Four ways relentless hybrid attackers are targeting their prey
One way to understand the mind of hybrid attackers is to compare their behavior to the animal kingdom. They are predators using a relentless arsenal of tactics to hunt their prey across a large domain. Threat actors are the honey badger. A snake bite or a few bee stings might delay their attack for a moment, but they’ll find a way to take down the entire hive and satisfy their appetite.
But what is a hybrid attack? Today, all cyberattacks are hybrid. Every enterprise uses a mix of on-premises and cloud services, and the number of services used is rising. In fact, employees now use an average of 20 cloud and SaaS apps every month. Despite enterprises having every preventative measure in place, attackers are using this widening attack surface to their advantage. They can start with anyone or anything they can access, no matter how small, before moving at speed to extend their access and disrupt business operations at scale. Some of the most common traits that make stopping hybrid attacks difficult are how they bypass prevention, compromise identities, elevate and hide in privileges to move laterally across domains -- often at high speed.
Tweak your settings in X if you don't want Elon Musk using your data to train Grok AI
Artificial intelligence is underpinned by the data used to train it, and even in this early stage of the game this has already proved controversial. In addition to complaints about the use of copyrighted content to train AIs, concern has also been voiced about the use of personal data.
Elon Musk, unsurprisingly, wants a slice of the AI pie, and is looking to train up the Grok AI model. The social platform formerly known as Twitter, X, is being used as a source of training data, meaning that your tweets (sorry, posts) are, by default, being sucked up for this very purpose.
Securing the unknown: Future-proof cyber security
A recent article from Harvard Business Review explores the mindset of today’s cyber hackers and explains why effective cybersecurity has become so challenging by outlining the three traits shared by every successful hacker: creativity, speed, and resourcefulness. Hackers who can successfully leverage these traits are able to assault a company’s defenses with an ever-evolving barrage of novel and impactful attacks.
Thus, to remain secure, companies must be prepared for the unknown. Today’s threat landscape includes tried-and-true attacks -- phishing, social engineering, and DoS attacks -- as well as innovative strategies driven by creativity, speed, and resourcefulness. The latter are designed to exploit weaknesses before companies discover they exist. The following approaches to cybersecurity can help companies develop a future-proof framework that anticipates and addresses hidden threats.
Encrypted privacy for the public's safety
One of the many challenges government and local authorities constantly face is that of keeping up with changes and innovations coming from the outside: conflicts and emergencies, environmental factors, inputs from industries and productions and, of course, evolving technologies. Whether these are developed in the private or public sector, or the academic community, it is unquestionable that tech innovations are tightly woven into everyday life.
These innovations frequently move forward at a speedy pace, spreading across different fields and inevitably reaching a level of integration that can no longer be left to the sole responsibility of the individuals. Thankfully, governments and organizations are increasingly wisening up when it comes to new and emerging technologies, whether this means creating ad hoc policies and regulations (the UK AI bill, the European AI act, the American Privacy Rights Act, or Chat Control) or taking targeted actions towards specific platforms or providers compromising users’ privacy like the TikTok ban for federal and state employees in the USA.
How to optimize AI at the edge and retain data sovereignty
Artificial intelligence (AI) is fundamentally transforming the way businesses operate and the value they can deliver to customers. Industry body techUK cites estimates that the UK’s GDP could be up to 10 percent higher by 2030 thanks to AI adoption. But first there are major cost, efficiency and data governance challenges to solve. This is where edge computing comes into its own -- offering a fast, resilient and cost-effective way to run transformative AI applications. Even better, it can help organizations to meet requirements around sustainability and data sovereignty.
The key will be finding a database platform that can seamlessly support both traditional cloud and edge computing environments in this context.
Get 'Kali Linux Penetration Testing Bible' (worth $25) for FREE
Kali is a popular and powerful Linux distribution used by cybersecurity professionals around the world. Penetration testers must master Kali’s varied library of tools to be effective at their work. The Kali Linux Penetration Testing Bible is the hands-on and methodology guide for pentesting with Kali.
You’ll discover everything you need to know about the tools and techniques hackers use to gain access to systems like yours so you can erect reliable defenses for your virtual assets. Whether you’re new to the field or an established pentester, you’ll find what you need in this comprehensive guide.
