The outbreak of COVID-19 has led many businesses to transition a large number of employees to remote work. The shift could end up becoming a long-term trend; it’s expected to continue after the pandemic ends. Therefore, it is more important than ever to develop strategies for managing and responding to risks within your organization. Internal risk management procedures will need to adapt to the issue of insider threats, a challenge which is compounded by remote work.
If high-tech gadgets are on your holiday shopping list, it is worth taking a moment to think about the particular risks they may bring. Under the wrong circumstances, even an innocuous gift may introduce unexpected vulnerabilities. In this blog series, VERT will be looking at some of the Internet’s best-selling holiday gifts with an eye toward their possible security implications.
According to last year’s Gartner forecast, public cloud services are anticipated to grow to $USD 266.4 billion by the end of this year, up from $USD 227.8 billion just a year ago. Clearly, cloud computing is making its way to cloud nine, (See what I did there?) leveraging the sweet fruits of being in the spotlight for a decade. However, the threats to public cloud security are growing at the same rate.
Imagine that you are in an elevator in a high rise building when suddenly the elevator starts to plummet with no apparent stopping mechanism other than the concrete foundation below. While this may sound like something from a Hollywood movie, consider the idea that a securely tethered, fully functional elevator is as vulnerable as it is smart.
The notion that the time we are living in now is “unprecedented” is a common one, but historians and philosophers alike will happily note that things are rarely so different that we can’t learn a lot from the past. Despite IT often being dominated by forward-thinking individuals developing novel and innovative new designs, a lot of the problems and potential solutions for IT security are ones that have stood the test of time.
Malicious actors are targeting Apple. Although Apple introduced a notarization mechanism to scan and prevent malicious code from running on Apple devices, attackers have found ways to circumvent this process. Such Apple-notarized malware constitutes a threat to macOS users. Let us start by exploring what Apple notarization is. We will then discuss some recent examples of Apple-notarized malware and some prevention techniques.
So, you’re a ransomware gang and you want to ensure that you have caught the attention of your latest corporate victim. You could simply drop your ransom note onto the desktop of infected computers, informing the firm that their files have been encrypted. Too dull? You could lock infected PCs and display a ghoulish skull on a bright red background (most ransomware seems to insist upon using a shade of red.
The use of publicly accessible MQTT brokers is prevalent across numerous verticals and technology fields. I was able to identify systems related to energy production, hospitality, finance, healthcare, pharmaceutical manufacturing, building management, surveillance, workplace safety, vehicle fleet management, shipping, construction, natural resource management, agriculture, smart homes and far more.
One significant negative implication of technology’s continual evolution is proportional advancement in nefarious internet activities, particularly cyber attacks. The past few years have seen a rising sophistication in cyber attacks at levels never experienced before. The worst fact is that attacks will likely only continue to get more advanced. To fight them, enterprises need to be armed with greater security tools. Legacy approaches to cybersecurity no longer cut it.
Digital attack attempts in industrial environments are on the rise. In February 2020, IBM X-Force reported that it had observed a 2,000% increase in the attempts by threat actors to target Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Operational Technology (OT) assets between 2018 and 2010. This surge eclipsed the total number of attacks against organizations’ industrial environments that had occurred over the previous three years combined.
The coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic shifted the cybersecurity landscape. According to a PR Newswire release, the FBI tracked as many as 4,000 digital attack attempts a day during the pandemic. That’s 400% more than what it was prior to the pandemic. In response to these attacks, 70% of CISOs told McKinsey that they believed their security budgets would shrink by the end of 2020 but that they’d be asking for significant increases in 2021.
Compliance is very important to any organization. Organizations have many standards to choose from including PCI, CIS, NIST and so on. Oftentimes, there are also multiple regulations that are applicable in any country. So, organizations need to commit some time and resources in order to apply security standards and achieve compliance. Even so, organizations encounter challenges when it comes to maintaining their compliance with security controls for their workflows, processes and policies.
Recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s exam division issued a Risk Alert (the “Alert”) where it carried out several targeted cybersecurity investigations. The agency is now concerned with how there’s been an increase in a specific type of hack known as “credential stuffing.“ This cyberattack involves using stolen credentials to log into web-based systems and issue the unauthorized transfer of client funds.
An undisclosed number of customers of outdoor clothing retailer The North Face have had their passwords reset by the company, following a credential-stuffing attack. The company has revealed that on October 9, 2020, it became aware that hackers had used usernames and passwords stolen from a third-party website to gain unauthorised access to customer accounts.
The number of successful ransomware attacks on the education sector increased 388% in the third quarter of 2020. According to Emsisoft, the education sector reported 31 ransomware incidents in Q3 2020. That’s a 388% increase over the 8 incidents that occurred in the previous quarter. Nine of the 31 ransomware attacks disclosed in the third quarter of the year involved data exfiltration, a tactic which has become common with ransomware gangs over the past year.
One of the major improvements that the avionics industry is undergoing is an Internet of Things (IoT) upgrade. And this is inevitably affecting how airlines approach aircraft safety. From the beginning, safety has been paramount to the aviation industry. But while it is a welcome innovation, the incorporation of IoT devices in aircraft comes with attendant challenges that are not unrelated to cybersecurity risks. Safety for aircraft no longer rests upon physical security.
The cybersecurity industry is more well-informed than most, but even so, misconceptions arise and spread, helped along by the fact that the rise in cybersecurity incidents has led to substantial “pop culture” intrigue with all things cybersecurity. One of the more harmful of these misconceptions is the conflation of “hacker” and “attacker,” terms which are treated as interchangeable. They’re not.
Policy compliance within the information security space can be an exhausting concept to wrap our heads around. Writing a policy document, publishing it to staff and then staying hands-on to ensure it is followed in perpetuity is easily seen as an arduous, if not an impossible, task. Policies set the basis for every successful information security initiative.
In August 2020, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released its strategy to ensure the security and resilience of 5G infrastructure in the United States. Roughly every 10 years, the next generation of mobile communication networks is released, bringing faster speeds and increased capabilities.
As more infrastructure is moved to the cloud, there are many opportunities to reconsider your security stance and relationships to build ever stronger and more secure IT solutions whilst reducing your security costs. In this post, I’m looking to explore some ways that you can build out your alliances to be better prepared and battle-worthy on the digital security war front.
According to the Accenture State of Cybersecurity 2020 report, the average cost of a cyber attack for ‘non-leaders’ stands at $380,000 per incident. The report classifies organizations into ‘leaders’ and ‘non-leaders.’ The ‘leaders’ are those who set the bar for innovation and achieve high-performing cyber resilience. Given the rate of cyber attacks today, a security breach can easily run a non-resilient business into a major loss.
In the last quarter of 2019, researchers at ClearSky uncovered an attack operation that they dubbed the “Fox Kitten Campaign.” Iranian actors used this offensive to gain persistent access into the networks of dozens of companies operating in Israel and around the world across the IT, telecommunication, oil and gas, aviation, government and security sectors. These individuals were successful in their efforts because they employed a variety of attack vectors.
Is this Jackie Brown or is it Tripwire? The reality is, it’s both. This is a powerful scene in Jackie Brown because it illustrates what Tripwire is all about in making sure that a golden image can be maintained via secure configuration management. But how would you know if it was changed?
