Every business activity involves risk, so simply viewing and measuring risk at a high level isn’t enough. InfoSec teams also need to identify and categorize risks as they relate to individual business activities and the context around them. Managing risk is all about delivering insights so that key stakeholders – including executives and the board – can better understand their IT risk posture and use that knowledge to make better business decisions. But where to start?

In today’s fast-paced world, mobility, connectivity and data access are essential. As organizations grow and add more workloads, containers, distributed endpoints and different security solutions to protect them, security can quickly become complex. Modern attacks and adversary tradecraft target vulnerable areas to achieve their objectives. Threats can originate at the endpoint to attack the cloud, or cloud-based threats can attack vulnerable endpoints.

A new vulnerability, CVE-2021-342 has been discovered in the Splunk indexer component, which is a commonly utilized part of the Splunk Enterprise suite. We’re going to explain the affected components, the severity of the vulnerability, mitigations you can put in place, and long-term considerations you may wish to make when using Splunk.

It’s mid-morning. You’re scanning the daily news while enjoying a coffee break. You come across yet another headline broadcasting a supply chain data breach. Your heart skips a quick, almost undetectable, beat. You have the technology in the headline in your stack. You set aside your coffee and begin furiously scanning through the overwhelming number of alerts triggered across all your technologies.

The General Data Protection Regulation Act (GDPR) requires Data Controllers to establish a written agreement with the Data Processor stating the terms and conditions for the data processing activity. So, before getting into a contract with the Data Processor, a Data Processing Agreement must be signed between both parties regarding the conduct of processing personal data.

As Morgan Stanley Bank now knows, ignoring certified data destruction policies can be disastrous. The bank made news in 2020 when it was fined over $60 million for not using proper oversight when decommissioning two of its data centers. Regulators found that the organization had not addressed the risks associated with decommissioning hardware effectively.

The era we live in requires the digitalization of all subjects interacting with people, from giant companies to small-scale organizations. It is unquestionable that this trend has made significant contributions to the data collection process. But the larger the volume of data collected, the greater the risk of a security breach. For this reason, it is essential to control the security and transparency of personal data.

The rise in cybercrime has accelerated 600% over the last three years, and shows no signs of slowing down. Even though the pandemic accelerated online services, data, and particularly vulnerable home networks, the truth is that cybercriminals are caught only 0.03 percent of the time. That rate, combined with the fact that the average cost of a data breach stands at $3.86 million makes for an attractive calculation for cybercriminals.

The Splunk Threat Research Team is actively monitoring the emergence of new threats in the cyber domain of ongoing geopolitical events. As we have shown previously in several releases, including HermeticWiper and CaddyWiper, actors in this campaign are deploying, updating, and modifying stealthier malicious payloads. On March 17th, 2022, the Ukraine CERT discovered a new malicious payload named DoubleZero Destructor (CERT-UA #4243).

Nowadays, building a zero-trust network has become a standard protocol in the era of evolving business models, multiple workforce platforms, cloud adoption, and increased device connectivity. But, if a business continues to work with at-risk organizations, the zero-trust policy crumbles. Working with well-secured third parties that uphold a zero-trust strategy is crucial for optimal cybersecurity within any business.