.
Bing’s Composition feature steers you more toward getting the specific output you want, by giving you ready-made options. Inside the text box, you can write out your prompt, set the tone you’re after, select the format (blog post, email, etc.), and set the length. It feels more like an AI writing generator in that way.
This is pretty handy if you’re not sure how to create prompts that will get you what you’re after, but you can just tell ChatGPT these same things in your prompt, and it’ll do a decent job.
ChatGPT has more powerful integrations and plugins, transforming it into a highly efficient assistant
While Bing Chat is a powerful search tool and a more sophisticated web browser, ChatGPT offers a whole suite of plugins that let you combine AI with other apps to unlock more varied use cases.
For example, with the Expedia plugin, I just tell ChatGPT about a trip I’m thinking of booking, and it’ll immediately surface the cheapest flights it can find via the travel site, along with the link, airport details, duration of flight, and most importantly, the pricing.
It’s so much easier than going through travel sites yourself, adjusting filters, and comparing sites side-by-side. (The hassle.)
Not only that, but the AI will also offer lodgings or other area-specific activities for you to explore. It’s a completely different ballgame compared to its web browser plugin, which refuses to offer any follow-up recommendations.
The best part is you can install a number of ChatGPT plugins to work in tandem. For example, you can ask the AI for a recipe recommendation, get an accurate count of calories (using the Wolfram plugin), and then ask it to create a shopping list (with the Instacart plugin).
It’s practically like having a personal assistant—ideal for those who hate planning ahead for anything. (Ahem.)
Travel and food aside, you can also install the Zapier plugin to automate workflows directly inside the ChatGPT interface. Need the AI to write an email, then save it as a draft? It’ll do it within a matter of seconds.
ChatGPT also integrates with Zapier outside of the plugin, so you can connect it to thousands of other apps and access ChatGPT from the apps you use most. Here are some examples of tasks you can automate.
Create Notion tasks using ChatGPT conversations generated from new Slack reactions
Zapier is the leader in no-code automation—integrating with 5,000+ apps from partners like Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft. Build secure, automated systems for your business-critical workflows across your organization’s technology stack. Learn more.
Bing AI can generate images using DALL·E, but ChatGPT is better at generating long-form content
One of the best—and most surprising—things about Bing is that it can generate images for you inside the chat function. That’s without you having to go through another AI image generator, so you can literally do everything—search, create copy, get images—all in the same interface.
Powered by OpenAI’s DALL·E, you can just ask it to create a pic, and it takes a matter of seconds to deliver.
Imagine you’re a travel writer. This could be a workflow you follow: You ask Bing about popular spots in New York using the chat feature. Then you ask the composition feature to create a blog post about New York. After that, you can ask Bing to create a blog hero image. That’s not a super nuanced example, but you get the gist.
In that regard, ChatGPT can’t really compare, as it’s purely text-based.
But while we’re talking about strengths, ChatGPT is a lot better at providing longer-form content like articles or case studies. No matter how I tweaked the prompt, whenever I asked Bing to create a 1,000-word blog post, it repeatedly ignored those instructions and created a piece under 500 words.
ChatGPT doesn’t have that problem. It’s a good listener.
Bing Chat vs. ChatGPT: Which should you use?
Both ChatGPT and Bing can be handy writing tools and informative chatbots—but the better one depends on your actual use case.
If you want a powerful research tool that’s integrated with a web browser (and which shines in terms of in-depth page insights, image generation, and citing reputable sources), Bing Chat is your best bet.
If, however, you want to have an AI-powered personal assistant that can perform actions for you in different apps, there’s no contest: ChatGPT wins because of its suite of plugins.
The best way to know what works for you? Try them both out.
On April 25, 2023, our Wordfence Threat Intelligence team identified and began the responsible disclosure process for a stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in W3 Eden’s Download Manager plugin, which is actively installed on more than 100,000 WordPress websites, making it one of the most popular download management plugins. The vulnerability enables threat actors with contributor-level permissions or higher to inject malicious web scripts into pages using the plugin’s shortcode.
All Wordfence Premium, Wordfence Care, and Wordfence Response customers, as well as those still using the free version of our plugin, are protected against any exploits targeting this vulnerability by the Wordfence firewall’s built-in Cross-Site Scripting protection.
We contacted W3 Eden on April 25, 2023, and promptly received a response. After providing full disclosure details, the developer released a patch on May 1, 2023. We would like to commend the W3 Eden development team for their prompt response and timely patch.
We urge users to update their sites with the latest patched version of Download Manager, version 3.2.71 at the time of this writing, as soon as possible.
The Download Manager plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the ‘wpdm_members’, ‘wpdm_login_form’, ‘wpdm_reg_form’ shortcodes in versions up to, and including, 3.2.70 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping on user supplied attributes. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with contributor-level and above permissions to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.
Technical Analysis
Download Manager is a plugin designed to allow WordPress users to manage, track and control file downloads. It provides a shortcode ([wpdm_members]) that lists the authors and the number of files they have added when added to a WordPress page. However, insecure implementation of the plugin’s shortcode functionality allows for the injection of arbitrary web scripts into these pages. Examining the code reveals that the members method in the User class did not adequately sanitize the user-supplied ‘sid’ input, and then loads the members.php view file, where it also did not adequately escape ‘sid’ output. This makes it possible to inject attribute-based Cross-Site Scripting payloads via the ‘sid’ attribute.
There are two other shortcodes, a login form shortcode ([wpdm_login_form]) and a registration form shortcode ([wpdm_reg_form]), that add forms to a WordPress site. However, the insecure implementation of these two shortcode functions, similar to the previous example, also allows arbitrary web scripts to be inserted into these pages. Examining the code reveals that the functions of both forms do not adequately sanitize the user-supplied ‘logo’ input, and in the view files these ‘logo’ outputs are not adequately escaped.
These make it possible for threat actors to carry out stored XSS attacks. Once a script is injected into a page or post, it will execute each time a user accesses the affected page. While this vulnerability does require that a trusted contributor account is compromised, or a user be able to register as a contributor, successful threat actors could steal sensitive information, manipulate site content, inject administrative users, edit files, or redirect users to malicious websites which are all severe consequences.
Disclosure Timeline
April 25, 2023 – Wordfence Threat Intelligence team discovers the stored XSS vulnerability in Download Manager and initiates responsible disclosure. April 27, 2023 – We get in touch with the development team at W3 Eden and send full disclosure details. May 1, 2023 – The fully patched version, 3.2.71, is released. May 3, 2023 – The vendor notified Wordfence that they released the patch. May 3, 2023 – Wordfence confirms the fix addresses the vulnerability.
Conclusion
In this blog post, we have detailed a stored XSS vulnerability within the Download Manager plugin affecting versions 3.2.70 and earlier. This vulnerability allows authenticated threat actors with contributor-level permissions or higher to inject malicious web scripts into pages that execute when a user accesses an affected page. The vulnerability has been fully addressed in version 3.2.71 of the plugin.
We encourage WordPress users to verify that their sites are updated to the latest patched version of Download Manager.
All Wordfence users, including those running Wordfence Premium, Wordfence Care, and Wordfence Response, as well as sites still running the free version of Wordfence, are fully protected against this vulnerability.
If you know someone who uses this plugin on their site, we recommend sharing this advisory with them to ensure their site remains secure, as this vulnerability poses a significant risk.
