As most in the industry are aware, a defective content update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor for Windows led to a global cascade of system outages affecting critical industry sectors such as transportation, banking, healthcare, and public safety. Many enterprises and government agencies around the world are still actively managing their response to this incident.

In the course of a major research rollout like my recent whitepaper on KEV vulnerabilities, I frequently end up doing some bit of analysis that doesn’t make it into the final doc. Usually, it is because I am dealing with limited space and attention spans, and I gotta stop sometime. The stuff that gets cut is usually not terribly compelling or surprising or is maybe more an artifact of the particular bias in our sample or is only interesting to a very small audience.

Economic pressures have been leading to greater budget scrutiny and justification of resources for cybersecurity teams. Boards are asking harder questions around cyber risk and exposure. Not only are CISOs working hard to justify and measure their program, they’ve had to become more data-driven in the way they align investments towards company outcomes and business objectives.

On June 20th, 2024, the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced the prohibition of Kaspersky Lab, Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of a Russia-based anti-virus software and cybersecurity company, from directly or indirectly providing anti-virus software and cybersecurity products or services in the U.S. or to U.S. persons. The prohibition also applies to Kaspersky Lab, Inc.’s affiliates, subsidiaries, and parent companies.

As the NIS2 Directive reshapes the cybersecurity landscape across Europe, a key focus for organisations is understanding and managing their critical suppliers. The directive mandates heightened scrutiny and tighter controls around these essential entities, underscoring their importance in your overall cybersecurity strategy. But the pivotal question remains: How do you determine who qualifies as a 'critical supplier'?

As our 2024 Rating Algorithm Update (RAU) goes live on July 10, 2024, we wanted to share some research that validates this update and reinforces the importance of the RAU process. As we noted in our announcement blog, after RAU 2024, remediated Patching Cadence findings will impact the Bitsight Rating for 90 days after the last vulnerable observation instead of 300 days.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this year, I am trying to do a monthly blog post on what might be termed “Major Security Events”. In particular this year, I’ve written about the Ivanti meltdown, Lockbit ransomware, and the xz backdoor. These events usually emerge cacophonously and suddenly into the cybersecurity landscape, and generally get everyone’s attention “real quick”.

Bitsight excels at using externally available data to paint a detailed picture of organizations’ digital footprint, including assets, organizational hierarchy, third-party relationships, and risk posture. But as more IT resources shift to cloud service providers, gaining complete and precise visibility into your external attack surface becomes increasingly complex.

At the end of May 2024, the largest ever operation against botnets, dubbed Operation Endgame, targeted several botnets including IcedID, SystemBC, Pikabot, Smokeloader, Bumblebee, and Trickbot. This operation significantly impacted the botnets by compromising their operations and shutting down their infrastructure. Although Latrodectus was not mentioned in the operation, it was also affected and its infrastructure went offline.

Digital relationships with third-party vendors increase opportunities for growth, but they also increase opportunities for cyberattacks — a recent study found that 61% of U.S. companies said they have experienced a data breach caused by one of their vendors or third parties (up 12% since 2016). Implementing a vendor risk management strategy aligned with frameworks like the NIST security framework can help mitigate these risks.