A cyber threat (or cyber security threat) is the possibility of a successful cyber attack that aims to gain unauthorized access, damage, disrupt, or steal an information technology asset, computer network, intellectual property or any other form of sensitive data. Cyber threats can come from within an organization by trusted users or from remote locations by unknown parties.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg claimed this week that a serious cyberattack on one member country would trigger a response from all member countries. Stoltenberg claims such an event would trigger a 'collective defense commitment', known commonly as Article 5, an attack on one member of NATO is an attack on all of its members. Article 5 has been involved once in its history - in response to the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.

Industrial control systems are essential to the smooth operation of various national critical infrastructure. While once segmented from the web, these systems are now becoming increasingly more networked and remotely accessible as organizations transform to meet the digital age. This development potentially exposes industrial control systems to digital threats.

A cyber attack (or cyberattack) is any attempt to expose, alter, disable, destroy, steal or gain unauthorized access to a computer system, infrastructure, network, or any other smart device. In some cases, cyber attacks can be part of a nation-states cyber warfare or cyber terrorism efforts, while other cybercrimes can be employed by individuals, activist groups, societies or organizations. Strong organizational wide cyber security controls are now more important than ever.

The cyber kill chain illustrates the structure of a successful cyber attack. It is effectively the hacker’s process from beginning to end, from scoping a target (reconnaissance) all the way to achieving their objective, whether that’s data theft or dropping and executing malware. When approaching your cyber security strategy, you should align your defences to the cyber kill chain. Like Batman becoming fear, to defeat the hacker, you must become a hacker.

The North American Electic Reliability Corporation (NERC) is an international regulatory organization that works to reduce risks to power grid infrastructure. They do this through the continual development of a set of regulatory standards in addition to education, training, and certifications for industry personnel.

The city of Naples in Florida is the latest city to be hit by hackers in a targeted spear-phishing campaign. Hackers disguised themselves as representatives from the Wright Construction Group and targeted the city in a spear-phishing campaign, resulting in the loss of $700,000 from the city. The Wright Construction Group once did infrastructure-related work in downtown Naples. Consequently, a member of an unnamed department transferred $700,000 to a fake bank account provided by the attackers.

Cabarrus County, North Carolina was recently targeted in a business email compromise (BEC) scam which resulted in the loss of $2.5 million. The attack began in late November 2018 when Cabarrus County employees received emails pretending to be from Roanoke, Virginia-based Branch and Associates, Inc, the contractor responsible for the construction of the new West Cabarrus High School.

Digital attacks targeting water facilities are on the rise. In its 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report, for instance, Verizon Enterprise disclosed an incident in which bad actors breached a water treatment plant and altered the levels of chemicals used to treat tap water at that facility. News of this incident came approximately two years after the ONWASA water facility revealed it had suffered a ransomware attack that had disrupted its internal computer system in the wake of Hurricane Florence.

Messages are one of the most popular ways of communication today. Most organizations and firms accept that the simplest method for transferring data is through Emails. According to Business Matters, a leading business magazine in the UK, there are plenty of vital areas in the business world, but there aren’t many more essential or important than Emails.