When malware sneaks inside your network, it needs to communicate back to the internet whether to exfiltrate sensitive datasets it found, accept commands of its evil masters or even simply let them know it has successfully infiltrated your infrastructure (with ransomware being one of the rare exceptions that doesn’t need such connection).
Cybersecurity and cyber security awareness are critical to business survival in an era dominated by growing virtual crime. It might be true that most people know about costly identity theft and reputation-destroying network hacks. Organizations spend millions every year trying to defend themselves against cybercrime, but still, attacks seem to be more and more successful.
As someone who has worked for their entire career in the Managed Network Services space, if I had to pick out, over the past five years, two of the most impactful shifts in managing technology, it would be a shift from traditional, in-house servers to solutions where 3rd parties build “clouds” to provide similar business functions as well as the increased pressure on organizations to have comprehensive cyber-security strategies as threats become more significant.
Automotive giant Honda has shut down an exposed database that contained sensitive information about the security — specifically the weak points — of its internal network. Security researcher Justin Paine discovered the sensitive information after scouring the internet with Shodan, a specialist search engine which can be used to find exposed internet-enabled devices such as webcams, routers and IP phones.
Digital attacks targeting water facilities are on the rise. In its 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report, for instance, Verizon Enterprise disclosed an incident in which bad actors breached a water treatment plant and altered the levels of chemicals used to treat tap water at that facility. News of this incident came approximately two years after the ONWASA water facility revealed it had suffered a ransomware attack that had disrupted its internal computer system in the wake of Hurricane Florence.
Are you going to Black Hat USA 2019? If you are, you’re no doubt counting down the days until 3-8 August when you can join the thousands upon thousands of security professionals at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. But if you’ve been to any of its other 21 iterations, you probably know that this conference can be a bit overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re doing. That’s why it’s good to go in knowing all that you can do as an attendee.
