Malicious actors are increasingly launching digital attacks against industrial organizations. Many of these campaigns have been successful, particularly those that have targeted energy utilities and manufacturing plants. In late spring 2019, for instance, aircraft parts manufacturer ASCO temporarily suspended operations worldwide after falling victim to a ransomware attack.

According to IBM, it takes an average of 197 days to detect a breach. Today's attackers go above and beyond to evade alerting capabilities and make it look like they were never there. While that number tends to be shorter for Insider Threats, Insiders also tend to be much better at deception and covering their tracks as well.

Considering we now spend more and more time online, it’s only natural that we’ve digitised almost every aspect of our daily lives. But in doing so, we may have opened ourselves up to a new and dangerous form of attack. Ever since we began using the internet, we have faced the risk of malicious activity. Fortunately, we’ve developed powerful tools to combat cyber-attacks and advanced email security services.

In cybersecurity, an attack vector is a path or means by which an attacker can gain unauthorized access to a computer or network to deliver a payload or malicious outcome. Attack vectors allow attackers to exploit system vulnerabilities, install different types of malware and launch cyber attacks. Attack vectors can also be exploited to gain access to sensitive data, personally identifiable information (PII) and other sensitive information that would result in a data breach.

We all know about the type of attacker who leverages their technical expertise to infiltrate protected computer systems and compromise sensitive data. This breed of malicious actor makes news all the time, prompting us to counter their exploits by investing in new technologies that will bolster our network defenses. However, there is another type of attacker who uses different tactics to skirt our tools and solutions.

One of the greatest misconceptions about online safety is that home networks are somehow private. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been true since around the turn of the century when we started filling our home networks with Internet-connected boxes serving local web pages. The problem is that web browsers typically make little distinction between web sites on the public internet versus those on a home or office network.

The small country of Georgia was hit by a cyberattack on Monday, knocking the national TV station and 2,000 websites offline in the nation's largest-ever cyberattack. A local web-hosting provider, Pro-Service, took the blame, claiming one of its servers that powers websites for media organizations, state agencies, and the private sector, was the target of the attack. The attack resulted in roughly 15,000 subscribers of website servers on the Pro-Service server crashing.

Trend analysis is an important topic within threat intelligence. It lets us forecast where things are headed; whether they’re getting better, worse or different; and where we should be focusing our precious budgets. The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) recently released the Incident trends report (October 2018 – April 2019). This highlights some of the trends seen across various UK government entities, organizations and sectors.

Cyberattacks in the healthcare industry show no signs of abating. In 2018, 15 million healthcare records were breached. Alarmingly, in the first half of 2019 alone, 32 million healthcare records were compromised as a result of multiple incidents including the American Medical Collection Agency (AMCA) breach. At AMCA, 24 million patient records were affected when an unauthorized user accessed systems that contained sensitive information like SSN, provider names and medical information.

Reports from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Siemens highlight both the increasing cyber threats faced by the electric utility companies and the lack of adequate readiness to respond to these threats. According to these reports, a cyber-attack on the electric grid could cause “severe” damage.