Critical infrastructure cyberattacks: What are the implications of their increasing prevalence?
Over the past couple of years, there have been a growing number of cyber attacks on critical infrastructure around the world. Most recently, Estonia was subjected to its most extensive cyberattack since 2007, apparently in retaliation to the country removing Soviet-era monuments from public places. Earlier this year, Costa Rica had to declare a state of emergency after a Russian-speaking ransomware gang threatened to overthrow the government in the wake of two cyberattacks. In July last year, South Africa’s ports were almost totally shut down after a ransomware attack.
While these attacks are of varying severity -- Estonia experienced minimal disruptions to critical websites while Costa Rican health officials were unable to access critical healthcare records and tax systems were frozen for weeks -- they show that cybercrime is no longer just about obtaining data. Instead, cybercrime is being used against real-world infrastructure and with very real consequences.
Ransomware attacks top 1.2 million per month
A new report from Barracuda finds the volume of ransomware threats detected spiked between January and June of this year to more than 1.2 million per month.
Researchers have also seen a spike in the number of service providers that have been hit with a ransomware attack. The main targets, however, are still five key industries: education, municipalities, healthcare, infrastructure, and financial.
Two thirds of companies think they may have been targets of a nation-state cyberattack
New research from Venafi into the rise of nation-state cyberattacks and their links to geopolitics has revealed that two-thirds (64 percent) of security decision-makers suspect that their organization has been directly targeted or impacted by a nation state attack.
In addition, 77 percent believe we're in a perpetual state of cyberwar, while 66 percent of companies say they have changed their security strategy as a direct response to the war in Ukraine.
Healthcare attackers switch to smaller targets
While large healthcare providers have lots of juicy data to tempt cybercriminals, they are also likely to have strong defenses.
It's not too surprising then that a new report from managed detection and response provider Critical Insight shows that in the first half of this year attackers have shifted their attentions to smaller hospital systems and specialty clinics that lack the same level of security preparedness, staff size, or budget.
New, free tool to help enterprises assess financial risk of cyberattacks
A successful cyberattack can have significant costs for a business, in terms of both reputation and finances. But what's the actual cost of an attack? And if you're looking at insurance how much should you be covered for?
To help answer those questions Safe Security is announcing two industry-first assessment tools to empower organizations to make financial decisions based on their actual cyber risk.
Cybercriminals attack the wrong water company in bungled extortion attempt
On Monday, hacker group ClOp claimed to have gained access to 5TB of data from UK water supplier Thames Water and said it could change the chemical composition of the company's water supply.
Thames Water denied the reports and said it hadn't faced a cyber attack. Today it emerges that an attack has taken place but on a different company, South Staffordshire plc, the parent company of South Staffs Water and Cambridge Water.
Attacks on healthcare organizations increase 90 percent
There has been a 90 percent increase in the number of healthcare organizations targeted by cyber-attacks, in comparison with the first quarter of 2022.
The latest cyber threat Landscape report from Kroll finds that while phishing continues to be the vector used for initial access, there has been a vast increase in external remote services (such as VPNs and RDP environments) being compromised, up 700 percent.
Stolen data used to launch more effective BEC attacks
New research from Accenture shows that data stolen in ransomware and other cyberattacks is being weaponized in order to carry out business email compromise (BEC) attacks.
Underground forums have sets of credentials for sale for as little as $10 that provide access to genuine corporate email accounts, making malicious emails seem genuine.
Key things you didn't know about phishing
Phishing is one of the most common forms of cyberattack, fooling people into thinking they're dealing with a trusted organization in order to get them to part with credentials.
But what are the hallmarks of a phishing attack? Atlas VPN has collected some phishy statistics to find out.
Why security teams should prepare to slay the three-headed dragon [Q&A]
Governments, utilities and other key industries are prime targets for attack including from nation state actors and cybercriminals seeking to extract a ransom.
But David Anteliz, technical director at Skybox, believes that given the increase in tensions across the world threat actors will evolve their tactics with the use of a 'three-headed dragon approach' that goes beyond the probing we have seen so far.
Do we need a cyber NATO to address the changing threat landscape? [Q&A]
The threat landscape facing enterprises is changing constantly. In recent months, major vulnerabilities like Log4j and malware-based threats have demonstrated the need for organizations to move quickly in order to defend themselves.
Is the best way to stay on top of the most pressing threats to harness the power of the global cybersecurity community for defense in a sort of cyber NATO? We talked to SOC Prime CEO Andrii Bezverkhyi to find out.
Average cost of a data breach increases by 16 percent
A new report released today by ForgeRock shows the average cost of a breach in the US has increased by 16 percent to $9.5m, making the US the costliest place in the world to recover from a breach.
It also reveals a massive 297 percent surge in breaches caused primarily by security issues associated with supply chain and third-party suppliers and representing almost 25 percent of all breaches.
A third of mid-sized organizations don't have a cyber-incident response plan
The rise of ransomware and other attacks has pushed cybersecurity up the agenda of businesses, yet according to a new study 36 percent of mid-sized organizations don't have a formal incident response plan in place.
The report from Egnyte, based on a survey of 400 US executives conducted by Wakefield Research, also shows that the rise in cyberattacks has prompted organizations to increase focus on user access to critical data repositories.
Businesses unprepared to deal with ransomware
Ransomware attacks continue to impact organizations worldwide with high costs, but businesses are still largely unprepared to deal with them.
New data from Arcserve shows half of IT decision makers surveyed by Dimensional Research have been targeted by ransomware, 35 percent report their organizations were asked to pay over $100,000 in ransom payments, and 20 percent were asked to pay between $1 million to $10 million.
Threat of firmware attacks is a growing concern for business
New research from HP Wolf Security finds that 80 percent of IT leaders are concerned about their capacity to respond to firmware attacks.
The study shows that 67 percent of IT leaders say protecting against, detecting, and recovering from firmware attacks has become more difficult and time-consuming due to the increase in home working, with 64 percent saying the same of analyzing the security of firmware configuration.
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