University-industry collaborations and other joint research ventures offer access to resources, expertise, funding, and other benefits for university researchers. However, through the use of unvetted software, password sharing, and other actions these external partnerships can expose the university and its intellectual assets to substantial cybersecurity threats, such as unauthorized access, data breaches, and other cyber attacks.

Top tips is a weekly column where we highlight what’s trending in the tech world and list ways to explore these trends. This week we’re looking at four ways you can protect yourself from increasingly advanced social engineering attacks.

New data summarizing the compromises of data in 2023 provides key details on who’s being targeted, what types of data is being compromised, and what attack vectors are being used. I’ve covered reports from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) – their coverage of attacks over the years has grown to include much more than identity theft.

On January 19, Microsoft issued an advisory disclosing a cybersecurity incident targeting their M365 tenants and attributing the attack to Midnight Blizzard, a state-sponsored actor also known as Nobelium and APT29. Following this, on January 24, the Microsoft team expanded on the initial announcement with a comprehensive blog post providing more insights about the attack and outlining specific tactics, techniques and procedures leveraged by the threat actor.

A phishing campaign is attempting to trick users into downloading remote monitoring and management (RMM) software like AnyDesk, Atera, and Splashtop, according to researchers at Malwarebytes. While these tools are legitimate, they can be exploited by threat actors to carry out many of the same functions as malware. These tools may also be less likely to be flagged as malicious by antivirus software.

On February 2nd, the remote desktop application AnyDesk was the target of a cybersecurity breach, marking a significant event in digital security. Hackers infiltrated AnyDesk's production environment, sparking concerns over data integrity and user security.

In the evolving domain of artificial intelligence (AI), Multimodal AI emerges as a transformative force, reshaping how machines perceive and interact with the world. Multimodal AI encapsulates a sophisticated integration of various modalities, including text, image, speech, and other sensory inputs, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of data. Multimodal AI transcends the limitations of unimodal approaches, enabling a more nuanced and context-aware AI system.

‍Market success has often demanded that business leaders take risks. Some of the most profitable executives are those who have pursued bold initiatives, recognizing, despite the dangers, the potential rewards. However, as organizations grow and become more complex, the costs of these risks rise, demanding a more data-driven approach to its management.

“A man walks into a bank…” That may sound like the start of a joke but as hacker and security consultant Jayson E. Street tells it, it’s really nothing to laugh at. He’s walked into banks, hotels, government facilities, and biochemical companies all over the world and successfully compromised them.