Cybersecurity has risen to become a major concern for nearly every industry. With the constant stream of news about the escalating numbers of breaches, it is understandable that governments have taken a more active role by passing cybersecurity and privacy legislation. Some of the industries are not top of mind to many people. For example, few people are aware of all of the industries that make up the 16 sectors of critical infrastructure.

Insider threats are an updated version of the wolf in sheep's clothing - the people we rely on to safeguard systems and data can sometimes be the ones who pose the greatest risk. From malicious actors to negligent employees, insider threats come in many forms and can have devastating consequences for organizations of all sizes. Who’s an Insider?

While we all know the actual point of PCI is vastly more far-reaching, we can’t deny that the juggernaut of PCI DSS 4.0 compliance is getting past the auditors. However, there is a right way to do it that doesn’t just check the box – it creates the underlying business operations that enable you to pass an audit any day, at any time, with just the processes you have in hand. Here’s how.

Most cybersecurity professionals will often try to cybersplain the importance of protection to their friends. In most social circles, many of the businesses that people work in are small businesses. Perhaps you are the owner of a small delicatessen, a dry cleaner, or you run a yoga studio, or some similar individually owned operation.

The US healthcare sector continues to be aggressively targeted by ransomware operators. Royal and BlackCat are two of the more recent – and highly sophisticated – ransomware threats. These two new flavors of ransomware pose serious potential impacts on the healthcare sector, but there are appropriate mitigation and defense strategies that organizations can take to protect against them.

How many internet-connected devices do you own? If you took a quick inventory around your house, you may be surprised at exactly how many there are. Have you ever wondered how they all communicate, not only with each other, but with the internet as well? This is, in part the result of technology known as IP addressing.

Bad enough for your company to be held to ransom after a cyber attack. Worse still to then have one of your own employees exploit the attack in an attempt to steal the ransom for themselves. That's the situation gene and cell therapy firm Oxford BioMedica found itself in. On 27 February 2018, the Oxford-based firm discovered that it had suffered a cyber attack after it received a ransom demand from a malicious hacker explaining that they had broken into the company's systems.

Back in 2015, we published an article about the third party risks that are introduced into a home network. Now, eight years later, it is a good time to revisit the landscape of the home network. If we think about the technology in most homes in 2015, it was fairly sparse, consisting only of a router with an internet connection. The speed of most home internet connections was well below 100Mbps.

Cybersecurity awareness is on the rise as more organizations adopt security awareness training programs. Why the hype? In several recent reports, we break down our findings around why SAT is on the rise—and why companies need it now more than ever.

Polymorphic and metamorphic malware constantly changes itself in order to avoid detection and persistently remain on the system. This adaptive behavior is the main distinctive attribute of these types of malware, which is also why they are harder to detect; it is also why they pose a great threat to systems. On the surface, the functionality of this sort of changing and mutating malware appears the same, but each has its own differences.

I’m going to jump on board the Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) bandwagon in this blog and talk about why I’m excited about some of the prospects for this being applied to the compliance and file integrity monitoring data that Tripwire has been specialising in for many years.

Gabrielle is a security engineer. She deploys tools to scan for threats and vulnerabilities, read logs, and manage the security risks for her company, but is all that data really helping? Sometimes, it seems like she works in a noise factory instead of a SOC. The cacophony of all the log and event data and vulnerability scans are pouring into the SIEM, and it’s Gabrielle’s job to listen to the symphony of data and find the out-of-tune notes.

The Artificial intelligence (AI) based language model, ChatGPT, has gained a lot of attention recently, and rightfully so. It is arguably the most widely popular technical innovation since the introduction of the now ubiquitous smart speakers in our homes that enable us to call out a question and receive an instant answer. But what is it, and why is it relevant to cyber security and data protection?

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), FBI, and others have issued a joint alert, advising organisations of the steps they should take to mitigate the threat posed by BianLian ransomware attacks. BianLian, which has been targeting different industry sectors since June 2022, is a ransomware developer, deployer and data extortion group which has predominantly targeted enterprises.

‘A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for,’ said Dr. Grace Hopper, Rear Admiral of the US Navy and a computer pioneer. As soon as the ship leaves the harbor, or even the dock, there are risks. Depending on conditions and purposes, the ship's crew might decide they are negligible, that they can be recovered from, or that the potential rewards are worth the risk. The same ideas can be applied to computers.

Zero Trust seems to no longer command the volume of articles that once set it up as a trend that promised a bright new future for security. This is in part because security is a journey. Rushed implementations and low returns often result in burnout with new technology, and generally the real work happens in the quiet stages when analysts and consultants are putting together the tooling and playbooks that deliver true value and not just a “checkbox outcome.”

