Babylon Health, makers of a smartphone app that allows Brits to have consultations with NHS doctors, has admitted that a “software error” resulted in some users being able to access other patients’ private video chats with GPs.
What is Lateral Movement? Lateral movement refers to the techniques that a cyber-attacker uses, after gaining initial access, to move deeper into a network in search of sensitive data and other high-value assets. Lateral movement techniques are widely used in sophisticated cyber-attacks such as advanced persistent threats (APTs).
Data is rapidly becoming one of the most valuable assets in the modern world. The digital giants that monopolize data are arguably the most powerful companies in the world, prompting ongoing conversations about anti-trust legislation and digital privacy. Despite the overwhelming value controlled by these entities, as we'll see, even companies such as Facebook are vulnerable to the byproduct of the rapid move to digitization – the data breach epidemic.
It’s DBIR season! Put down your pens, stop watching “The Last Dance” and get to reading the key findings of the 13th edition of the annual Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report!
British low-cost airline group easyJet revealed that an hacking incident had exposed approximately nine million customers’ information.
Government officials said that a glitch in the State of Illinois’ Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program exposed thousands of people’s Social Security Numbers (SSNs) and other private data. Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzer, sent a statement to WBEZ on May 16. In it, she revealed that the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) had learned of a security incident involving its PUA program. As quoted by WBEZ.
Email-based attacks can take many forms, and are typically deployed by cybercriminals in order to extort ransom or leak sensitive data. Just recently, a banking Trojan named Trickbot targeted Italy, a hotspot for COVID-19 cases, with email spam campaigns. While the email subject line is in line with the daily concerns and talks about spread of the virus, the attachment was actually a malicious script.
Third-party vendor data breaches are becoming an epidemic for organizations that themselves have solid information security programs. The Ponemon Institute has proven year over year in its survey that the cost of third-party data breaches increases with each survey. Many struggle with how exactly to hold third-party vendors accountable and enforce the same rigid standards and controls that they consume internally. The big question is: how do organizations prevent third-party vendor data breaches?
New technologies often present interesting challenges for security teams, with cloud services such as AWS, Azure and GCP providing particularly novel cases in comparison to “classic” on-premise systems. As cloud services race to add new features that drive new customer interest and increase retention of existing clients, there is a very real risk of exposing new threat vectors to the business if even the most minor of misconfigurations occurs.
Last year was a disaster in terms of the number of data breaches. A study produced by the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center rounded up 1,473 reported data breaches by the end of 2019 – a staggering 17% more than 2018. While the analysis notes that the actual number of data exposed were considerably less than 2018, it’s still proof of the increasing insecurity of deployed IT systems.
