Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

In an era dominated by technological evolution, Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2023, now celebrating its 20th year, accentuates the growing significance of cybersecurity. This initiative encourages individuals and organizations to embrace crucial cybersecurity measures to help with online safety. AT&T Cybersecurity once again demonstrates its commitment to this cause by actively participating in this pivotal educational month.

In the ever-changing world of cybersecurity, Security Operations Centers (SOCs) are responsible for building comprehensive threat detection strategies for their environments. A key indicator of success for any SOC team is their level of security coverage, which correlates with the breadth, depth, and accuracy of their threat detection tools and workflows.

On August 10th, the Pentagon introduced "Task Force Lima," a dedicated team working to bring Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the core of the U.S. defense system. The goal is to use AI to improve business operations, healthcare, military readiness, policy-making, and warfare. Earlier in August, the White House announced a large cash prize for individuals or groups that can create AI systems to defend important software from cyberattacks.

The evolution of the cyber threat landscape highlights the need for organizations to strengthen their ability to identify, analyze, and evaluate cyber risks before they evolve into security incidents. Known unpatched vulnerabilities are often exploited by criminals to penetrate Industrial Control Systems (ICS) environments and disrupt critical operations.

The widespread success and influence of Microsoft Visual Studio (VS) Code can be largely credited to its extensibility. While it's often categorized as a code editor, with the right knowledge and extensions, it can be so much more. For instance, it can also be used as a web browser, word processor, or file-management system. Microsoft also encourages developers to take advantage of VS Code's extensibility by making the VS Code API as accessible as possible.

Bitsight has identified nearly 100,000 exposed industrial control systems (ICS) owned by organizations around the world, potentially allowing an attacker to access and control physical infrastructure such as power grids, traffic light systems, security and water systems, and more. ICSs — a subset of operational technology (OT) — are used to manage industrial processes like water flow in municipal water systems, electricity transmission via power grids, and other critical processes.

DomainTools is tracking an increase in SMS phishing (or “smishing”) campaigns impersonating the US Postal Service (USPS). The text messages inform recipients that there’s a problem with their delivery address and they need to click on a link to resolve the issue.

A recent attack on an undisclosed Spanish aerospace company all started with messages to the company's employees that appeared to be coming from Meta recruiters, via LinkedIn Messaging. ESET researchers uncovered the attack and attributed it to the Lazarus group, particularly a campaign dubbed Operation DreamJob. This campaign by the Lazarus group was aimed at defense and aerospace companies with the goal of carrying out cyberespionage.

To secure our world, Cybersecurity Awareness Month encourages four steps that make it easy to stay safe online. As a CISO, my team and I advocate for these practices constantly within our organization. If you are a security practitioner looking to bolster cybersecurity awareness, here’s a brief look at how we explain these steps to help make staying safe online easier. Before we dive in, making cybersecurity practices relatable and clear is key to the adoption at any organization.

Calendars are great and serve a wide range of purposes. Paper calendars, digital calendars, calendars with Garfield or Peanuts comics, they all have the ability remind us of birthdays, the first day of school, garbage pick-up day and holidays. So, let’s make sure your calendar has October marked down as Cybersecurity Awareness Month.