With the CIA Triad, confidentiality commands much of the attention. Organizations fret over the unauthorized disclosure of their data, so they try to reduce the risks of that type of an incident. In so doing, however, enterprises commonly overlook the other two, integrity in particular. Ron Ross, a fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), thinks it’s a mistake for organizations to forget about integrity.

To say that data governance and data compliance are rapidly becoming areas of immense strategic importance for businesses would be an understatement. Governments worldwide already have data protection laws in place or are busy drafting these laws. Moreover, users have become increasingly aware and educated about their rights online, especially regarding what data businesses can collect about them.

A new report, which surveyed 1200 IT security professionals in 17 countries around the world, has shone a light on a dramatic rise in the number of organisations willing to pay ransoms to extortionists. The ninth annual Cyberthreat Defense Report (CDR), produced by CyberEdge Group, shows that not only has there been a substantial increase in the percentage of companies that pay ransoms, but the average size of ransomware payments also increased significantly.

In recent years, cyber espionage has been growing in magnitude and complexity. One of the most common targets is Industrial Control Systems (ICS) within critical infrastructure sectors. With many organizations relying more heavily on ICS networks, there has been an increase in threats and cyberattacks aimed at these systems. Not only do these attacks have an economic impact, but they also put national security at risk.

What does the term “Legacy Systems” mean to you? What image does it conjure up? Well, the word “legacy” can mean “something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past.” For example, the “legacy of the ancient philosophers”, or perhaps “legacy of ancient IT professionals.” A legacy is something that is passed from one generation to the next.

Environmental sustainability has become a significant concern for businesses today. Yet, many are not seeing the connection between sustainability efforts and cybersecurity. Despite how different they may seem, these two topics are intertwined. If environmental services and infrastructure don’t embrace better security, the consequences could be severe. If organizations hope to make a positive environmental impact, they need thorough, reliable cybersecurity.

To put the impact of cybercrime into perspective, let’s examine some important, and startling, numbers: Data breach costs increased from $3.86 million to $4.24 million in 2021. Every 39 seconds, there is an attack. About 90% of healthcare organizations have fallen victim to at least one breach within the past three years. The bottom line? Cyberattacks are frequent and costly, and COVID-19 has only fueled the fire with more employers adopting a remote work structure.

Last week, I attended the NotSoSecure Advanced Web Hacking training. While there were plenty of interesting topics taught, one that caught my attention was Out-of-Band (OOB) Data Exfiltration using DNS. Back in 2018, NotSoSecure published an Out of Band Exploitation (OOB) CheatSheet. In that document, they cover methods by which you can exfiltrate data. One of these uses files written to disk and multiple DNS queries to send large chunks of data.

A few months ago, a popular cybersecurity news organization posted an urgent notice on social media seeking help to recover their data after their blog was deleted. They announced that they had no backups and they were desperately trying to contact the site administrator to restore their blog collection. This was as maddening as it was embarrassing for the same reasons.

Originally envisaged as a convenient way to store web data, cookies emerged as a powerful marketing tool in the 2000s. For many years, digital marketers relied on cookies for data collection. However, in recent history, new privacy laws, browser features, and plug-ins have changed the landscape of data collection. Marketers have had to develop tools and strategies to ensure they meet compliance as the internet becomes more and more cookieless.