As cyber threats continue to evolve, security professionals require reliable tools to defend against security vulnerabilities, protect sensitive data, and maintain network security. Open source cyber security tools provide a cost-effective solution for individuals and organizations to combat these threats on-premises and with cloud security and mobile devices. Let’s consider the top 25 open-source cyber security monitoring tools in 2023 that help ensure continuous network and system performance monitoring.
As cyber threats continue to evolve and become more sophisticated, organizations must stay informed and prepared to defend against a wide range of security risks.
Here are the top cybersecurity threats that businesses and individuals should be aware of today:
1. Phishing Attacks: Phishing attacks are a prevalent form of social engineering where cybercriminals use deceptive emails or websites to trick users into revealing sensitive information or installing malware. These attacks often target login credentials, financial information, and other personal data.
2. Ransomware: Ransomware is a type of malicious software that encrypts a victim’s files or locks their systems, demanding a ransom payment to restore access. Ransomware attacks can cause significant financial losses and operational disruptions for organizations.
3. Insider Threats: Insider threats refer to security risks posed by employees, contractors, or other individuals with authorized access to an organization’s systems and data. These threats can result from malicious intent or negligence, leading to data breaches or system compromises.
4. Supply Chain Attacks: Also known as third-party attacks or vendor risk, supply chain attacks target an organization’s suppliers, vendors, or partners to gain access to their systems and data. These attacks often exploit security vulnerabilities in the supply chain to compromise multiple organizations.
5. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks: DDoS attacks involve overwhelming a target’s network or system with a flood of traffic, rendering it inaccessible to legitimate users. DDoS attacks can cause severe downtime and service disruptions.
6. Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs): APTs are sophisticated, coordinated cyberattacks by well-funded threat actors or nation-state groups that target specific organizations for espionage, data theft, or sabotage. APTs often use advanced techniques and tactics to evade detection and maintain a long-term presence within a target’s network.
7. Zero-Day Exploits: Zero-day exploits are attacks that take advantage of previously unknown security vulnerabilities in software or systems. These vulnerabilities, also known as zero-day flaws, have no existing patches or fixes, making them particularly dangerous and challenging to defend against.
8. Internet of Things (IoT) Security: The increasing adoption of IoT devices and connected technologies has expanded the attack surface for cybercriminals. IoT devices are often vulnerable to cyber threats due to weak security measures, creating new risks for organizations and consumers.
9. Data Breaches: Data breaches occur when unauthorized individuals gain access to an organization’s sensitive data, such as customer information, financial records, or intellectual property. Data breaches can result in significant financial and reputational damage for organizations.
10. Cloud Security Threats: As more organizations migrate to cloud-based services, cloud security has become a critical concern. Threats in the cloud can arise from misconfigurations, weak authentication mechanisms, and vulnerabilities in cloud applications or infrastructure.
Benefits of Open-Source CyberSecurity tools
Open source cyber security monitoring tools offer numerous advantages over proprietary solutions, making them an attractive option for businesses, organizations, and individuals looking to enhance their security posture and perform effective security testing.
Here are some key benefits of using open-source tools for cyber security monitoring for monitoring services that pose security threats, even if you have another network monitoring system. Proper cybersecurity monitoring and access management are key to maintaining a secure environment.
Cost-Effectiveness
One of the most significant benefits of open-source cyber security tools is their cost-effectiveness. With no licensing fees or subscription costs, these free tools enable security teams to access powerful network monitoring solutions without breaking the bank.
This particularly benefits small businesses and startups with limited budgets, allowing them to allocate resources to other critical areas.
Customizability and Flexibility
Open-source network monitoring tools offer high customizability and flexibility, allowing security professionals to tailor the tools to their specific needs. This adaptability enables organizations to address unique security threats and vulnerabilities, ensuring a more robust security posture.
Additionally, the ability to integrate these tools with existing security infrastructure adds an extra layer of protection to network security.
Rapid Development and Updates
The open-source community is known for its rapid development and frequent updates. As new security threats and vulnerabilities emerge, open-source cyber security tools are often among the first to receive patches and updates.
This continuous monitoring and proactive response help organizations stay ahead of potential security risks and maintain a strong security posture.
Extensive Support and Collaboration
Open-source cyber security tools benefit from an extensive support network, comprising developers, users, and experts from around the world.
This collaborative environment fosters knowledge sharing, allowing security professionals to learn from one another and develop more effective security strategies.
Additionally, the availability of comprehensive documentation and online forums makes it easier for users to troubleshoot issues and enhance their understanding of network monitoring and security.
Improved Security and Transparency
With their source code openly available for inspection, open-source cyber security tools offer greater transparency than proprietary alternatives. This transparency allows security professionals and researchers to scrutinize the code for potential security vulnerabilities and ensure its integrity.
Moreover, the collaborative nature of the open-source community means that any identified issues are addressed quickly, further enhancing the overall security of these tools.
Platform Independence and Interoperability
Open-source network monitoring software often supports a wide range of operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, allowing organizations to deploy these tools across diverse environments.
This platform independence and interoperability help organizations ensure comprehensive network monitoring, regardless of the underlying infrastructure.
Top 25 Open Source Cyber Security Monitoring Tools in 2023
Note the following free cyber security monitoring tools in 2023 and the open-source list of solutions you can take advantage of and no free trial needed.
1. Wireshark: Network Protocol Analyzer
Wireshark is a widely-used network protocol analyzer that enables security teams to troubleshoot, analyze, and monitor network traffic in real-time to detect security issues. It is a defacto standard network monitoring tool.
command line interface data packets open source platform data breaches packet capture web apps network packets computer security experts solarwinds security event manager security scanning
By dissecting network protocols, Wireshark provides valuable insights into potential security risks and network vulnerabilities, allowing professionals to identify and resolve issues efficiently with the Wireshark network monitoring solution.
You can monitor a wide range of protocols, including TCP/IP, simple network management protocol, FTP, and many others. If you are looking for a network monitor this is it.
2. Snort: Network Intrusion Detection and Prevention System
Snort is a powerful open-source intrusion detection and prevention system (IDPS) that monitors network traffic and detects potential security threats.
It provides real-time traffic analysis, packet logging, and alerting capabilities, making it an essential tool for security auditing and network monitoring.
3. OSSEC: Host-Based Intrusion Detection System
OSSEC is a comprehensive host-based intrusion detection system (HIDS) that offers log analysis, file integrity checking, rootkit detection, and more.
It supports various operating systems, including Linux, Windows, and macOS, and helps security professionals monitor and analyze network protocols for potential security vulnerabilities.
4. Security Onion: Intrusion Detection and Network Security Monitoring Distribution
Security Onion is a Linux distribution specifically designed for intrusion detection, network security monitoring, and log management.
With a suite of powerful open-source tools, including Snort, Suricata, and Zeek, Security Onion provides a robust solution for security teams to monitor networks and detect security breaches.
5. Nmap: Network Scanning and Discovery Tool
Nmap is a versatile network scanning and discovery tool that helps security professionals identify network devices, open ports, and running services.
It is an essential network monitoring software for vulnerability management, penetration testing, and network inventory management.
6. Kismet: Wireless Network Detector, Sniffer, and Intrusion Detection System
Kismet is a wi fi security tool that detects, sniffs, and analyzes wireless networks. By monitoring wireless network traffic, Kismet identifies potential security risks, network vulnerabilities, and unauthorized users, making it an invaluable tool for wireless network security.
