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.

Unsurprisingly, cyber attacks are growing in the business sector and not just in the United States but world-wide. Cyber-attacks represent the greatest risk in six out of ten of the top economies in the world. The report presented by the World Economic Forum discusses formjacking, cryptojacking, ransomware like LockerGoga and other cyber-attacks of which CEOs around the globe are starting to become more aware.

Digital attackers are increasingly targeting industrial environments these days. Take manufacturing organizations, for instance. Back in late-August, FortiGuard Labs discovered a malspam campaign that had targeted a large U.S. manufacturing company with a variant of the LokiBot infostealer family. It wasn’t long thereafter when Bloomberg reported on the efforts of bad actors to target Airbus by infiltrating its suppliers’ networks.

Phishing is a cyber attack that gathers sensitive information like login credentials, credit card numbers, bank account numbers or other financial information by masquerading as a legitimate site. Personal information like social security numbers, phone numbers and social media account information are also common targets for cybercriminals who perform identity theft. Phishing scams trick victims by using social engineering to create a sense of urgency.

What is CSIRT? CSIRT (pronounced see-sirt) refers to the computer security incident response team. The main responsibility of the CSIRT is to expose and avert cyber attacks targeting an organization. As the number of cyber threats grow each and every day, the importance of having a security team that is solely focused on incident response (IR) is fundamental.

Britain should be prepared for a Category 1 cyber security emergency, according to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). This means that national security, the economy, and even the nation’s lives will be at risk. However, despite this harsh warning, UK businesses still aren’t taking proactive and potentially preventative action to stop these attacks from happening. So just where are UK businesses going wrong and can they turn things around before it’s too late?

A man-in-the-middle attack (MITM attack) is a cyber attack where an attacker relays and possibly alters communication between two parties who believe they are communicating directly. This allows the attacker to relay communication, listen in, and even modify what each party is saying. Man-in-the-middle attacks enable eavesdropping between people, clients and servers. This can include HTTPS connections to websites, other SSL/TLS connections, Wi-Fi networks connections and more.

A cyber threat (or cyber security threat) is the possibility of a successful cyber attack that aims to gain unauthorized access, damage, disrupt, or steal an information technology asset, computer network, intellectual property or any other form of sensitive data. Cyber threats can come from within an organization by trusted users or from remote locations by unknown parties.