The holidays are here, and it’s the time of year when we all want to be on the “Nice List” While this is an enjoyable time of year for gift giving and gift receiving, it’s essential to do everything possible to stay on your CSO’s nice list. No one wants a cybersecurity lump of coal! Ensuring you’re on the nice list and not the naughty list can come down to a few simple tasks that keep your security in a safe space.

Over Christmas we relax and let our guard down as these are festive times to share with friends and family. Cybercriminals capitalize on this to launch attacks, with a spike in incidents on the days between Christmas and New Year. Threats involving social engineering to gain users’ trust are particularly common, hackers then spread fraud, ransomware and malware, enabling them to infect computers, steal private data and defraud users.

Whether you’re faced with consolidating your vendors or looking strategically at which vendors will aid with your future business goals, there comes a point when you must ask, “do you stay or do you go with what you know?” When it comes to deciding between cybersecurity vendors, it’s important to be open and consider the options.

In 2023, WatchGuard predicts that hackers will try to bypass your cybersecurity defenses using new techniques focused on business processes, identity, and artificial intelligence. This year, Corey and Marc square-off in a Predictions Challenge, offering different takes on potential hacks and attacks in these categories. Whose predictions will come true…only time will tell!

Cyberattacks consistently hit the headlines throughout the year, and they aren’t expected to slow down any time soon. While the intensity and impact change from one attack to the other, there are always a few that rank the highest in terms of size. We looked at the five biggest cyberattacks of 2022 and how they influenced users around the globe.

Passwords are the most widespread form of authentication on different platforms and systems. Still, companies and users often do not prioritize creating strong passwords and continue to opt for simple and very weak passwords in the eyes of cybercrime professionals.

Adopting robust processes to identify, classify, remediate, and mitigate vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them is a new imperative in corporate environments. An efficient, proactive cybersecurity strategy must be multi-layered and able to consider challenges from all angles. Although increasing the number of solutions deployed to protect the attack surface may appear to be the answer, the opposite is true.