The COVID-19 crisis prompted a spike in ransomware attacks, which was expected, to say at least. In fact, Checkpoint research shows that in Q3 2020, there was a 50% increase in ransomware attacks compared to earlier periods of this year. And while this wave of ransomware attacks was anticipated, not all organizations were reinforced enough to repel these attacks with proper resources and technologies.

Malware detection is an important part of the Netskope Security Cloud platform, complete with a secure access service edge (SASE) architecture, that we provide to our customers. Malware is malicious software that is designed to harm or exploit devices and computer systems. Various types of malware, such as viruses, worms, Trojan horses, ransomware, and spyware, remain a serious problem for corporations and government agencies.

Can you enumerate every single network socket which can be used to hack into your cloud environment and steal your data? When counting, are you including the laptops of people who already authenticated and have access? The purpose of opening with this question is not to instill fear. Trying to answer it probably leads to “it’s complicated” and the complexity of access is what this article will cover. Complexity is our collective enemy in the computing industry.

The FBI and CISA (the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) have jointly issued an advisory to organisations, warning about an increase in the number of attacks coinciding with weekends and holidays. With the Labor Day weekend rapidly approaching, the agencies have reminded businesses to be especially vigilant, remain diligent about their network defences, and “engage in preemptive threat hunting on their networks to search for signs of threat actors.”