An application programming interface (API) enables communication and data exchange between two separate software systems. The application (or service) layer sits between the presentation and database layers and lays out the rules of how users can interact with services, data or functions of the application. API testing is a software testing practice that tests the functionality, reliability, performance and security of an API.

Kroll’s 2021 Data Breach Outlook has identified a 140% increase in data breach notification cases from 2019 to 2020. Industries such as healthcare, education and financial services, which were the most impacted in 2019, continued to be hard hit in 2020 and, so far, in 2021 too. However, the greatest increases occurred in industries that were generally spared in 2019. Data attacks became broader and deeper during the COVID-19 pandemic, a trend that has continued throughout the recovery.

Kroll experts have noticed an increase in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks by cybercriminals seeking to turn a profit in two distinct incident types. First, many ransomware operators are now threatening and conducting DDoS attacks as an additional pressure tactic during the ransom negotiation process. Second, also known as ransom denial of service (RDoS), attackers threaten DDoS attacks that will take down an organization’s public-facing services unless a ransom is paid.

From healthcare to education to critical infrastructure, nobody seems to be safe from cyber attacks. Not even video game creators. News broke in early June that video game giant Electronic Arts was one of the latest victims of a major breach. At first glance, this is just another story of hackers breaking into a victim and finding their way to a sizable pay day. Nothing new here. Plenty of attacks happen every week, right? However it was the way that the attackers got in that was interesting.

With DevOps teams moving at ever greater speed, it’s vital for security teams to be deeply involved at all stages of the software development and delivery lifecycle. Breaking down silos between development, operations, and security teams ensures that security considerations are not overlooked, that vulnerabilities are caught early, and that security checkpoints do not slow down the delivery process.

Ecommerce is a popular business model. Many people are getting into this business and looking for ways to secure early retirement from typical 9 to 5 jobs. With the right ideas and execution, there is a good chance that this will happen, but making it in eCommerce isn’t that easy as it was in the past. Yes, there are more options than ever in terms of delivery, logistics, storage, and creating an online store.

There’s no doubt that an analyst’s ability to efficiently share curated threat intelligence has a significant impact on the success of their organization’s overall security operations. In fact, this capability is so important that removing barriers to sharing threat information is the first requirement outlined in the Executive Order issued by the White House on May 12, 2021.

When introducing Open Policy Agent (OPA) to application developers and platform engineers, I normally end my presentation with a bulleted list detailing what I think are the best steps to take to start learning OPA and its declarative policy language, Rego.