7. Suricata: High-Performance Network Intrusion Detection and Prevention Engine
Suricata is an open-source, high-performance network intrusion detection and prevention engine that provides real-time network traffic analysis, threat detection, and alerting.
Suricata enables security professionals to maintain network integrity and security by employing advanced threat defense and anomaly detection techniques.
8. Zeek (formerly Bro): Network Analysis Framework for Security Monitoring
Zeek, previously known as Bro, is a powerful network analysis framework that offers real-time insight into network traffic.
With its flexible scripting language and extensible plugin architecture, Zeek provides comprehensive visibility into network activity, enabling security teams to detect and prevent security threats.
9. OpenVAS: Vulnerability Scanning and Management Solution
OpenVAS is a comprehensive vulnerability scanning and management solution that helps security professionals identify, assess, and remediate security vulnerabilities.
With its extensive plugin library, OpenVAS ensures continuous monitoring and up-to-date vulnerability information, making it a critical tool for vulnerability management.
10. ClamAV: Open-Source Antivirus Engine
ClamAV is an open-source antivirus engine that detects trojans, viruses, and other malicious software.
It offers a command-line scanner, a graphical user interface (GUI) for Windows operating system, and integration with mail servers, ensuring that your systems are protected from security threats.
11. Fail2Ban: Log-Parsing Application to Protect Against Brute-Force Attacks
Fail2Ban is a log-parsing application that monitors log files for malicious activity, such as repeated failed login attempts. Fail2Ban bans the offending IP address when a potential attack is detected, effectively protecting your network from brute-force attacks and unauthorized access.
12. AlienVault OSSIM: Open-Source Security Information and Event Management Platform
AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source security information and event management (SIEM) platform that provides real-time event correlation, log analysis, and threat intelligence.
By integrating multiple security tools, OSSIM helps security teams maintain a unified user interface and enhance their overall security posture.
13. Cuckoo Sandbox: Automated Malware Analysis System
Cuckoo Sandbox is an open-source automated malware analysis system that enables security professionals to analyze suspicious files and URLs in a safe, isolated environment.
It provides detailed reports on malware behavior, including network traffic analysis, file system changes, and API traces, helping security teams identify and mitigate security risks.
14. Logstash: Log Processing and Management Tool
Logstash is part of the Elastic Stack (ELK Stack) and offers log processing and management capabilities.
It collects, parses, and stores log data from various sources, making it an essential tool for security professionals to monitor and analyze network activity, detect security breaches, and maintain system performance.
15. pfSense: Open-Source Firewall and Router Distribution
pfSense is an open-source firewall and router distribution based on FreeBSD. It offers a powerful and flexible network security, traffic shaping, and VPN connectivity solution.
With its extensive features and customization options, pfSense is ideal for securing web servers and internal networks.
16. ModSecurity: Open-Source Web Application Firewall
ModSecurity is an open-source web application firewall (WAF) providing real-time security monitoring and access control. It detects and prevents web attacks, protects sensitive data, and helps security professionals maintain compliance with industry standards and regulations.
AIDE is a file and directory integrity checker that monitors system files for unauthorized changes. It detects modifications, deletions, and additions, allowing security teams to maintain system integrity and prevent security breaches.
18. Graylog: Open-Source Log Management Platform
Graylog is an open-source log management platform that centralizes and analyzes log data from various sources.
Graylog helps security professionals detect security threats, identify network vulnerabilities, and maintain network security by providing comprehensive visibility into network activity.
19. Wazuh: Security Monitoring and Compliance Solution
Wazuh is a free, open-source security monitoring and compliance solution that integrates host-based and network-based intrusion detection systems, file integrity monitoring and security policy enforcement.
Wazuh’s centralized management and powerful analytics capabilities make it an essential tool for security teams to detect and respond to security threats.
20. T-Pot: Honeypot Platform
T-Pot is a platform combining multiple honeypots into a single, easy-to-deploy solution for cyber security monitoring. By simulating vulnerable systems and services, T-Pot attracts attackers and collects threat data, providing valuable insights into current attack trends and techniques.
Honorable mentions
Samhain: Host-Based Intrusion Detection System
Samhain is a host-based intrusion detection system (HIDS) that provides file integrity checking and log file monitoring. It detects unauthorized modifications, deletions, and additions, helping security professionals maintain system integrity and prevent security breaches.
SELKS: Network Security Management ISO with Suricata
SELKS is a live and installable network security management ISO based on Debian, focusing on a complete and ready-to-use Suricata IDS/IPS ecosystem. It offers a user-friendly interface and powerful analytics tools, making it an ideal choice for security teams to monitor networks and detect potential security threats.
Squid: Open-Source Web Proxy Cache and Forward Proxy
Squid is an open-source web proxy cache and forward proxy that improves web performance and security. By caching frequently-requested web content and filtering web traffic, Squid helps reduce bandwidth usage, enhance user privacy, and protect against web-based security threats.
YARA: Pattern-Matching Tool for Malware Researchers
YARA is a pattern-matching tool designed for malware researchers to identify and classify malware samples. By creating custom rules and signatures, YARA enables security professionals to detect and analyze malicious software, enhancing their understanding of current malware trends and techniques.
Arkime (formerly Moloch): Large-Scale, Open-Source, Indexed Packet Capture and Search System
Arkime is a large-scale, open-source, indexed packet capture and search system that provides comprehensive visibility into network traffic. It enables security professionals to analyze network protocols, detect security vulnerabilities, and identify potential security threats, making it an essential tool for network monitoring and security auditing.
Tips to Improve Your Cybersecurity Posture
Improving your cybersecurity posture is essential for safeguarding your organization from various cyber threats. Here are some practical tips to help enhance your cybersecurity defenses:
Implement Regular Security Audits: Conducting routine security audits can help identify potential weaknesses in your organization’s cybersecurity infrastructure.
This includes checking for outdated software, misconfigured settings, and other vulnerabilities that may expose your systems to attacks.
Keep Software and Systems Updated: Regularly update your software, operating systems, and firmware to protect against known vulnerabilities and exploits.
This includes applying security patches and updates as soon as they become available.
Use Strong Authentication Mechanisms: Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all critical systems and applications.
MFA adds an extra layer of security by requiring users to provide additional verification, such as a one-time code or biometric authentication, in addition to their password.
Encrypt Sensitive Data: Encrypt sensitive data both in transit and at rest to prevent unauthorized access. This includes using secure communication protocols, such as HTTPS and TLS, and implementing encryption solutions for data storage.
Establish a Strong Password Policy: Enforce a robust password policy that requires users to create complex, unique passwords and update them regularly. Additionally, consider using a password manager to help users manage and store their passwords securely.
Educate Employees on Cybersecurity Best Practices: Provide ongoing security awareness training to educate employees about common cyber threats, safe online practices, and how to recognize and report potential security incidents.
Implement Network Segmentation: Divide your network into smaller segments, isolating critical systems and data from less secure areas. This can help prevent the spread of malware and limit the damage in case of a security breach.
Regularly Backup Important Data: Regularly back up essential data and store copies offsite or in the cloud. This ensures that you can quickly recover from data loss or ransomware attacks.
Utilize Endpoint Security Solutions: Deploy comprehensive endpoint security solutions to protect devices connected to your network.
This includes antivirus software, firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, and device management tools.
Monitor and Analyze Network Traffic: Use network monitoring tools to analyze network traffic, detect anomalies, and identify potential security threats. Regular monitoring can help detect and respond to security incidents more effectively.
