Businesses are currently witnessing improvements in cybersecurity capabilities, thanks to advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI). However, the progress is accompanied by a parallel increase in the threat and sophistication of cyber-attacks, especially when the right event monitoring and threat detection tools are not utilized. Deloitte's latest research on security operations indicates that in 2023, 12.5% of businesses experienced more than one security event.

Cyber threats are getting smarter and are going after businesses of all kinds. Your first line of defense against these threats should be network firewall security, which protects your private data and systems. By filtering data based on set security rules, firewalls create a wall between trusted internal networks and untrusted external ones. A study from Cybersecurity Ventures says that by 2025, cybercrime will cost the world $10.5 trillion every year.

As organizations increasingly rely on external vendors and enterprise buying patterns continue to decentralize, the challenge of managing risk associated with third parties becomes critical. Unfortunately, even uncovering vendor relationships within an organization can be a struggle, with over 80% of workers admitting to using non-approved SaaS applications. This ‘Shadow IT’ is not only frustrating; it introduces tremendous risk.

AgentTesla is a Windows malware written in.NET, designed to steal sensitive information from the victim's system. It’s considered commodity malware given its accessibility and relatively low cost. Commodity malware poses a significant threat as it enables less sophisticated cybercriminals to conduct various types of cyberattacks without requiring extensive technical knowledge. AgentTesla has been a persistent and widespread threat since its emergence in 2014.

The European Union’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) is set to go into effect on January 17, 2025, and with it will come new information security and risk management requirements placed on EU financial service providers and their associated critical third-party technology entities.

Browser extensions are a classic shadow IT concern. Assessing the reputation and security of a browser extension is crucial before installing it on a company computer, as extensions often have wide-ranging permissions that could be abused for data theft or other malicious activities. In an open environment style company, extensions generate significant shadow IT risk that needs to be managed and addressed.

Ivanti released a patch for a critical vulnerability discovered in Ivanti Endpoint Manager (EPM) that could allow for remote code execution (RCE). This vulnerability is being tracked as CVE-2023-39336 with a CVSS score of 9.6 (Critical), which is not yet actively exploited. All versions of Ivanti EPM prior to Service Update 5 are impacted. Ivanti credits security researcher hir0t for the responsible disclosure.