A Service Organization Controls (SOC) report provides independent validation over a company’s internal financial reporting controls. They were originally used to validate compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. When the SEC released the “ Commission Statement and Guidance on Public Company Cybersecurity Disclosures ,” SOC reports started to include cybersecurity. Understanding what a SOC Type 2 report is can give insight into why it is important to your organization.
2020 was the year of the DDoS attack. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks spiked over the last year, driven by the pandemic and the fact that so many people were locked down, working from home, and using online services to get through the pandemic. According to a report from NETSCOUT, more than 10 million DDoS attacks were launched last year, targeting many of the remote and essential services people were using to make it through the lockdown.
Every year, more than 34 percent of organizations worldwide are affected by insider threats. For that reason, cybersecurity needs to be a priority and concern for each employee within an organization, not only the upper-level management team and IT professionals. Employees tend to be the weakest link in an organization’s security posture, often clicking on malicious links and attachments unintentionally, sharing passwords, or neglecting to encrypt sensitive files.
Higher education has increasingly been attracting the attention of cybercriminals. In March, the FBI released an advisory in response to a barrage of ransomware attacks on schools, and Inside Higher Education recently reported that colleges and universities are becoming favorite victims of bad actors. It's not just colleges themselves that are being targeted; their vendors and third parties are being attacked in the hopes of compromising an institution’s data.
The internet of things (IoT) is a highly developed space that is home to a vast amount of sensitive data, making it a very attractive target for cybercriminals. Threats and risks continue to evolve as hackers come up with new ways to breach unsecured systems -- posing a threat to the ecosystem itself. Let’s take a look at the leading threats and risks to the IoT and the associated vulnerabilities that must be secured.
When exploringhttps://securityscorecard.com/admin/entries/blog/154640?draftId=2332&fresh=1# top network security breaches, many think of the obvious: banks or large consumer institutions. However, healthcare organizations are on the rise as a top target for hackers, with the number of data breaches rising 36% in the second half of 2020.
When it comes to cybercrime, cybercriminals are constantly changing their tactics. Think back to 10 years ago; malware sites — malicious sites that attempt to install malware on a device – were a common attack vector. At the same time, sophisticated ransomware attacks on organizations were rare. Often, ransomware was used to target individuals, sometimes blackmailing them for having been on unsavory sites and asking for a few hundred dollars in ransom.
Everyone tracks progress. Whether it’s academics, health, or job skills, people need visibility into where they started and how well they’re advancing toward a goal. From a business perspective, tracking progress gives insight into whether the organization is prioritizing activities for long-term initiatives or whether it needs to take corrective action. Sometimes, the progress reports remain internal. Other times, organizations share them with customers and business partners.
Although the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) has been around for nearly two decades, many companies still struggle to meet compliance requirements. Initially enacted in response to public companies mishandling financial reporting, SOX is a compliance requirement for all public companies. Understanding SOX compliance, as well as its requirements and controls, helps organizations create more robust governance processes.