Develop a Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan: Create a detailed incident response plan outlining the steps to take in a security breach. Regularly review and update the plan, and ensure that all employees are familiar with the procedures.
Collaborate with Security Professionals: Engage with cybersecurity experts or managed service providers to help develop and maintain a strong security posture.
This can provide access to specialized knowledge and resources to stay up-to-date with the latest threats and best practices.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What are the best open-source cyber security monitoring tools available in 2023?
This blog post covers the top 25 open-source cyber security monitoring tools in 2023, including Wireshark, Snort, OSSEC, Security Onion, Nmap, Kismet, Suricata, Zeek, OpenVAS, ClamAV, and more.
These tools provide comprehensive network monitoring, threat detection, and vulnerability management capabilities to help organizations maintain a robust security posture.
Open-source cyber security monitoring tools offer several advantages: cost-effectiveness, customizability, rapid development and updates, extensive support, improved security, and platform independence.
These benefits make open-source tools attractive for organizations looking to enhance their network security and protect sensitive data.
3. How can I improve my organization’s cybersecurity hygiene?
In addition to utilizing open-source cyber security monitoring tools, organizations can improve their cybersecurity hygiene by implementing security awareness training, regularly updating software and systems, employing strong password policies, using multi-factor authentication, monitoring network traffic, and conducting regular security audits and penetration testing.
4. What is the importance of continuous monitoring in cybersecurity?
Continuous monitoring plays a crucial role in identifying and addressing security threats and vulnerabilities in real-time.
By regularly analyzing network traffic, security professionals can detect potential issues, respond to incidents promptly, and ensure the safety and integrity of their digital assets.
5. How can I protect my web applications from security threats?
Web application security can be improved by using tools such as ModSecurity, an open-source web application firewall (WAF) that provides real-time application security monitoring and access control.
Regularly updating web applications, conducting vulnerability assessments, and implementing secure coding practices can also help mitigate security risks.
6. What role do threat intelligence and threat data play in cybersecurity?
Threat intelligence and threat data help security professionals understand the latest trends, tactics, and techniques cybercriminals use.
Organizations can proactively address potential issues and maintain a strong security posture by staying informed about emerging threats and vulnerabilities.
7. Are open-source cyber security monitoring tools suitable for small businesses and startups?
Yes, open-source cyber security monitoring tools are ideal for small businesses and startups, as they offer cost-effective and powerful network monitoring solutions.
These tools enable organizations with limited budgets to access advanced security features without incurring high licensing fees or subscription costs.
Wrapping up
The ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats demands reliable and effective tools for security professionals to protect networks, systems, and sensitive data.
These Top 20 open-source cyber security monitoring tools in 2023 provide a comprehensive network monitoring, threat detection, and vulnerability management solution.
By incorporating these tools into your security strategy, you can enhance your overall security posture and ensure the safety and integrity of your digital assets.
Gets the password policy from the logged in domain
Get-ADDefaultDomainPasswordPolicy
Backup Active Directory System State Remotely
This will back up the domain controllers system state data. Change DC-Name to your server name and change the Backup-Path. The backup path can be a local disk or a UNC path
invoke-command -ComputerName DC-Name -scriptblock {wbadmin start systemstateback up -backupTarget:"Backup-Path" -quiet}
Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Delta Force a full sync Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Initial
Get A List of All Office 365 Users
Get-MsolUser | Select DisplayName, City, Department, ObjectID
Get Full mailbox details
Get-Mailbox email-address | fl
Get Calendar Permissions
Get-MailboxFolderPermission username:calendar
Enable Remote Mailbox (Hybrid Environment)
Use this command if you have an existing on-premise user that needs an office 365 mailbox. There are other ways to do this but this creates all the attributes in the AD account.
Use this command to copy an entire folder to another folder. This will copy the folder and all the sub folder/files. The -verbose command will display the results to the console.
This will display all commands that are available based on the modules that are loaded.
get-command
Find New Modules
Replace *ntfs* with the keyword you want to search for. This searches modules at https://www.powershellgallery.com/
Find-Module *ntfs*
Install a New Module
Installs modules from https://www.powershellgallery.com/
I found a module called NTFSSecurity, to install it I run this command
install-module NTFSSecurity
Recommended Tool: SolarWinds Hybrid Systems Monitor
Monitor your physical and virtual servers with ease and troubleshoot more easily when downtime or other application performance issues occur.
What I like best about this tool is it’s easy-to-use dashboard and built-in alerting. See key metrics to help identify issues before users complain.
Monitor Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, and other critical IT systems, both locally and cloud hosted. Get automated email alerts and know which applications are having issues in your environment.
Are you aware of the WordPress email deliverability best practices?
If you send any emails from a WordPress site, this is a really important topic. Email deliverability is affected by a variety of factors so this may seem tricky at first.
But the good news is, many of these factors are controllable. Following a few best practices can go a long way in helping you maintain high deliverability rates at all times.
We’ll be covering the top tips for improving WordPress email deliverability in this article. Let’s dive in!
How Do I Stop My Emails From Going to Spam in WordPress?
In WordPress, emails are usually delivered using the default PHP mailer. The problem is the PHP mailer function lacks authenticating elements in an email, which frequently leads to your emails being marked spam or blocked altogether.
The best way to stop your emails from ending up in spam is to use a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) plugin like WP Mail SMTP.
SMTP plugins help provide crucial authentication details for domains linked to a WordPress site and are an excellent way to bypass most email deliverability challenges.
In the next section, we’ll dive deeper to discover how SMTP helps and what some of the top email deliverability tactics are.
WP Mail SMTP is the best tool for fixing WordPress email deliverability challenges.
Authentication is the biggest issue with WordPress emails. As we’ve mentioned, the default WordPress PHPMailer just isn’t effective at this.
What this means is that when you send emails from a domain on a WordPress site, mailbox providers have no way of telling if the emails are really coming from your domain. This is a problem because spammers and hackers have developed ways to impersonate legitimate domains.
But with WP Mail SMTP, you can connect your WordPress site to popular SMTP mailer services like Postmark, Sendinblue, SendLayer, and more. These mailer services add proper authentication details to your emails, so that the recipient’s email server can easily verify your legitimacy as the sender.
SMTP mailers also use DNS records like DMARC, SPF, and DKIM to further increase your legitimacy and offer protection from email spoofers.
In addition to being an excellent solution for improving your email deliverability, WP SMTP also offers useful tools such as email tracking and email logs that allow you to monitor your emails right from your WordPress dashboard.
Sender reputation is a crucial metric that mailers use in determining the trustworthiness of a domain. A bad sender reputation will typically mean your emails will get blocked or go to spam.
The good news is that you can track the sender reputation for your domain and take the necessary steps to protect it. Here’s how to check:
Grab your IP address and head over to the Talos Intelligence Reputation Lookup site. On the homepage, pop in your email domain’s IP address. If you’re not sure what this is, you may ask your hosting service.
The tool will then generate a sender reputation report with a few different metrics, including your email reputation.
If your score is too low, you’ll know that you’ll likely have some email deliverability issues due to the poor sender reputation of your domain.
One thing you can do to fix this right away is to use a different domain for sending your emails.
But if your email reputation is good, then you’re unlikely to face any deliverability problems.
3. Ensure Your IP Address Isn’t on a Blocklist
Your IP address can end up on a blocklist for a number of reasons. One of them is simply using shared hosting.
