One of the main challenges of OT security is the problem of compatibility. OT components often differ significantly from each other in terms of age and sophistication as well as software and communication protocols. This complicates asset discovery and makes it difficult to establish a consistent cybersecurity governance approach. Combating asset blindness in OT security begins with taking account of these differences.
With just a few weeks until the April 15 deadline for US individuals and businesses to file their tax returns, scammers are as busy as ever. Security researchers at Cofsense have warned that they have seen a number of malicious email campaigns which pose as communications from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The emails which purport to come from “IRS.gov”, claim to contain tax forms (such as a W-9) that need to be filled out by the recipient.
How often have you heard someone say “Cybersecurity is complicated!”? If you’re a practitioner in the cybersecurity industry you’ll have heard these words often, probably along with “…and it’s really boring too!”
Many industrial security professionals lack visibility into their organizations’ assets and processes. This includes Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices as well as industrial organizations’ supply chains. Back in March 2021, Tripwire announced the results of a survey in which 99% of security professionals said that they had experienced challenges securing their organizations’ IoT and IIoT devices.
The past few years have emphasized just how important cybersecurity is. As cybercrime reached record heights and more companies went digital, industries realized their current security efforts fell short. Healthcare is a prime example. The medical sector has had the second highest number of data breaches of any industry for more than five years. This became increasingly noticeable in 2019 alone, when the industry experienced 525 data breaches, up from 369 the year before.
Ragnar Locker is a family of ransomware, which first came to prominence in early 2020 when it became notorious for hitting large organisations, attempting to extort large amounts of cryptocurrency from its victims.
There has been a lot of talk about cyber weapons and the cyber dimension of global politics after the NotPetya and WannaCry attacks of 2017 and the Stuxnet worm, first discovered in 2010, when it was used to attack the control mechanisms of Iran’s uranium enriching centrifuges.
The benefits of a capable and properly deployed File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) solution are plentiful: And the importance of FIM cannot be understated. Let’s not forgot what the Center for Internet Security (CIS) says in its Distribution Independent Linux Benchmark version 2.0.0.
Asset inventory is a significant part of a comprehensive security plan for all organizations. After all, if you do not know what assets you have, then you cannot manage them. Even a small company can amass a surprisingly large amount of assets. It is no surprise that accounting for all of these assets can be like chasing a moving target, as new and old assets must be accounted for, and conversely, decommissioned assets must also be removed.
2021 was the year that marked a major cyber-attack against a critical national infrastructure organization whose impact was felt by millions of Americans on the East Coast. However, the attack against the Colonial Pipeline Company was not the only incident that affected the Operational Technology (OT) systems of a critical sector for the U.S. national economy.