Microsoft's latest SNAFU sees July security update throwing Windows users into BitLocker recovery mode
Microsoft has managed to do it yet again. With the security update released earlier this month for Windows, the company has delivered a buggy patch which is causing problems for a lot of users.
The problem has hit users of not only Windows 10 and Windows 11, but also various editions of Windows Server. As the update in question is a security update, it was automatically installed on a large number of systems; the unwanted payload is being dumped into a BitLocker recovery screen. Microsoft says that it is aware of the issue but does not currently have a fix.
Cracked screens, damaged sockets and delinquent dogs -- how Brits damage their tech
As we've become more reliant on tech devices we use them in more places that ever before, which in turn means more opportunities for them to suffer mishaps.
A new report from Secure Data Recovery UK looks at the common ways that people damage or lose their tech and at some of the weirder ones too.
Windows 11 users are finally getting back more control over mouse settings
For some strange reason, Microsoft made Windows 11 less useful in various ways. One such backwards step was removing some of the settings relating to mouse controls, specifically the option to reverse scroll wheel direction, and enhance pointer precision.
Quite why it was deemed sensible to remove the options from Settings is anyone's guess, particularly as it remained possible to tweak the registry to implement them. Now Microsoft has seen the error of its ways and is placing control back in the hands of Windows 11 users.
Best Windows apps this week
Six-hundred-five in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.
Microsoft confirmed a new issue this week that affects Windows 10 and 11 PCs that have the July security updates installed. These may boot into BitLocker Recovery where the BitLocker Recovery Key needs to be provided to proceed.
TEAMGROUP launches T-FORCE GC PRO PCIe 5.0 SSD
TEAMGROUP has officially launched the T-FORCE GC PRO PCIe 5.0 solid state drive. The new SSD features a PCIe Gen5x4 interface and DRAM Cache architecture.
Equipped with an ultra-thin graphene heat spreader, the SSD offers superior temperature control, compatible with any motherboard's native M.2 SSD heatsink. This ensures that the SSD operates at optimal efficiency, enhancing performance by maintaining a cool environment even under intense operations. The T-FORCE GC PRO achieves impressive read speeds of up to 12,500 MB/s, making it one of the fastest SSDs currently available on the market.
Microsoft-owned GitHub is haunted by ghost accounts spreading malware
Check Point Research has uncovered a network of GitHub accounts, dubbed the "Stargazers Ghost Network," that distributes malware via phishing repositories. This sophisticated operation, tracked under the name "Stargazer Goblin," acts as a Distribution as a Service (DaaS) model, allowing threat actors to share malicious links and software.
The network consists of over 3,000 active accounts that perform activities such as starring, forking, and subscribing to malicious repositories to make them appear legitimate. This tactic helps lure victims into downloading malware. The types of malware distributed include Atlantida Stealer, Rhadamanthys, RisePro, Lumma Stealer, and RedLine.
CrowdStrike -- what went wrong?
This time last week businesses around the world were rocked by major disruption as a faulty update to the CrowdStrike security software brought down Windows systems.
The company has now issued a preliminary report into the incident which reveals that a 'Rapid Response Content' configuration update caused the problem.
How AI is transforming sport [Q&A]
A new survey from IBM and Morning Consult polled over 18,000 global sports fans to discover the ways in which people follow and engage with their favorite sports are evolving
It finds a growing generational shift in preferences -- including embracing technologies like AI in areas such as augmented reality, recruiting, and fan engagement.
Should Google be worried about OpenAI's SearchGPT?
As OpenAI rolls out its SearchGPT prototype, a question looms large: Should Google feel threatened by this new entrant in the search engine landscape? SearchGPT promises a revolutionary approach to online search by integrating AI capabilities with real-time web information, potentially changing how users interact with search engines.
SearchGPT is designed to streamline the search experience, providing direct answers with clear sourcing, which could make searches faster and more relevant. This AI-enhanced tool also emphasizes a strong partnership with publishers and creators, aiming to boost the discoverability of high-quality content. Such features might appeal to users who are increasingly looking for efficient and reliable information retrieval methods.
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