You can check if your IP address is on a blocklist and then reach out to the service that has blocklisted your IP address and ask to have it removed. MxToolbox is an excellent tool for checking if you’ve been blocklisted and by whom.
Once they’re sure that your website doesn’t pose any security threats, your IP address may be removed from the list.
4. Track Email Statistics
Tracking your email statistics is super important because it allows you to measure how well your emails are being received by your users.
If your emails are bouncing or aren’t getting opened at all, these could be pointers to an underlying problem that you’ll want to fix immediately.
Remember, things like low engagement rates, bounced emails, and users unsubscribing from your email lists can lead to a poor sender reputation.
Fortunately, it’s easy to track your email stats using WP Mail SMTP, which you should already be using to provide authentication for your domain. WP Mail SMTP provides tracking data on emails you’ve sent right within the WordPress dashboard.
The data you’ll garner this way will help you modify your email campaigns to improve engagement, which is a key factor influencing domain reputation.
5. Consider Using Subdomains for Different Types of Emails
In general, you’ll either be sending out transactional emails—things like receipts or thank you emails, or marketing emails.
It’s a good practice to create separate subdomains for these purposes. That’s because mailing servers treat subdomains as entirely separate domains, so the reputation of one doesn’t affect that of the other.
Using a subdomain prevents unsubscribes and spam reports from your marketing campaigns from affecting the deliverability of transactional emails sent from your too domain, which often contain crucial information.
Most mailers allow you to create subdomains. However, SendLayer stands out because it automatically creates a subdomain when you sign up, in order to help protect your root domain. So you won’t have to perform any extra steps to get a subdomain with SendLayer.
If you’re a beginner and would like a little more info, here’s a comprehensive guide to get started with email subdomains.
6. Only Send Emails to Users Who’ve Opted In
This point is really important. Sending emails to users who haven’t opted-in to receive those emails is a violation of the law in certain regions.
And more importantly, when it comes to email deliverability, unsolicited emails tend to have a really high unsubscribe rate, which can get your domain blocklisted rapidly. Fortunately, this is straightforward when you use these WordPress Newsletter plugins.
Make sure that your emails are sending successfully when a user is registering on your site. See our guide on how to fix user registration emails for more info.
7. Practice Email Segmentation
We’ve just talked about only sending marketing emails to users who’ve specifically opted in to receive them.
Another thing you can do to keep the highest levels of user engagement is to send users marketing emails only about topics they’ve indicated an interest in. This is email segmentation.
By sending users emails that are more focused on their needs, you’ll likely have much better engagement and much lower unsubscribes.
8. Don’t Use a Shared Server
Shared hosting plans—where you share a server with other users are quite common, but they aren’t always a good idea. One reason for this is the fact that shared hosting plans are frequently used for spam.
When too much spam comes from one source, that IP address usually gets blocked. To prevent this, most hosting services actually block SMTP on your email server.
If you can afford it, using a virtual server is a much better setup for email deliverability and will help to cut out most email deliverability issues straightaway.
The quickest way to ruin your sending reputation is to send out loads of emails that then result in lots of people unsubscribing or reporting your emails as spam.
A better approach is a tactic called IP warming. Essentially, IP warming is where you gradually scale up the number and frequency of emails you send from a particular domain over an initial period.
This could be anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months. IP warming is a particularly good idea for newer domains.
And there you have it! Use these WordPress email deliverability best practices and your emails will never end up in spam again.
10. Get Users to Whitelist Your Domain’s IP Address
In addition to getting your subscribers to opt into your email lists explicitly, one additional step you can take is asking them to whitelist the IP address of your sending domain.
Whitelisting is basically setting up your mailboxes’ spam filters to allow emails from specific domains. This is a straightforward process that can usually be done within a user’s mailbox settings.
11. Don’t Send Emails From a Fake Address
One common email delivery mistake is sending emails from a fake address, different from your real email domain.
You can typically set your emails up to display any from address you want, but if this is different from your real root email domain, you’re very quickly going to find the root domain blocklisted. The best practice is to use your legitimate email domain or any subdomains related to it.
And that is it for our guide to the top email deliverability best practices! Now you can get out there and apply these tips to watch your email deliverability soar!
Next, Check Out The Best WordPress Email Plugins
We’ve just shared our list of the top email deliverability tactics for WordPress sites. Next, you might be interested in learning what some of the top tools for WordPress email are.
Ready to fix your emails? Get started today with the best WordPress SMTP plugin. WP Mail SMTP Elite includes a full White Glove Setup and offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.
If this article helped you out, please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more WordPress tips and tutorials.
Looking for the top anti-spam plugins for WordPress?
WordPress spam can be tricky to deal with. And while there are lots of plugins that promise to help, not all work so well.
We’ve taken a look at the most popular WordPress anti-spam plugins and created a list of the plugins that we think work best.
Is There a Free Spam Blocker?
There are several free spam blockers. These include multi-platform tools like Google reCAPTCHA and hCaptcha and platform-specific tools like WPForms Lite, which is the best free spam blocker for WordPress forms.
Free spam blockers are a good option to have, but sometimes you’ll need more powerful tools to defend your site from spam. The anti-spam tools we’ll cover below include a nice range of free and paid anti-spam tools for WordPress.
WPForms is the number 1 WordPress form builder and is a favorite for users looking to protect their forms from spam.
WPForms offers an impressive collection of anti-spam features to help you deal with spam once and for all.
The first line of defense is a number of native WPForms anti-spam features. These include the WPForms anti-spam token that adds a hidden cryptographic string to form submissions made by human users. Bots can’t imitate this and when forms are submitted without it, they’ll be marked as spam.
Additionally, WPForms allows you to block known spam sources by filtering form entries by keyword and country.
If your forms have been targeted by specific email addresses or IP addresses from certain countries, this is a creative way to get rid of the problem.
Another native anti-spam solution you’ll love is the WPForms-Akismet integration which allows you to use Akismet on your forms.
Akismet works in two clever ways: first, it compares form entries with its huge database of known spam sources and automatically flags suspicious form entries. Secondly, it scans user on-page behavior to determine if users are likely to be human or bots and flags these for your review as well.
Finally, you can also use one of the 3 CAPTCHA tools available with WPForms.
There is the WPForms Custom Captcha which allows you to set custom math problems for users to solve.
Custom Captcha is an easy anti-spam tool to use, and since you can set your own math problems, you can easily determine the difficulty levels of the CAPTCHA challenge. You’ll need a WPForms Pro license or above to use Custom Captcha.
In addition to this, you can opt for either Google reCAPTCHA or hCaptcha, both of which are powerful and popular anti-spam solutions.
Considering the impressive range of features on offer, WPForms is the clear leader when it comes to anti-spam WordPress plugins for protecting your forms.
WPForms Pricing: WPForms Pro license costs 159.60 annually.
If you have a WordPress website, chances are you already have Akismet installed. Akismet is an anti-spam plugin made by the team behind WordPress.com, so it comes pre-installed with many WordPress installations.
Akismet is quite powerful and is a great way to protect your site from spam. Aside from using it along with WPForms for form protection, you can also use Akismet on its own to protect your comment sections, user registration pages, and so on from spambots.
We particularly love Akismet for its unobtrusive anti-spam protection that allows legitimate visitors to use your site without interruption.
