The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) is a United States federal law that aims to enhance corporate transparency and accountability. Signed into law on July 30th, 2002, the Act came in response to a slew of major corporate accounting scandals, including those involving Enron and WorldCom, that came to light in the early 2000s. Its primary aim is to enhance corporate transparency and accountability, ensuring companies adhere to strict financial reporting standards and maintain effective internal controls.

In recent years, the security of the United States' critical infrastructure has become a pressing concern, particularly in the oil and gas sector, due to its pivotal role in the nation's economy and energy supply. Recognizing this, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) implements several new directives in July each year aimed at enhancing the security and resilience of vital energy infrastructure against various threats, including cyber-attacks and physical disruptions.

Enterprises today rely on partners and vendors to help manage their data. Some companies depend on third-party infrastructure for day-to-day operations, so understanding the regulations and protection standards that a service provider is promising to uphold is very important.

Security configuration management (SCM) is all about making sure your security systems do what you think they’re doing. In tennis, there is something called an unforced error. This is when a player loses points for a mistake they made themselves, not due to the skill of the other opponent. In a big way, security misconfigurations are those unforced errors on the security side or instances in which we give attackers a free win. Let/node/29512/’s stop that.

You can’t do large-scale business in 2024 without having a successful, well-run IT infrastructure. Arguably, it’s difficult to do any sort of business well (large or small) without tuning your IT capabilities to your business objectives. This allows them to work as one, not against each other. COBIT is a framework created by ISACA (International Systems Audit and Control Association) to do this very task.

Historically, Mac users haven't had to worry about malware as much as their Windows-using cousins. Although malware targeting Apple devices actually predates viruses written for PCs, and there have been some families of malware that have presented a significant threat for both operating systems (for instance, the Word macro viruses that hit computers hard from 1995 onwards), it is generally the case that you're simply a lot less likely to encounter malware on your Mac than you are on your Windows PC.

The way in which we interact with applications has changed dramatically over the years. Enterprises use applications in day-to-day operations to manage their most sensitive data and control access to system resources. Instead of traversing a labyrinth of networks and systems, attackers today see an opening to turn an organization's application against it to bypass network security controls and compromise sensitive data.

DDoS attacks have become an annoyance most companies assume they may have to deal with at some point. While frustrating, minor website disruptions from small-scale hacktivist campaigns rarely create substantial business impacts. However, a particularly insidious DDoS spinoff has emerged over the past decade – one aimed at blackmail. This evolutionary milestone stems from what's called Ransom DDoS (RDDoS), likely one of the most outrageous cybercrime weapons targeting businesses globally since 2015.

Also known as change monitoring, File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) solutions monitor and detect file changes that could indicate a cyberattack. They determine if and when files change, who changed them, and what can be done to restore files if those changes are unauthorized. As such, FIM solutions are useful for detecting malware and achieving compliance with regulations like PCI DSS and are a crucial part of any enterprise security stack.

The story of cybersecurity involves bad actors and security professionals constantly trying to thwart each other, often using newer and more advanced measures in an attempt to outdo each other. In recent years, especially, cybercriminals have evolved to include sophisticated technology and advanced tactics in their attacks.

Cybersecurity's role in geopolitics is growing more significant by the day. In a world of increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, governments worldwide are recognizing the impact digital attacks can have on national security, trade, and infrastructure. This has never been more evident than with the recent introduction of the Protecting Investments in Our Ports Act by U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Gary Peters (D-MI), along with U.S.

No-one would be bold enough to say that the ransomware problem is receding, but a newly-published report by Microsoft does deliver a slither of encouraging news amongst the gloom. And boy do we need some good news - amid reports that 389 US-based healthcare institutions were hit by ransomware last year - more than one every single day.

The threat of cyberattacks is at an all-time high. In fact, research shows that worldwide cybercrime costs are anticipated to reach $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. Cybercriminals threaten all, as 43% of cyberattacks target small enterprises. The rise of these threats underscores the importance of a robust cyber defense strategy, and one key way to do that is through layered cybersecurity solutions.

We all know that it is a question of when you will be compromised and not if you will be compromised. It is unavoidable. The goal of CIS Control 17 is to ensure that you are set up for success when that inevitable breach occurs. If an organization is neither equipped nor prepared for that potential data breach, they are not likely to succeed in responding to the threat.

The National Information Assurance (NIA) Policy is a framework for offering organizations a foundation for information security management. It was designed and developed to aid organizations with the necessary steps to ensure information security, from assessing and classifying risk to choosing and implementing controls for mitigation.

New legislation is on the horizon in Australia that is set to change the way businesses deal with ransomware attacks. This law, not unlike the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA) in the US, aims to improve transparency when it comes to paying ransoms. There's no question that cybercrime is on the rise in the country.

Depending on the industry, location, and business operations of your organization, you may have any number of cybersecurity regulations to comply with. Keeping track of each law that affects your organization and the various requirements associated with them can be overwhelming, but the consequences of noncompliance are often far worse.

In the second quarter of 2024, 877,536 phishing attacks were reported, a marked decrease from the 963,994 attacks reported in the first quarter of the same year. However, this might not be a reason to celebrate just yet, as this reduction might be due to the fact that email providers have made it increasingly difficult for users to report phishing attempts.

Resilience is one of the hottest topics of the moment, but for good reason. For most organizations, suffering a cyberattack is a matter of when, not if. Attackers are, lamentably, always one step ahead of defenders and, as such, responding to an attack and maintaining business operations have become arguably more important than protecting an organization in the first place.

Penetration testing is something that more companies and organizations should be considering as a necessary expense. I say this because, over the years, the cost of data breaches and other forms of malicious intrusions and disruptions are getting costlier. Per IBM Security’s “Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024,” the average cost of a breach has increased 10% year over year, with the healthcare sector having the highest cost breaches for 14 consecutive years.

Cybersecurity skill gaps and shortages are often cited as a major reason that many organizations fail to implement effective security tools and practices. The UK’s Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT) conducts an annual survey of the cybersecurity labor market in order to measure trends over time. This year’s research is largely in line with previous years, though there are changes and improvements in several areas.

Breaches, be they accidental, careless, or malicious, are an inevitability for most companies. Depending on the industry, the consequences could range from something as minor as a little public embarrassment to hefty fines, lawsuits, expensive remediation actions, and loss of customer confidence (and, with that - business). The question is, how can compliance use this to its advantage and get a share of the security budget before something happens?

Container security involves protecting containerized environments and the applications they run. As containers package applications and their dependencies, they offer consistency across different environments. However, this also raises security concerns, such as ensuring the integrity of container images, securing the runtime environment, and managing vulnerabilities in container engines and orchestrators.

International law enforcement agencies have scored another victory against the LockBit gang, with a series of arrests and the seizure of servers used within the notorious ransomware group's infrastructure. As Europol has detailed in a press release, international authorities have continued to work on "Operation Cronos", and now arrested four people, seized servers, and implemented sanctions against an affiliate of the ransomware group.

Human nature tells us that we’ll go for the low-hanging fruit before climbing a tree. Since threat actors are (after all) human, the same applies to them. Since databases are particularly vulnerable to many lower-level attacks, they are constantly at high risk. From misconfiguration to credential theft, these repositories of sensitive information can be preyed upon by even the most nascent cybercriminals.

Have you ever stopped to consider all of the components that comprise a working automobile? Even a cursory examination reveals more parts than might be considered when we turn the ignition key. However, many of these components are useless when detached from the full product. A steering wheel without a car is not exactly an efficient mode of transportation.