NIST SP 800-53 is a framework developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that provides guidelines and best practices for securing federal information systems and protecting the privacy of individuals whose information these systems handle.

An investigation dating back almost ten years has seen the extradition this week to the United States of a man suspected to be the head of one the world's most prolific Russian-speaking cybercriminal gangs. The UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) says it has been investigating a cybercriminal using the online handle "J P Morgan" since 2015, alongside parallel investigations run by the United States FBI and Secret Service.

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF), published by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is a widely used set of guidelines for mitigating organizational cybersecurity risks. It contains recommendations and standards to help organizations identify and detect cyberattacks and advice on how to respond, prevent, and recover from cybersecurity incidents.

We recently presented the webcast "Find Your Best Fit, Solving the Cybersecurity Framework Puzzle." Tyler Reguly, who is a senior manager of research and development at Fortra and a former professor at his alma mater, Fanshawe College, served as the host. Tyler offered his wisdom about integrating CIS Controls into a comprehensive cybersecurity plan for your organization.

Many people don’t realize that scams are complicated events orchestrated by scammers, which often include myriad persuasive techniques and take advantage of our individual characteristics and circumstances. While each scam varies in complexity, they typically progress through three broad stages, each influenced by factors that either heighten or diminish our vulnerability to becoming victims.

According to the FBI, billions of dollars have been lost through Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks in recent years, so you may well think that there is little in the way of good news. However, it has been revealed this week that police managed to recover more than US $40 million snatched in a recent BEC heist just two days after being told about it.

If you’ve been keeping up with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), you’ll know it has a new specification that revolves around network security controls. Let’s dig into the details.

When performing a security assessment, many folks will focus on asset management. This is an important first step, as it often reveals assets in the environment that were previously unknown. The next step in determining how to best secure the organization is to establish a baseline of the current state, and to define what the secure baseline should be. Too often, the existing baseline is far below the minimum standard.

Cybercriminals are notorious for their opportunism. No situation is off limits: whether they exploit conflict and human suffering, blackmail vulnerable individuals by threatening to leak therapy notes, or even bring healthcare organizations to their knees, cybercriminals will stop at nothing to make a quick buck. Hurricane season is a particularly lucrative time of year for cybercriminals.

Bot attacks constitute a major danger to businesses and individuals. For five consecutive years, the percentage of global web traffic connected to bad bots has increased, reaching 32% in 2023, a 1.8% increase from 30.2% in 2022, while human traffic represented only 50.4%. These nefarious bots are designed to breach a system, access confidential files illegally, and disrupt normal operations, which leads to severe financial and reputational consequences.