Akismet Pricing: Akismet is free to use for nonprofits, and individual users can pay what they’d like. For commercial use, pricing starts at $8.33 per month, billed annually.
WP Armour is one of the more popular WordPress anti-spam solutions with a distinctive anti-spam approach.
WP Armour works by luring bots into filling out a hidden javascript field that human users cannot see. This is called a spam honeypot.
If you already have WPForms and Akismet, which we’d recommend, you won’t need WP Armour, but it’s good to note that WP Armour is also compatible with WPForms, along with some other major WordPress form builders.
This gives you some additional options if you decide to try an Akismet alternative.
WP Armour pricing: WP Armour is free to get started with.
Titan Anti-Spam & Security is another top-rated WordPress anti-spam plugin. We’d consider this plugin a close like-for-like alternative to Akismet as it works in a similar way.
Titan Anti-Spam & Security works in the background to screen comments by comparing them with its database of spam sources. The exciting thing about this plugin is that it is capable of updating itself frequently, so its ability to block new forms of spam is constantly improving.
While this makes it a really solid option to consider, we recommend that you stick with Akismet as it has a much larger database of known spam patterns, so it offers a wider blanket of spam protection.
On the other hand, it should be noted that Titan anti-spam & Security isn’t just an anti-spam plugin. It also offers some useful WordPress security features like brute force protection and a malware scanner.
If you’re looking for comprehensive WordPress protection, this would be a good plugin to try. Otherwise, just stick to Akismet and WPForms.
Titan Anti Spam & Security Pricing: Titan Anti-Spam & Security is free to get started with.
Zero Spam for WordPress is a well-featured anti-spam plugin for WordPress that covers a few different anti-spam features.
First, like Akismet, this plugin scans comments and other user inputs on your site to compare them with its spam database. But that’s not all. It also allows you to block specific IP addresses, countries, cities, and so on if you’ve been getting spam from those places.
This is a good range of anti-spam features, and as a plus, the plugin works in the background, allowing for a good, seamless user experience.
Zero Spam for WordPress pricing: Zero Spam for WordPress is free to get started with.
Antispam Bee is a popular spam fighter plugin that also works very similarly to Akismet. It helps to beat WordPress spam by scanning user-submitted content and comparing it with its database of proven spam.
One of its handy features is that it allows country-specific or region-specific blocks. The core anti-spam features offered are similar to quite a few plugins on this list, but Antispam Bee has one feature we found exceptional.
With this plugin, you’ll be able to block or create exceptions for user-submitted content in specific languages. Since spam is a global problem, you’re likely to find this really helpful if you’re being targeted by spam in a certain language.
Antispam Bee Pricing: Antispam Bee is free to get started with.
Captcha by BestWebSoft is a WordPress CAPTCHA plugin for protecting your site from spam.
It offers a decent range of protection for comments and forms, registration pages, password reset pages, and so on.
In our testing, we liked the fact that the plugin also offers a broad range of CAPTCHA types including invisible CAPTCHA, Math CAPTCHA, character recognition, and slide CAPTCHA.
And while CAPTCHA tools aren’t always the best when it comes to providing a good user experience, this plugin allows you to hide CAPTCHA from registered users, which is a really useful feature to have.
If you’d like to use CAPTCHA to protect your forms, then we’d recommend sticking with WPForms. But if it’s the other areas of your site you’re more concerned about, then Captcha by BestWebSoft is a good option to consider.
Captcha by BestWebSoft pricing: Captcha by BestWebSoft is free to get started with.
Cleantalk is a spam protection tool that can be used with multiple web development platforms, including WordPress.
On your WordPress site, the plugin works by scanning user inputs on your forms, comments, registration pages, and so on to determine if they are spam. Spam entries are then blocked.
The key feature we found with this plugin was how easy it was to set up and manage spam protection settings. From start to finish, the entire process takes just a few minutes.
One other feature you might find interesting is the word censor feature that allows you to block certain words that you don’t want your users to see. These could be used to block competitor names, swear words, and so on.
Cleantalk pricing: Cleantalk is free to get started with.
WP Cerber Security is a WordPress anti-spam and security plugin that offers comprehensive protection for your site.
Unlike most of the plugins we’ve talked about, with the exception of WPForms, WP Cerber relies on Google reCAPTCHA and invisible CAPTCHA for anti-spam protection.
Google invisible reCAPTCHA works in the background to screen users based on their behavior and presents an actual CAPTCHA challenge only when it deems user behavior to be suspicious.
This can mean some interruptions in user experience, but it also helps to ensure that nothing slips through the cracks.
If you like the idea of using Google invisible CAPTCHA, remember, you can use this with WPForms to protect your forms too.
WP Cerber Security pricing: WP Cerber Security is free to get started with.
And that’s it for our list of the top anti-spam plugins for WordPress!
Our Verdict: Which Is the Best Anti-Spam Plugin for WordPress?
Which anti-spam is best? That depends on your goals.
To protect your forms, WPForms is hands down the best anti-spam plugin. Remember, WPForms helps to protect your site from spam using a range of tools which include the:
WPForms anti-spam token,
Country and keyword blockers
Akismet integration
WPForms Custom Captcha
Google reCAPTCHA
hCaptcha.
For sitewide anti-spam coverage, we’d say combining WPForms and Akismet would be a superb idea.
Next, Apply These Email Deliverability Best Practices
If you have a WordPress website, you’ll likely send lots of marketing or transactional emails. WordPress isn’t best suited for this by default, but with a few simple tips, you can easily set up your WordPress site for effective email delivery. Here’s the full guide in our post on the top WordPress email deliverability practices.
Also, check out our list of anti-spam honeypot alternatives if you’re looking for additional spam filter tools for your site.
Ready to fix your emails? Get started today with the best WordPress SMTP plugin. WP Mail SMTP Elite includes a full White Glove Setup and offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.
If this article helped you out, please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more WordPress tips and tutorials.
As many as five security flaws have been disclosed in Netgear RAX30 routers that could be chained to bypass authentication and achieve remote code execution.
“Successful exploits could allow attackers to monitor users’ internet activity, hijack internet connections, and redirect traffic to malicious websites or inject malware into network traffic,” Claroty security researcher Uri Katz said in a report.
Additionally, a network-adjacent threat actor could also weaponize the flaws to access and control networked smart devices like security cameras, thermostats, smart locks; tamper with router settings, and even use a compromised network to launch attacks against other devices or networks.
The list of flaws, which were demonstrated at the Pwn2Own hacking competition held at Toronto in December 2022, is as follows –
CVE-2023-27357 (CVSS score: 6.5) – Missing Authentication Information Disclosure Vulnerability
A proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit chain illustrated by the industrial cybersecurity firm shows that it’s possible to string the flaws — CVE-2023-27357, CVE-2023-27369, CVE-2023-27368, CVE-2023-27370, and CVE-2023-27367 (in that order) — to extract the device serial number and ultimately obtain root access to it.
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“These five CVEs can be chained together to compromise affected RAX30 routers, the most severe of which enable pre-authentication remote code execution on the device,” Katz noted.
Users of Netgear RAX30 routers are advised to update to firmware version 1.0.10.94 released by the networking company on April 7, 2023, to address the flaws and mitigate potential risks.
It’s easy to think high-tech companies have a security advantage over other older, more mature industries. Most are unburdened by 40 years of legacy systems and software. They draw some of the world’s youngest, brightest digital natives to their ranks, all of whom consider cybersecurity issues their entire lives.
