The US Government has underlined once again that it continues to strongly discourage organisations hit by ransomware from giving in to extortion demands. In an updated advisory, the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has called upon businesses not to pay ransoms, and to focus on cybersecurity measures that can prevent or mitigate ransomware attacks.
Knowing who has credentials, how those credentials are granted, and how they are being used is the foundation of any secure environment. It begins with user accounts and the credentials they use. Maintaining a thorough inventory of all accounts and verifying any changes to those accounts as authorized and intentional vs unintended is paramount to establishing a secure environment and this includes service accounts.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Act is a broad set of data privacy rules that define how an organization must handle and protect the personal data of citizens of the European Union (EU). The Regulation also outlines the way that organizations can report a data breach. Articles 33 and 34 outline the requirements for breach notification; however, most businesses are still unaware of their responsibilities.
Data breaches have reached a fever pitch over the last few years. The rapid frequency of successful attacks coupled with the rising costs to businesses has raised attention at the highest levels of global governments. In the past, breaches were relatively “localized,” that is, they affected the targeted company only. However, the newer attacks have disrupted entire supply chains.
Cybersecurity has become a critical concern in every business sector nowadays due to organizations’ growing dependency on technologies. Research by Immersive Lab reported that in 2019 there were more than 20,000 new vulnerabilities. Not only that, TechRepublic reported that global companies experienced a 148% spike in ransomware attacks after COVID-19 hit the world. So, for most organizations, the question isn’t who will be the target of a cyber attack.
In 2021, there are two words that can send a cold chill down the spine of any Cybersecurity professional and business leader; Phishing and Ransomware. Research carried out by the Data Analytics and training company CybSafe, identified that 22% of all cyber incidents reported in the first quarter of 2021 were ransomware attacks. According to the figures obtained from the Information Commissioners Office, they are up by 11% compared to 2020.
The events of 2020 helped to accelerate the convergence between information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) for many organizations. As reported by Help Net Security, for instance, two-thirds of IT and OT security professionals said in a 2020 survey that their IT and OT networks had become more interconnected in the wake of the pandemic.
Tripwire Enterprise (TE) is at its heart a baselining engine. It’s been built to take information, create a baseline of it, and show when that baseline has changed. (It’s called a “version” in TE terms.) TE starts with a baseline version designated by an organization’s security teams. At some point, a change version with new information (file, registry entry, RSoP, command output, or data captured in some other way) emerges.
Most fresh installs of operating systems or applications come with pre-configured settings that are usually insecure or not properly configured with security in mind. Use the leverage provided by multiple frameworks such as CIS Benchmarks or NIST NCP to find out if your organization needs to augment or adjust any baselines to become better aligned with policies your organization is trying to adhere to.
As part of our upcoming attendance at the International Cyber Expo & International Security Expo, we were lucky enough to sponsor The Cyber Security Webinar Series with Nineteen Group and Grey Hare Media. Both Philip Ingram MBE and Emanuel Ghebreyesus, strategic account director for Tripwire, spoke about several topics including: You can read some of the highlights from their conversation below.
