We find ourselves in strange times. In response to the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, organizations have swiftly closed their offices and mandated that all employees begin working from home. This development has created security challenges with which many organizations are still grappling.
Scams leveraging coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) as a lure have stolen tens of millions of dollars from their victims. As of April 16, 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had received 20,334 consumer reports of fraud attempts pertaining to the coronavirus since the beginning of the year. Those attacks that proved successful had caused their victims more than $15 million in damages at the time of writing. Unfortunately, both of those figures are likely to grow as time goes on.
Building an effective and resilient organization on a budget isn’t a small task. When it comes to cybersecurity budgets, there are many different aspects that need to be considered. Thankfully, alignment with industry best practice and recognized security frameworks adds a small amount of clarity to this challenge.
It’s hard not to say that 5G technology brings a lot of benefits. 5G entails faster download speeds, and yes, if you have a 5G-enabled handset, you could hear and appreciate the speed increases for videos, gaming, etc. However, 5G provides added benefits that go way above those for the everyday user. Let’s take a look at the high speed and low latency of 5G. There are a lot of areas or industries that require pinpoint accuracy and precision.
Anyone who has had any experience on the offensive side of security has had fun with privilege escalation. There’s something exciting about exploiting a system to the point of getting root-level access. Since I have spent most of my time on the defensive side of the fence, the magic of escalating privileges rested in Exploiting for Privilege Escalation or stealing an administrator’s credentials.
Millions of people have moved onto the Zoom video-conferencing platform as the coronavirus pandemic has forced them to work from their homes. According to Zoom’s own statistics, its daily usage has soared from approximately 10 million daily users in December to over 200 million today.
We’ve heard a lot about the drastic measures that organizations in North America and Western Europe are taking to protect their employees against the coronavirus. But as we all know, COVID-19 is a global pandemic. Organizations all over the world now find themselves in a position where they need to take action on their policies and procedures. Take the Middle East, for instance.
On March 27, 2020, President Trump signed an unprecedented $2 trillion stimulus package into law. The legislation received support from both chambers of the U.S. Congress for its goal to minimize the economic effects of the global coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, reported CNN. A key component of that package was the direction to provide economic relief to Americans in the form of stimulus checks of varying amounts depending upon their income.
Digital attacks continue to weigh on the minds of industrial cybersecurity (ICS) professionals. In a 2019 survey, 88% of ICS experts told Tripwire they were worried about what a digital attack could mean for their industrial organization. The rate was even higher for those working in the manufacturing and oil & gas sectors at 89% and 97%, respectively. Such widely held concern suggests a need for industrial organizations to make greater investments in their digital security posture.
Acknowledging recent reports of ransomware targeting educational institutions, it is no wonder that there have also been articles that attempt to lure in readers with “free” tools. What is disappointing is that these “free” tools are little more than marketing pieces that direct you to click on readily available documentation from Microsoft or Google.
