Lessons the military can bring to cybersecurity [Q&A]
The ongoing struggle between good and bad actors in the cyber world has often been compared to a battle or warfare. More recently the threat of nation state attacks on critical infrastructure has led to more actual military interest in the cyber arena, as we've seen in Ukraine.
The Israel Defense Force's 8200 unit is often referred to the SEALs or SAS of cyber military units and its veterans are driving many of Israel's tech start ups.
Three-quarters of companies suffered downtime in the past year
New research from Atlas VPN shows 76 percent of companies globally have suffered service downtime in the past year.
Reasons include system crashes, human errors, and cyberattacks as the primary causes of downtime. In addition, many IT managers are concerned about increasing numbers of politically-driven cyberattacks.
Employees not fully prepared for cyberattacks say IT leaders
Over half (56 percent) of IT security leaders say that their non-technical staff are only 'somewhat' or 'not at all' prepared, for a cyberattack.
A new survey by Egress of 600 IT security leaders also shows that 77 percent of respondents have seen an increase in security compromises since going remote twp years ago, and there's a continued significant risk to organizations.
Two-thirds of ransomware victims paid up last year
A record 71 percent of organizations were impacted by successful ransomware attacks last year, according to the 2022 Cyberthreat Defense Report (CDR) from CyberEdge Group, up from 55 percent in 2017.
Of those that fell victim, almost two-thirds (63 percent) paid the requested ransom, up from 39 percent in 2017.
DDoS attacks grow in size and complexity
Though the overall number fell slightly, DDoS attacks became both bigger and more complicated in 2021 according to a new report from cloud-based managed security services platform F5 Silverline.
By the final quarter of last year the mean attack size recorded was above 21 Gbps, more than four times the level at the beginning of 2020. Last year also saw the record for the largest-ever attack broken on several occasions.
Ransomware can encrypt 100,000 files in under 45 minutes
New research from Splunk's SURGe team looks at how quickly ten major ransomware strains, including Lockbit, Revil and Blackmatter, can encrypt 100,000 files.
The research shows that the median ransomware variant can encrypt nearly 100,000 files totaling 53.93GB in 42 minutes and 52 seconds. Encryption speeds vary between ransomware variants though with individual ransomware samples ranging from four minutes to three and a half hours to encrypt the same data.
Pen testing tools increasingly used by threat actors
Legitimate penetration testing tools like Cobalt Strike, Impacket and RMM, are being used by threat actors because it's more efficient to use existing tools that are proven to be successful than to create new software.
The latest Threat Detection Report from managed detection and response firm Red Canary shows Cobalt Strike in particular has never been more popular, impacting eight percent of its customers in 2021.
Cyberwarfare plays growing role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict
As we reported last week, cyberattacks are being used on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Two new reports out today take a deeper look at how the cyber aspect of the conflict is developing.
Accenture's Cyber Threat Intelligence team has been looking at how threat actors have been dividing along ideological lines. Meanwhile Aqua Security's Team Nautilus has been analyzing the cloud technologies used in the conflict.
Almost 90 percent of cyberattacks in March targeted against Russia and Ukraine
We're used to a high volume of cyberattacks originating from Russia, but in an interesting turnaround following the invasion of Ukraine, 70 percent of cyberattacks in March have been targeted at Russia.
Research from Atlas VPN shows a further 19 percent of attacks targeting Ukraine. The USA is the third biggest target but attacks targeting the country accounted for only five percent of the total.
Majority of attacks on SaaS platforms come from Russia and China
Analysis of security events across more than 120,000 user accounts last year shows that the vast majority of attacks on top SaaS platforms such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack and Dropbox are coming from Russia and China.
The latest SaaS Application Security Insights (SASI) Report from SaaS Alerts also suggests these countries may be coordinating attack efforts. Attack trend lines that compare Russia and China show almost exactly the same pattern.
Ransomware attack puts the squeeze on KP's nuts
A cyberattack on UK-based food manufacturer KP Snacks could lead to shortages of some of the company's popular products including KP Nuts, Tyrrells Crisps and Hula Hoops.
There are as yet unconfirmed reports that the company's factory at Billingham on Teesside has stopped production and most of its 900 staff have been temporarily stood down.
Endpoint security products failing against targeted attacks
While most endpoint security products are capable of handling public email and web-based threats, many are unable to provide complete protection against targeted attacks, according to a new report.
Security testing firm SE Labs tested a variety of endpoint security products from different vendors in order to gauge their effectiveness.
Employee burnout puts business security at risk
A new survey of 2,500 adults looks at how workforce burnout has opened businesses to attacks, with trends such as remote and hybrid work, the Great Resignation and worse behavior by cybersecurity professionals being the driving forces behind the threat.
The research, from password manager 1Password, finds that 84 percent of security professionals and 80 percent of other workers are feeling burned out, leading to serious backsliding around security protocols.
Security pros lose sleep over protecting critical assets
A new poll of 250 information technology, IT security, legal and risk/fraud/compliance professionals reveals that 83 percent say they have experienced a successful cyber attack in the past two years, with half saying the attackers managed to reach their critical IT assets.
No surprise then that 86 percent admit to having been kept awake at night by concerns about the protection of critical systems.
Enterprises unprepared for ransomware attacks over weekends and holidays
A lack of preparedness for ransomware attacks on weekends and holidays has a significant impact on victim organizations according to a new report.
The study from Cybereason shows 24 percent of companies have no security plan for holidays and weekends and 43 percent say that attacks at these times take longer to stop.
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