Imagine the worst-case scenario: a healthcare security leader receives a call in the dead of night, informing them that their network has been breached and all systems are down. Even a minor data breach in the healthcare sector can jeopardize patients’ personal health information (PHI), leading to identity theft, medical fraud, financial loss, or even the disruption of critical, life-saving medical services.

At swampUP 2024 in Austin just a few days ago, we explored the EveryOps Matters approach with the crowd of developers, driven by a consolidated view from their companies’ boardrooms and 2024 CIO surveys. The message was clear: “EveryOps” isn’t just a strategy or tech trend — it’s a fundamental, ongoing mindset shift that must drive developers’ proactive actions in an ever-evolving software landscape. It’s not optional; it’s essential.

Top tips is a weekly column where we highlight what’s trending in the tech world today and list ways to explore these trends. This week, we’re looking at four ways you can minimize your attack surface. Organizational IT infrastructure is now more spread out, multi-layered, and complex than ever.

The “Zero-Day” term highlights the critical nature of the threat, as the system remains exposed until the vulnerability is addressed. Attackers aim to exploit this gap before a fix can be implemented. Below are some terms to clarify.

In today’s interconnected world, cyber threats continue to evolve at a rapid pace. As businesses grow more reliant on digital systems and services, the cyber security attack surface—the totality of an organisation’s digital exposure—has expanded, increasing the risks faced by security teams. The complex nature of these threats calls for a more adaptive and responsive approach to security, particularly in identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.

If you give attackers an inch, they will take a mile. That’s essentially what happens when there are minor flaws in your web applications – these flaws leave one inch of your system’s doors open. Before you know it, sophisticated threats like directory traversal come crawling. Currently, there are 55 different directory traversal vulnerabilities in CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.

Security Colony may not have the name recognition of some of Trustwave’s other security products and services, but when experts discuss and measure Trustwave's strengths, this repository of knowledge is almost inevitably brought up in the conversation. For example, over the last several years, the industry analyst firms IDC, Frost & Sullivan, and ISG have all called out Security Colony as a primary reason why each selected Trustwave for various accolades.

In today's digital landscape, developers face mounting pressure to deliver secure applications within tight deadlines. But with faster release cycles, it becomes challenging to prioritize security. Security testing needs to work and scale within your DevOps speed and release frequency. Web applications are highly targeted assets, accounting for 40% of breaches within organizations, according to the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report.