Earlier this week we had the pleasure of hosting a regional API Security Summit in Chicago (well, actually in Lombard). These summits bring together the local cybersecurity community for half-day of API Security-focused content, including expert speakers and panelists. While this isn’t the first time we’ve organized an event like this, it was memorable for the quality of content and participants.

In the evolving landscape of digital threats, two growing concerns are proving costly for organizations worldwide: insecure APIs and bot attacks. A recent report highlights that these vulnerabilities have escalated dramatically, with global firms suffering financial losses between $94 billion to $186 billion annually. The exponential rise in API adoption, combined with AI-powered bot attacks, has created a perfect storm for cybercriminals to exploit.

In today's fast-paced digital landscape, security vulnerabilities are constant concerns for organizations that rely on cloud-based services and distributed systems. Recently, GitLab addressed a critical security flaw that affected both its Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE). This flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-45409, has been categorized as a critical vulnerability with a CVSS score of 10.0, the highest possible score, signifying its severity.

The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) is about to shake things up in the EU, and if you’re not ready, it’s time to get moving.

Learn about the impact of mean time to detect (MTTD) on incident response effectiveness.

New analysis of blockchain activity shows scammers are needing less time to obtain crypto payments and are seeing higher payoffs per scam. I continue to repeatedly cover breakdowns of cybercrime activity from the folks at Chainalysis because it represents an unbiased view that some security vendors may inherently have (because their data is based on what their solutions do and don’t discover).

Researchers at Barracuda have observed an increase in phishing attacks that abuse popular content creation and collaboration platforms. These include online graphic design platforms and document-sharing services widely used by educational institutions and businesses. “The analysts found that attackers are sending out emails from these platforms, featuring legitimate-looking posts, designs, and documents, but with embedded phishing links,” the researchers write.

Imagine the worst-case scenario: a healthcare security leader receives a call in the dead of night, informing them that their network has been breached and all systems are down. Even a minor data breach in the healthcare sector can jeopardize patients’ personal health information (PHI), leading to identity theft, medical fraud, financial loss, or even the disruption of critical, life-saving medical services.

At swampUP 2024 in Austin just a few days ago, we explored the EveryOps Matters approach with the crowd of developers, driven by a consolidated view from their companies’ boardrooms and 2024 CIO surveys. The message was clear: “EveryOps” isn’t just a strategy or tech trend — it’s a fundamental, ongoing mindset shift that must drive developers’ proactive actions in an ever-evolving software landscape. It’s not optional; it’s essential.