Perhaps it is due to their familiarity with technology that causes them to overlook SaaS security configurations. During the last Christmas holiday season, Slack had some private code stolen from its GitHub repository. According to Slack, the stolen code didn’t impact production, and no customer data was taken.
Still, the breach should serve as a warning sign to other tech companies. Stolen tokens allowed threat actors to access the GitHub instance and download the code. If this type of attack can happen to Slack on GitHub, it can happen to any high-tech company. Tech companies must take SaaS security seriously to prevent resources from leaking or being stolen.
Slack’s misfortune with GitHub wasn’t the first time a GitHub breach occurred. Back in April, a stolen OAuth token from Heroku and Travis CI-maintained OAuth applications were stolen, leading to an attacker downloading data from dozens of private code repositories.
MailChimp, a SaaS app used to manage email campaigns, experienced three breaches over 12 months spanning 2022-23. Customer data was stolen by threat actors, who used that data in attacks against cryptocurrency companies.
SevenRooms had over 400 GB of sensitive data stolen from its CRM platform, PayPal notified customers in January that unauthorized parties accessed accounts using stolen login credentials, and Atlassian saw employee data and corporate data exposed in a February breach.
Clearly, tech companies aren’t immune to data breaches. Protecting their proprietary code, customer data, and employee records that are stored within SaaS applications should be a top priority.
A strong SaaS posture is important for any company, but it is particularly important for organizations that store their proprietary code in SaaS applications. This code is especially tempting to threat actors, who would like nothing more than to monetize their efforts and ransom the code back to its creators.
Tech companies also tend to rely on a large number and mix of SaaS applications, from collaboration platforms to sales and marketing tools, legal and finance, data warehouses, cybersecurity solutions, and many more – making it even more challenging to secure the entire stack.
Tech employees heavily depend on SaaS apps to do their day-to-day work; this requires security teams to strictly govern identities and their access. Moreover, these users tend to log into their SaaS apps through different devices to maintain efficiency, which may pose a risk to the organization based on the device’s level of hygiene. On top of this, tech employees tend to connect third-party applications to the core stack without thinking twice, granting these apps high risk scopes.
The high-tech industry is known for periods of hyper-growth, followed by downsizing. Over the past few months, we’ve seen Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Shopify and others announce layoffs.
Deprovisioning employees from SaaS applications is a critical element in data security. While much of the offboarding of employees is automated, SaaS applications that are not connected to the company directory don’t automatically revoke access. Even those applications that are connected may have admin accounts that are outside the company’s SSO. While the primary SSO account may be disconnected, the user’s admin access through the app’s login screen is often accessible.
At the same time, the industry is ripe with mergers and acquisition announcements. As a result of M&As, the acquiring company needs to create a baseline for SaaS security and monitor all SaaS stacks of merged or acquired companies, while enabling business continuity. Whether the hyper growth is organic or through an M&A, organizations need to be able to ensure access is right-sized for their users, at scale and rapidly.
The majority of data breaches impacting tech companies stem from stolen credentials and tokens. The threat actor enters the system through the front door, using valid credentials of the user.
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) picks up suspicious events that would otherwise go unnoticed. An SSPM (SaaS Security Posture Management) solution with threat detection engines in place will alert when there is an Indicator of Compromise (IOC). These IOCs are based on cross-referencing of activities such as user geolocation, time, frequency, recurring attempts to login, excessive activities and more.
Maintaining a high SaaS security posture is challenging for high tech companies, who may mistakenly believe they are equipped and well trained to prevent SaaS attacks. SaaS Security Posture Management is essential to preventing SaaS breaches, while an SSPM with ITDR capabilities will go a long way toward ensuring that your SaaS data is secure.
Keeping up with your email inbox can be a daunting task. It’s easy to get bogged down in long, rambling messages or get overwhelmed by a million unimportant emails and miss the important information buried within. Fortunately, there’s a solution that can help.
With Zapier and OpenAI’s GPT-3, summarizing your email’s essential details has never been easier. With just a few clicks, you can automatically get a summary for each email in Slack or a handy daily digest that includes all the critical info you need from each email all in one go.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the steps of setting up this powerful Zap—our word for Zapier’s automated workflows. Whether you’re a busy professional or simply seeking to optimize your process, this tutorial will help you streamline your email management and stay on top of your inbox.
Looking for GPT-4? GPT-4 may be available with our OpenAI integration in the future. In the meantime, users with a paid subscription to ChatGPT Plus can access GPT-4 via our ChatGPT integration now—allowing you to add ChatGPT-powered conversations into apps like Slack.
How it works
For this project, we’ll be using OpenAI’s GPT-3 to summarize our emails, and then we’ll send the summaries to Slack.
If you’d like to start with a template, click on the Zap template below to go to the Zap editor. You’ll need to create a Zapier account if you don’t already have one. Then, follow the directions below to set up your Zap.
Get an OpenAI-generated email summary in Slack for new Gmail emails
Alternatively, if you prefer to receive the notifications as a daily digest rather than individually, we’ll walk through how you can use Digest by Zapier for this purpose.
If you’d like to go the digest route, you can start with the following Zap template:
Get an AI-generated daily digest of your emails in Slack
Gmail, Digest by Zapier, Formatter by Zapier, OpenAI (GPT-3, DALL·E, Whisper), Slack
Gmail + Digest by Zapier + Formatter by Zapier + 2 moreMore details
Before we begin developing our Zap, you’ll also need an OpenAI account if you don’t already have one. Go to platform.openai.com to sign up for your account. You’ll also need a free Slack account, which you can sign up for at www.slack.com.
Are you ready to build this yourself? Let’s get started!
New to Zapier? It’s a tool that helps anyone connect apps and automate workflows—without any complicated code. Sign up for free.
Step 1: Set up your Gmail trigger step
Head over to Zapier, and click the Create Zap button to create a new Zap.
Search for and select Gmail for the trigger app and New Email in Gmail for the trigger event (if you’re using the Zap template, these will already be selected for you).
Next, connect your Gmail account if you haven’t already connected it to Zapier.
In the Label/Mailbox field, select INBOX. You can optionally leave this blank to trigger for all emails. But since that will also trigger for sent messages and drafts, INBOX is the best choice unless you do heavy email filtering/labeling to remove emails from your inbox.
Click Test Trigger, and you should see a recent email from your inbox, as shown below:
Step 2: Set up a formatter step to truncate your email
Currently, GPT-3 only allows you to send a limited amount of data to summarize, so we’ll need to truncate our email to make sure we don’t exceed this limit. In the future, OpenAI plans to develop new models with higher limits, or possibly no limits, but for now, this is a necessary step.
Click the + symbol beneath your Gmail trigger, then search for and select Formatter by Zapier for the action app and Text for the event.
Select Truncate as your transform action. Click in the Input field, and select Body Plain from the data dropdown from your Gmail trigger—this contains the plain-text body of the email.
In the Max Length field, enter 6000, and then select True for the Append Ellipsis option. Here’s what your complete action step should look like:
This 6000-character truncation means that if the email is shorter than 6000 characters, we’ll keep the entire thing, but if it’s longer, we’ll only keep the first 6000. 6000 characters is quite long, but I do often see emails that go over this limit. Most commonly, this will be longer newsletters or long back-and-forth email threads, as Gmail will include the entire thread in the body that Zapier receives. Because Gmail processes their email threads in reverse chronological order, this truncation will keep the most recent emails in the thread.
