We have recently concluded the first quarter of 2023, and there have already been over 250 patches for the many components and flavours of Microsoft’s operating systems, as well as a handful of patches for Adobe, Apple, and Android. If you are a computer professional, you have also had to patch various other enterprise-class hardware and software assets in your environment. With all of the technology we have today, installing software updates has become a near-daily, full-time activity.

Data breaches and cyberattacks have become worryingly commonplace in today’s digital world, and cybersecurity and cyber resilience are now crucial for every organization, small and large. These two strategies work together to protect data at different stages of a cyberattack. Ideally, organizations should rely on both to achieve maximum cyber protection.

Thinking about your own network isn’t enough to keep your business safe and profitable. As more buyers, sellers, and partners collaborate ever more closely across the world, supply chain IT risks are rising with no slowdown in sight. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, supply chain attacks surpassed malware incidents by 40% in 2022.1 There’s never been more at risk for wide collections of companies that depend on each other.

As a small business owner, you wear many hats. You're the CEO, the accountant, the salesperson, and the HR manager. With so much on your plate, cybersecurity might not be at the top of your priority list. But it should be. Small businesses are a prime target for cybercriminals, and a security breach can be devastating to your company's reputation and financial health. The good news is that there are affordable steps you can take to protect your business.

The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model is a conceptual framework developed by the International Standards Organization (ISO). It has been in use for over 40 years, and is cited in every computer network book. It is also a favorite resource for just about every cybersecurity exam. The OSI model is represented in seven layers that help us understand how communications between computer systems occur.

Those words were spoken by the US National Security Advisor way back in 2005, and it is remarkable to see how prescient they were. The economy is not only supported by the cyber world, but that world is entirely data driven. Data has become a primary focus, not just for regulatory fodder, but for business survival.

Businesses should patch their TP-Link routers as soon as possible, after the revelation that a legendary IoT botnet is targeting them for recruitment. The notorious Mirai botnet, which hijacks control of vulnerable IoT devices, is now exploiting TP-Link Archer AX21 routers to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

If you’re building an application, you want to ensure it’s reliable, consistent, and rapidly deployable in any cloud environment. That’s what containers are used for — packaging instructions into a digital object for reuse. Without them, you’ll struggle to run some application components from server to server. But when you deploy containers, there are security risks that you should be aware of and can mitigate.

Organizations embracing cloud environments must understand that cloud applications and services have become popular targets for cybercriminals. A few notable and inherent risks with cloud deployments include.

Think of all the different points within your organization that provide access to information. That could be your website, the mobile version of your application, your Slack instance, and so much more. It’s a list that gets very long, very quickly. All of those endpoints, both physical and digital, make up the attack surface of your organization.