Pretexting is a type of social engineering attack in which the scammer manipulates their target into sharing private information or sending money by making up a story. Pretexting can occur on the phone, via text message, through email or in person. The goal of pretexting scams is typically to infect your device with malware, steal your money, breach private data and more.

For both white-hat and black-hat operators, the infamous “RockYou” lists have been a staple of the cyber-security landscape for well over a decade. They are lists of passwords, compiled and repeatedly expanded upon with data leaked over the years to form, in its most recent iteration, a list of approximately 10 billion plain-text passwords.

The endpoint combines both opportunity and risk for most organizations. While an essential hub for modern business operations and the tools employees use, it also is the primary attack surface for today’s adversaries: Nearly 90% of successful cyberattacks start at the endpoint.1 An endpoint protection platform (EPP) is the essential foundation to a strong cybersecurity strategy.

Over the last twelve months, the Internet security landscape has changed dramatically. Geopolitical uncertainty, coupled with an active 2024 voting season in many countries across the world, has led to a substantial increase in malicious traffic activity across the Internet. In this report, we take a look at Cloudflare’s perspective on Internet application security. This report is the fourth edition of our Application Security Report and is an official update to our Q2 2023 report.

Ransomware is more prolific and expensive than ever. Depending on the source you read, the average or median ransomware payment was at least several hundred thousand dollars to well over several million in 2023. Marsh, a leader in cybersecurity insurance, wrote that its customers paid an average of $6.5 million in ransom in 2023 (after just paying an average of $1.4 million in 2023).

Business leaders often see security as an insurance policy – a box that CISOs need to tick just in case the organization comes under attack. This make it difficult for InfoSec decision makers to justify the cost of upgrading defenses. After all, we already ticked that box – right? But when it comes to automated attacks, it’s not a matter of “if” bots will target your business. It’s not even a question of “when”.

Russian state-sponsored media organization RT has been using AI-powered software to generate realistic social media personas and spread disinformation for the past two years. This sophisticated tool, known as Meliorator, has been employed to target multiple countries, including the US, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine, and Israel. Meliorator's Capabilities.

In today's increasingly digital world, where businesses rely heavily on technology for core operations, the European Union's Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) establishes a comprehensive framework to manage Information and Communication Technology (ICT) related risks and ensure business continuity for financial institutions and critical service providers.

Mobile devices have become so integral to both business and personal lives that it is difficult to imagine a life without them. There’s more attack surface area as a result, and it’s IT’s job to mitigate the risk of cyberattacks. Insider threats are often involved, because employees and their devices can be one of the weakest links in the security chain.

A password manager is a solution that helps users securely store, manage and share their login credentials. Some password managers also aid in securely storing additional data such as passkeys, documents, files and images. You may be familiar with browser-based password managers, which are the ones built into your browser. Or if you’re an iPhone user, you may be more familiar with the password manager built into your phone called iCloud Keychain.