Weekly round-up of the most noteworthy cyber security headlines.

A data exfiltration attack involves the unauthorized transfer of sensitive data, such as personal data and intellectual property, out of a target system and into a separate location. These transfers could either occur internally, through insider threats, or externally, through remote Command and Control servers. Every cyberattack with a data theft objective could be classified as a data exfiltration attack.

Brute force attacks are nothing new in cybersecurity. As far back as 2015 (eons ago, in technology terms) the global coffee chain Dunkin’ Donuts suffered a brute force attack that targeted nearly 20,000 of its customers. In this attack, cyber attackers used brute force to get unauthorized access to the accounts of more than 19,000 users and steal their money. Following the incident, Dunkin’ Donuts was slapped with a lawsuit, where it ended up paying more than $500,000 dollars in a settlement.

In the past 24 hours, funding website GiveSendGo has reported that they’ve been the victim of a DDOS attack, in response to the politically charged debate about funding for vaccine skeptics. The GiveSendGo DDOS is the latest in a long line of political cyberattacks that have relied on the DDOS mechanism as a form of political activism. There were millions of these attacks in 2021 alone.

2021 broke new ground in terms of cybersecurity, and much was ground just as well left unbroken. With no indication that ransomware, data breaches, and assorted malware will go away soon, the new year is a time for organizations to get a fresh start and really fortify themselves against a widening field of threats. One month in, we've already seen a disturbing array of attacks, from those on political targets to distressing new malware to a breach of exceptional sensitive information.

A brief overview of the most notable cyber events of the last week.

The combination of poor cybersecurity practices, sensitive data storage, and a desperation to preserve business continuity at all costs, makes the healthcare industry a prime target for cybercriminals - an inevitability that was further exacerbated by the pandemic. To support the relevance of healthcare cybersecurity programs within the current cyberattack climate, the 4 biggest cybersecurity challenges in the healthcare industry are listed below.

A botnet is a cluster of machines that are infected with malware, enabling hackers to control them and unleash a string of attacks. Most commonly, botnets come in the form of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, and recently the Microsoft Azure DDoS Protection team reported a 25% increase in these attacks when compared to the first half of 2021. Recent advances in technology have opened up a world of new opportunities for both consumers and businesses.

Though the level of fear of Covid 19 has diminished, there are other fears surrounding the 2022 Olympic games. Fears of telecom disruptions and ransomware attacks are founded, and the damage that could be caused has increased with the reliance on technology to broadcast the Games, which kicks off on February 4. Organizers are preparing for the kind of cyberattack that temporarily paralyzed IT systems ahead of the official opening ceremonies of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea.