The Critical Entities Resilience (CER) Directive is a new initiative in the EU that aims to ensure that critical entities providing essential services are effectively managing their network and information security. The CER Directive is part of the EU’s latest effort to build stronger cyber resilience across Europe, alongside NIS2 and the EU Cyber Resilience Act.

In January 2023, the European Commission (EC) released an updated version of the European Union (EU) Network and Information Security Directive (NIS2) to strengthen cybersecurity risk management across Europe’s essential services. NIS2 updates the original NIS directive and focuses more on regulations for cloud infrastructure, internet exchanges, domain service providers, and digital service providers.

Clifford Stoll, astronomer, author, and teacher, often joked about computer passwords. He said, “Treat your passwords like a toothbrush. Don’t let anybody else use it, and get a new one every six months.”

Are most network detection and response tools missing something? We think so. Network detection and response (NDR) is an incredible technology. With it, you can analyse network packets for malicious behaviour, spot insider threats, and even find connected devices you don’t own. However, if you want to implement NDR in your environment, you typically need to install proprietary hardware or run your NDR on a dedicated server.

As we've covered before, SIEMs are an expensive tool. The average enterprise-level SIEM deployment costs over £15 million a year, and operating a small, 100 to 1000-seat SIEM will still run up bills of over £10k monthly. SIEMs create spiralling costs that eat security budgets. Without a skilled team operating them, they can also make organisations less secure despite receiving more information about their digital estates. But where do these SIEM costs come from?

Staff time, log processing, and legacy issues can turn free, open-source or low-cost SIEMs into one of your organisation's most expensive investments. You're not alone if you're baulking at the idea of paying upwards of tens of thousands of pounds for a new or renewed SIEM licence. Many security decision-makers feel the same way. One survey showed that almost half (40%) of existing SIEM users feel like they are overpaying for their SIEM.

One of the best things you can teach yourself, your family, and your organization is how to recognize the common signs of phishing and how to mitigate and appropriately report it. Phishing messages can have many different looks, traits and narratives. What worked yesterday for the attackers eventually becomes blocked, recognized, and less profitable, and they move on to different tactics.

Cyber activity by the group "The Com," which leverages (SIM) swapping, cryptocurrency theft, swatting, and corporate intrusions, is increasing. Security researchers at Intel471 have published an analysis of the threat group, “The Com” (short for “The Community”), providing details about their targets and tactics. Operating mostly from Canada, the U.S.

Zero Standing Privileges (ZSP) is a Privileged Access Management (PAM) strategy in which organizations limit access to sensitive data by removing all permanent user access. It requires users to request specific access to resources needed to complete a task. However, instead of granting users continuous access, ZSP will grant them temporary access until the task is complete.

Some Apple users have reported phishing attacks using the password reset feature.