Next, click Test Action to ensure everything is working properly. Next, we’ll set up our prompt to send to OpenAI.
Step 3: Set up your OpenAI email summary prompt
If you haven’t set up your Zapier connection to OpenAI, you’ll have to do that now. To start, head back over to platform.openai.com to log into your account. At the top right of the page, click on your profile icon and click View API Keys:
From that page, click on the + Create new secret key button to generate a new API key. You’ll need this key to connect to your OpenAI account within Zapier. Copy this key and store it somewhere safe!
Head back over to Zapier and add a new action step at the bottom of your Zap. Search for the OpenAI app and choose the Send Prompt event:
Click on Choose account, and set up a new account by providing the API key you just generated in OpenAI. If you already have set up your account connection, simply select your existing account.
Head to the Set up action section to set up the prompt we’ll be sending over to OpenAI. In the Prompt field, copy and paste the following:
Summarize the following email into 3 sentences max. Make it concise:
"""
<Output from Formatter by Zapier>
"""
Replace the bracketed content with the Output variable from your Formatter by Zapier step by selecting Output from the Insert Data dropdown.
The triple quotes help GPT-3 to understand where the email starts and stops.
If you want, you can give more specific instructions for the summary depending on your use case. For example, if you’re using this for your work email, you might provide information about your role at your company and the type of information that is or isn’t important to you. You might also consider providing additional context about the services or products your company offers so that GPT-3 can incorporate some of those details into the summary. For now, we’ll keep it simple with the prompt I show above.
You can leave all of the other fields for this step set to their default values.
Click Test Action to send the email over to OpenAI. Review the summary and make sure everything looks okay.
If you want to get a notification in Slack for each email you receive, continue to the next step.
If you want to get a daily digest of all of your emails, skip ahead.
Get notifications for each email step 4: Set up your Slack message
Next, we’ll set up the action step that will send the email summary back to you in a Slack message. This could also be set up to send as an email or SMS if you prefer, but we’ll be using Slack for this example.
Add a fourth action step and search for the Slackapp. Select the Send Channel Message event.
Connect your Slack account if you haven’t already connected it to Zapier.
Next, we’ll set up the action step. Select the Slack channel you want these messages to be sent to. I created a new channel called email-summaries for this purpose.
In the Message Text field, copy and paste the following, replacing the bracketed content with data from your previous Zap steps, which you can select from the Insert Data dropdown:
*New email summary*
From {Gmail From Name}, {Gmail From Email}
Received {Gmail Date}
Summary: {OpenAI Choices Text}
<{Gmail Message URL}|Go To Email>
Your Message Text field should look like the following image when complete:
This will create a message in Slack that includes the sender name and email address, the date and time the email was received, the summary generated by OpenAI, and a link to open the email directly in Gmail for easy responding.
Switch the Include a link to this Zap? field to No and leave the remaining fields as is.
Next, click Test Action to send the summary message to your Slack channel and make sure everything is working properly. If everything looks good, you’re now ready to use your Zap.
Get a daily digest step 4: Set up your digest entries
If the idea of receiving instant notifications for every email you receive sounds too distracting, the daily digest is an ideal solution for you. Instead of setting up a Slack notification for the fourth step, we can use a built-in Zapier tool called Digest by Zapier to store up the email summaries throughout the day and then release them to us all at once at a designated time.
Add a new action step to the bottom of your Zap. Select Digest by Zapier for your action app and Append Entry and Schedule Digest for your action event.
Navigate to the Action section and give your digest a descriptive title like Daily Email Summaries.
For the Entry field, simply copy and paste the copy below. Then replace the bracketed content with the variables from the prior steps by selecting them from the Insert Data dropdown.
From {Gmail From Name}, {Gmail From Email}
Received {Gmail Date}
Summary: {OpenAI Choices Text}
<{Gmail Message URL}|Go To Email>
For the Frequency field, select Daily, and for the Time of Day field, choose when you’d like to receive the digest. Your completed action step should look like this:
Click Test Action to add an entry to your digest and make sure your action step is set up correctly.
Get a daily digest step 5: Set up the Slack action to release your daily digest
Finally, we’ll set up the action step that will release your daily digest and send all of the email summaries to you in a Slack message. This digest message will automatically send at the Time of Day you specified in the prior action step.
Add an action step and search for the Slackapp. Select the Send Channel Message event.
Click on the Actionsection. As before, select the channel you want these messages to be sent to. I created a new channel called email-summaries for this purpose.
In the Message Text field, copy and paste the following, replacing the bracketed content with the data received from your previous digest step by selecting them from the insert Data dropdown:
*You received {Digest Count} emails today*
{Current Digest}
Your Message Text field should look like the following image when complete:
This will create a message in Slack that includes the total number of emails received and the digest with all of the email summaries that were created throughout the day, formatted as we specified in the prior step.
Switch the Include a link to this Zap? field to No and leave the remaining fields as is.
Next, click Test Action to send the summary digest to your Slack Channel and make sure everything is working properly. If everything looks right, you’re now ready to use your Zap!
Putting it all together
Whether you’re a busy professional or simply looking to optimize your email management process, setting up either of these workflows can help streamline your day and keep you on top of your inbox. Give it a try and see the difference it can make!
Advisory ID: cisco-sa-spa-unauth-upgrade-UqhyTWW First Published: 2023 May 3 16:00 GMT Version 1.0: Final Workarounds: No workarounds available Cisco Bug IDs: CSCwe50762 CVSS Score: Base 9.8 Base 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:X/RL:X/RC:X
Summary
A vulnerability in the web-based management interface of Cisco SPA112 2-Port Phone Adapters could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on an affected device.This vulnerability is due to a missing authentication process within the firmware upgrade function. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by upgrading an affected device to a crafted version of firmware. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code on the affected device with full privileges.Cisco has not released firmware updates to address this vulnerability. There are no workarounds that address this vulnerability.This advisory is available at the following link: https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-spa-unauth-upgrade-UqhyTWW
Affected Products
Vulnerable ProductsThis vulnerability affects all firmware releases for Cisco SPA112 2-Port Phone Adapters.Products Confirmed Not VulnerableOnly products listed in the Vulnerable Products section of this advisory are known to be affected by this vulnerability.
Workarounds
There are no workarounds that address this vulnerability.
Fixed Software
Cisco has not released and will not release firmware updates to address the vulnerability that is described in this advisory. Cisco SPA112 2-Port Phone Adapters have entered the end-of-life process. Customers are advised to refer to the end-of-life notice for the product:End-of-Sale and End-of-Life Announcement for the Cisco SPA112 2-Port Phone Adapter and SPA122 ATA with RouterCustomers are encouraged to migrate to a Cisco ATA 190 Series Analog Telephone Adapter.When considering a device migration, customers are advised to regularly consult the advisories for Cisco products, which are available from the Cisco Security Advisories page, to determine exposure and a complete upgrade solution.In all cases, customers should ensure that the new device will be sufficient for their network needs and that current hardware and software configurations will continue to be supported properly by the new product. If the information is not clear, customers are advised to contact the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) or their contracted maintenance providers.
Exploitation and Public Announcements
The Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) is not aware of any public announcements or malicious use of the vulnerability that is described in this advisory.
Source
Cisco would like to thank CataLpa of Dbappsecurity Co., Ltd. Hatlab, for reporting this vulnerability.
