By now it’s become clear—hybrid and remote work are here to stay. This goes for employees in the government sector as much as it does for those in other industries. Along with increased flexibility, however, comes increased attack surfaces for security professionals to defend.

The state of cybersecurity today is, in a word, catastrophic. Breaches have become endemic. Not only do they continue at dizzying rates, but they are actually increasing in frequency by the month. Why are things so bad? And why do businesses seem so helpless to make them better? Those are complicated questions without simple answers, of course – but I believe that a major part of the answer has to do with the fact that, at most organizations, security remains the domain of elite security teams.

Late last year, The Canadian Center for Cyber Security published an in-depth threat bulletin declaring it had knowledge of 235 ransomware incidents against Canadian victims from in 2021, with more than half of these victims being critical infrastructure providers. The report also explains that most ransomware events remain unreported to the Center, and—based on past findings—once targeted, ransomware victims are often attacked multiple times.

Today, anyone can contribute to some of the world’s most important software platforms and frameworks, such as Kubernetes, the Linux kernel or Python. They can do this because these platforms are open source, meaning they are collaboratively developed by global communities. What if we applied the same principles of democratization and free access to cybersecurity?

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.

2021 was another record-breaking year for cyber attacks, with reports of massive breaches and huge ransomware demands dominating headlines. It’s a trend that does not seem to be slowing any time soon, either. Currently, there are thousands of vendors in the market, with over $130 billion spent annually on defense and yet, the number of breaches continues to rise. Arctic Wolf's 2021 Data Breaches in Review counts down the most noteworthy, high-profile, and damaging data cybercrimes of the year.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) platforms are great tools for helping teams work smarter, faster, and more efficiently against security risks. But, used on their own, SOARs are far from perfect for meeting the full security needs of the modern organization.

SOC Analysts manage and monitor a range of detection technologies to identify, investigate and respond to threats, 24/7/365. But what does the role of a SOC Analyst actually involve day-to-day, what are the rewards and challenges of the job, and how do people get into it as a career? To find out more, we spoke with SOC Shift Lead, Anthony Howell.

When our customers begin their security journey with Arctic Wolf, our Concierge Delivery Model benchmarks their security programs against the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. The NIST framework spans five functions (Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, Recover), and offers guidelines and best practices for organizations to better manage, reduce, and ultimately end cyber risk.