Ransomware attacks increased by 105% in the first quarter of 2019, according to Beazley’s tally of insurance claims and data analytics. Other alarming reports show that new variants of Ransomware keep appearing almost every month. In addition, two years after the WannaCry Ransomware attacks, 1.7 million computers still remain at risk in 2019 according to TechCrunch. Fortunately, there are cybersecurity solutions that can protect your data during file transfer and file storage.

What’s happened? British Airways is facing a record fine of £183 million, after its systems were breached by hackers last year and the personal and payment card information of around 500,000 customers were stolen. 183 million quid!? That sounds huge! Yes, it’s the biggest fine ever handed out by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Due to the revolution of the internet, cyber-attacks on unsecured networks are increasing tremendously and organizations are on the verge of data breaches. Securing proprietary information, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), or any other sensitive data have become a daunting task. Preventing business disruption, information theft, and reputational loss is necessary to thrive and survive in the competitive industry.

Speed and security. Old-fashioned thinking contended that the two were incompatible; that high-velocity development and deployment of apps and software services invariably introduced higher levels of risk. However, it has become increasingly apparent that speed is a necessary aspect of security. The stakes are sky-high, with some estimates projecting that the annual cost of cybercrime losses and damage will reach $6 trillion by 2021.

According to Google, Ryuk is ‘a fictional character in the manga series Death Note’. I have no idea what this is, but I imagine it’s significantly less interesting than the Ryuk ransomware campaign that’s currently hitting businesses right across the world. The UK’s NSCS is investigating such campaigns and has recently published an advisory on it, and we’re no strangers to Ryuk at Bulletproof either.

A selection of this week’s more interesting vulnerability disclosures and cyber security news. Well, I hope everyone’s recovered from the annoying network outages this week. I’m not going to talk about that, instead here is something to bring other annoyances: How UI done badly can be really bad… People are people, and while there are often oversights in locking down systems, they often still fall prey to moments of madness which starts a chain towards disaster.

An industry that is worth more than $2 billion, SIEM keeps growing and evolving. The first instances of SIEMs appeared as descendants of numerous security technologies: LSM, SIM, SLM/SEM, SEC and such. The earliest versions were so limited that they were barely able to scale across large companies and were rather slow. They also needed huge teams to manage thus raising the costs ever-higher. However, SIEMs have changed greatly since.

Identity verification has progressed drastically with the infusion of technology over a period of time. Currently, identity verification depends on physical and digital proof managed by a central authority which includes verification of valid documents like passport, driver’s license, OTP etc. However, the processes and identity parameters vary from country to country making it extremely difficult to standardise the verification process.

If you are a security practitioner, then you may have noticed that much of the security industry exists because of vulnerabilities. Regardless of what job position you occupy, vulnerabilities are oftentimes the reason why you wake up every morning and ultimately engage infosec from within your cutting-edge working environment. Vulnerabilities will continue to arise; this is a fact of the environmental change that goes with any business or organization.

2019 Has been an interesting year for Ransomware thus far. After plaguing countless victims with dreaded ransom notes and bringing some pretty large corporations to their knees, the attack method built a strong reputation for inflicting cyber terror on consumers and businesses. As cyber criminals noticed increasing success from this method, the trends shifted towards more targeted enterprise attacks with the potential for more lucrative payouts.