Gartner® recently predicted that “By 2025, 80% of enterprises will have adopted a strategy to unify web, cloud services and private application access from a single vendor’s security service edge (SSE) platform."* If you don't know what SSE is, you should read my colleague Sundaram Lakshaman’s breakdown of SSE and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). The gist of it is that SSE is the convergence of security technologies inside the SASE framework.

Do you remember when viruses used to be funny and not such a big deal? Maybe a cat would constantly pop up on your desktop or you’d get spammed with hundreds of ads for male enhancement pills? Well, the early 2000s are over (yes, it’s depressing) and malware has advanced far beyond its somewhat quirky origins. Today, viruses have become extremely sophisticated and it’s difficult to know for sure if your files have been infected or not. So what is malware exactly?

Forescout’s Vedere Labs, in partnership with CyberMDX, have discovered a set of seven new vulnerabilities affecting PTC’s Axeda agent, which we are collectively calling Access:7. Three of the vulnerabilities were rated critical by CISA, as they could enable hackers to remotely execute malicious code and take full control of devices, access sensitive data or alter configurations in impacted devices.

Here in the United States, we often focus on the cybersecurity readiness of the federal government. The reality is that state and local government departments are just as, if not more vulnerable to cyber attacks. Nearly one quarter of their employees use personal devices for work, where security teams have little visibility, enabling threat actors to execute phishing and other malicious activities. These risks will only continue to grow as in-person services continue remotely.

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) has taken over the world because it’s easy. With just a few clicks, business units can find an application that’s suitable for a particular business process. They can subscribe to it and immediately start using it — and the IT department might never find out.

If your enterprise is like most of Forward Networks’ customers, then your IT shop oversees a sizable cloud estate. You probably have hundreds of accounts, projects, or subscriptions across different cloud vendors. There are tons of related objects too — virtual machines, firewalls, transit gateways, subnets, and more. And cloud-native apps? Maybe you hundreds of those in use or development as well.