Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

By now it’s become clear—hybrid and remote work are here to stay. This goes for employees in the government sector as much as it does for those in other industries. Along with increased flexibility, however, comes increased attack surfaces for security professionals to defend.

Late last year, The Canadian Center for Cyber Security published an in-depth threat bulletin declaring it had knowledge of 235 ransomware incidents against Canadian victims from in 2021, with more than half of these victims being critical infrastructure providers. The report also explains that most ransomware events remain unreported to the Center, and—based on past findings—once targeted, ransomware victims are often attacked multiple times.

2021 broke new ground in terms of cybersecurity, and much was ground just as well left unbroken. With no indication that ransomware, data breaches, and assorted malware will go away soon, the new year is a time for organizations to get a fresh start and really fortify themselves against a widening field of threats. One month in, we've already seen a disturbing array of attacks, from those on political targets to distressing new malware to a breach of exceptional sensitive information.

2021 was another record-breaking year for cyber attacks, with reports of massive breaches and huge ransomware demands dominating headlines. It’s a trend that does not seem to be slowing any time soon, either. Currently, there are thousands of vendors in the market, with over $130 billion spent annually on defense and yet, the number of breaches continues to rise. Arctic Wolf's 2021 Data Breaches in Review counts down the most noteworthy, high-profile, and damaging data cybercrimes of the year.

When our customers begin their security journey with Arctic Wolf, our Concierge Delivery Model benchmarks their security programs against the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. The NIST framework spans five functions (Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, Recover), and offers guidelines and best practices for organizations to better manage, reduce, and ultimately end cyber risk.

Strong, resilient security operations require the proper melding of people, technology, and processes to achieve the goal of reducing the likelihood and impact of cyberthreats. The right security operations center (SOC) will strengthen the overall security resiliency of an organization. The wrong one will tax your team—leading to mistakes, breaches, and losses.

This is a follow-up to our previous blogposts covering the Log4j vulnerability and the Deep Scan tool we made available to help identify vulnerable systems. As we close the first month of 2022, we looked into the activity related to the Log4Shell vulnerability CVE-2021-44228 observed across our 2,3000+ customers. Many of you will empathize with the struggle to find all instances of the vulnerable Log4j component, especially at the scale that comes with having a large customer base.

The growing wave of cybercrime targets businesses in every industry, and law firms are no exception. With many unique cybersecurity risks, law firms are more onerous to secure than other organizations. In addition to having to fend off threats from cybercriminals, they must also overcome the threat posed by hacktivists and nation-states. Law firms are especially attractive to bad actors because attorneys need access to highly sensitive data to provide legal services.

How prepared is your business to fend of bad actors seeking to infiltrate your network systems and breach your data? Imagine, if you will, the following scenario: It’s 5:30 am, and an employee has just clicked a malicious link in a phishing email. An attacker, armed with ransomware, has just gained access to your enterprise.

The FBI recently warned and advised on a current scam in which bad actors mail malicious thumb drives in packages and trick recipients into thinking there is a legitimate reason for connecting the thumb drive to their computer. Let’s be clear. DON’T. Don’t stick that thing in your computer. You don’t know where it’s been!