A leading voice in cybersecurity, Gina Yacone is a trusted advisor to senior security leaders, guiding them through emerging trends and recommending strategies to strengthen defenses. She was also recently named Cybersecurity Woman Volunteer of the Year 2024. As regional and advisory CISO at the elite technology consultancy Trace3, she also participates in the Trace3 AI Center of Excellence (CoE) Champion Program, keeping her at the forefront of AI and security innovation.

Initial Access Brokers (IABs) are threat actors who infiltrate networks, systems, or organizations and sell this unauthorized access to other malicious actors. Instead of executing the entire cyberattack, IABs focus on the initial breach and monetize it by selling access to compromised systems. They assist ransomware operations, particularly RaaS schemes, by streamlining attacks and reducing workload at the start.

We are thrilled to announce the latest enhancement to ARMO Platform: Seccomp Profiles Leveraging eBPF. This feature uses eBPF to take the guesswork out of creating seccomp profiles. Thus, benefiting from the added security seccomp profiles provide, without the risk of “breaking” applications.

Over the last year, we have continued to witness web shells breaching organizations worldwide, affecting both edge devices and on-premise web applications. Web shells consistently evade standard controls, posing a persistent threat. Today, the Splunk Threat Research Team is excited to announce the final tool in the ShellSweep collection: ShellSweepX.

When intruders want to break into an establishment, they look for an opening. An open port is one of the openings that a hacker or threat actor looks for to access a digital network. That open port may be on a firewall, a server, or any network-connected computing device. Just as a single unlocked door can jeopardize your privacy and grant access to a physical building, a single open port can provide a point for hackers to breach your systems, exposing you to their malicious intents.

Change is relentless. Technology evolves at breakneck speed, and security practitioners face a constant barrage of updates, system tweaks, and new tools. This relentless stream of modifications can create a clutter of information, making it challenging to pinpoint what is truly important. Effectively filtering through this noise through effective change management is critical for maintaining operational efficiency and security.

In a significant development in the cybersecurity domain, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed a $2.95 million penalty against security camera vendor Verkada. The penalty stems from multiple security failures that allowed hackers to access live video feeds from 150,000 internet-connected cameras. These breaches exposed sensitive environments, including women's health clinics, psychiatric hospitals, prisons, and schools, highlighting the severe implications of inadequate security measures.

While artificial intelligence and big data steal the spotlight, a less glamorous but equally crucial discipline is quietly shaping the future of business: data governance. With European regulators imposing fines of up to 17.29 million pounds for data mismanagement, it’s clear that data governance is not just a compliance checkbox. It’s a strategic investment that can empower your organization with a tangible return on investment.

TrustedInstaller is a Windows system account with special high-level permissions allowing it to modify certain system files, folders, and registry settings. It also prevents any account including administrator accounts from modifying these files and folders. Trustedinstaller.exe is a Windows Module Installer service, a part of Windows Resource Protection (WRP), which restricts access to core system files and folders preventing them from being modified or replaced.

Researchers at Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 are tracking dozens of scam campaigns that are using deepfake videos to impersonate CEOs, news anchors, and high-profile government officials. Unit 42 believes a single threat actor is behind the scheme. The researchers discovered hundreds of domains used to spread these campaigns, each of which has been visited an average of 114,000 times. The goal of the operation is to spread investment scams and fake government-sponsored giveaways.