While there are an estimated 30,000 daily cyber attacks on business websites, there are roughly ten times as many attacks against social media accounts every single day, equating to roughly 1.4 billion accounts every month. Social media attacks and scams have become pervasive problems, with threat actors finding innovative new ways to deceive users and steal their information.

2023 started much the same as the year before, with state legislatures producing an impressive list of privacy-related bills in the U.S. Twenty-three states introduced comprehensive privacy legislation, with many more targeted privacy bills being considered as well. Iowa's governor signed the sixth comprehensive privacy law to close out the quarter.

In our webinar, Insights for Navigating PCI DSS 4.0 Milestones, we discuss some of the challenges organizations face as they try to comprehend the new requirements of PCI DSS 4.0.

A Social engineering attack is the process of exploiting weaknesses in human psychology to manipulate and persuade others to perform in a way that is harmful. Prior to the digital age, criminals would carry out these attacks in person, in what was known as a confidence game. The perpetrators were referred to a “con men”, regardless of their gender.

Red Teaming will always have similar concepts and strategies, but no Red Team endeavour is the same, and the meaning may change from one organization to another. Simply stated, Red Teaming is acting as an adversary within your own network to achieve a scenario or objective that a potential attacker can leverage or has value. A true Red Team objective should not be to achieve the goals as quickly as possible. A Red Team operation requires a dedicated team, the right tools, and patience.

Akira is a new family of ransomware, first used in cybercrime attacks in March 2023.

Cybersecurity is a critical concern for businesses of all sizes and industries. With the increasing sophistication of cyber threats, it's more important than ever to have a robust security strategy in place. However, many organizations lack the expertise or resources to manage their cybersecurity needs effectively. This is where professional services come in.

We have recently concluded the first quarter of 2023, and there have already been over 250 patches for the many components and flavours of Microsoft’s operating systems, as well as a handful of patches for Adobe, Apple, and Android. If you are a computer professional, you have also had to patch various other enterprise-class hardware and software assets in your environment. With all of the technology we have today, installing software updates has become a near-daily, full-time activity.

Data breaches and cyberattacks have become worryingly commonplace in today’s digital world, and cybersecurity and cyber resilience are now crucial for every organization, small and large. These two strategies work together to protect data at different stages of a cyberattack. Ideally, organizations should rely on both to achieve maximum cyber protection.

As a small business owner, you wear many hats. You're the CEO, the accountant, the salesperson, and the HR manager. With so much on your plate, cybersecurity might not be at the top of your priority list. But it should be. Small businesses are a prime target for cybercriminals, and a security breach can be devastating to your company's reputation and financial health. The good news is that there are affordable steps you can take to protect your business.

Thinking about your own network isn’t enough to keep your business safe and profitable. As more buyers, sellers, and partners collaborate ever more closely across the world, supply chain IT risks are rising with no slowdown in sight. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, supply chain attacks surpassed malware incidents by 40% in 2022.1 There’s never been more at risk for wide collections of companies that depend on each other.

The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model is a conceptual framework developed by the International Standards Organization (ISO). It has been in use for over 40 years, and is cited in every computer network book. It is also a favorite resource for just about every cybersecurity exam. The OSI model is represented in seven layers that help us understand how communications between computer systems occur.

Those words were spoken by the US National Security Advisor way back in 2005, and it is remarkable to see how prescient they were. The economy is not only supported by the cyber world, but that world is entirely data driven. Data has become a primary focus, not just for regulatory fodder, but for business survival.

Businesses should patch their TP-Link routers as soon as possible, after the revelation that a legendary IoT botnet is targeting them for recruitment. The notorious Mirai botnet, which hijacks control of vulnerable IoT devices, is now exploiting TP-Link Archer AX21 routers to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

If you’re building an application, you want to ensure it’s reliable, consistent, and rapidly deployable in any cloud environment. That’s what containers are used for — packaging instructions into a digital object for reuse. Without them, you’ll struggle to run some application components from server to server. But when you deploy containers, there are security risks that you should be aware of and can mitigate.

Organizations embracing cloud environments must understand that cloud applications and services have become popular targets for cybercriminals. A few notable and inherent risks with cloud deployments include.

Think of all the different points within your organization that provide access to information. That could be your website, the mobile version of your application, your Slack instance, and so much more. It’s a list that gets very long, very quickly. All of those endpoints, both physical and digital, make up the attack surface of your organization.

The phone rings, displaying "Potential Spam," warning of the possible downfall of accepting the call. We also have the option to set specific ringtones for the special people in our lives, so we audibly know immediately who’s calling. For other callers, like the once-a-year important call from our insurance or investment rep, we'll at least add their names so we can see when they ring. And, of course, there are the numbers that we have blocked.