ReliaQuest warns that the BlackBasta ransomware gang is using new social engineering tactics to obtain initial access within corporate networks. The threat actor begins by sending mass email spam campaigns targeting employees, then adding people who fall for the emails to Microsoft Teams chats with external users. These external users pose as IT support or help desk staff, and send employees Microsoft Teams messages containing malicious QR codes.

Over a decade ago, I noticed that social engineering was the primary cause for all malicious hacking. It has been that way since the beginning of computers, but it took me about half of my 36-year career to realize it. At the time, I think everyone in cybersecurity knew social engineering was a big part of why hackers and their malware programs were so successful, but no one really knew how big.

With governments across the globe gearing up for major elections, experts have been predicting an increase in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks from nation-states and, so far, those predictions have paid off. According to Forbes, a recently thwarted DDoS attack found hackers sending traffic at 3.8 terabytes per second to a target server, peaking at 2.14 billion packets per second, making it the largest DDoS attack ever recorded.

Attack vectors and attack surfaces are both critical concepts in cybersecurity, closely related yet distinct in their roles and implications. Understanding the similarities and differences between them is key to developing robust security strategies. This article will detail what both concepts involve, why they’re crucial, and methods your organization can conduct to enhance its current security posture.

“Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?” In this iconic Star Wars moment, Princess Leia lazily responds to Luke Skywalker, disguised as one of her Stormtrooper captors and using authentication information to open her cell. In other words, Star Wars acts as an analogy for a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attack. In a CSRF attack, malicious actors use social engineering so that end-users will give them a way to “hide” in their authenticated session.

Compromised secrets, such as leaked API and SSH keys, credentials, and session tokens, are the leading cause of cloud security incidents. While attackers can directly compromise secrets through methods like phishing, they can also gain control by finding and taking advantage of simple misconfigurations in your environment.

As generative AI evolves and becomes a mainstream part of cyber attacks, new data reveals that deepfakes are leading the way. Deepfake technology has been around for a number of years, but the AI boom has sparked new attacks, campaigns, and players all trying to use the impersonation technology to rob victims of their credentials, personal details or money. We recently covered multiple deepfake campaigns all perpetrated by a single individual that reached a global level.