Cyber-attacks costing the UK economy £147 billion a year
Apparently, 1.8 million of UK’s businesses have been victims of a cyber-attack, and that costs the country’s economy more than £147 billion, in the last year alone. This is according to a new report by Gareth Bacon, GLA Conservative London Assembly, entitled Safe & Secure: Protecting London’s data.
Pretty much all businesses affected by these security breaches -- 99 percent of them -- are small businesses, counting 249 employees, or less. With that in mind, the report proposes a Mayoral Standard for data security, helping London consumers and businesses protect themselves from cyber-attacks.
UK law firms will be able to profit from pursuing cyber criminals
A pilot scheme from the City of London police means that private law firms will be able to profit from the pursuit of suspected cyber criminals. Rather than handling cases of online crime themselves, police will instead pass details on to private agents.
These firms will then able to use civil -- rather than criminal -- courts to seize the profits of cybercrime. It is thought that police forces are spending too much time and money fighting online crime, and that private agencies might be better equipped to deal with the problem.
New subscription service offers flexible threat intelligence
Depending on their size and the sector they operate in, businesses need to respond to threats of different types and require intelligence to suit.
Endpoint protection specialist CrowdStrike is launching a tiered eCrime subscription that will allow customers to choose the option that best meets their needs to gain new capabilities and insights into the entire eCrime adversary ecosystem, and orchestrate detection and response options in a more effective manner.
The easy way to become a cyber criminal
You might think that becoming a cyber criminal required some hard work and dedication to your task, maybe even some form of apprenticeship where you learn the craft at the side of a more experienced hacker.
But new research has identified a one-stop, outsourced online shop, providing hosting, design and payment solutions for cyber criminals looking for a low-cost of entry method to sell their ill-gotten assets.
Shadow IT responsible for cyber attacks
Shadow IT has always been considered a huge risk to an enterprise’s cyber-security efforts, but now we have a new survey which supports the claim and shows the scope of the problem.
The report, recently released by Tenable Network Security, says that both German and UK-based companies acknowledged shadow IT as a problem, but the former reported more cyber-attacks.
Workers at fault for most cyber attacks
Here’s another solid proof of what security experts have been buzzing about in the past few years -- that people are the single greatest cyber-security threat to businesses.
This time, proof comes from Transputec and Business Continuity Institute, which have polled 369 business continuity professionals from all over the world into enterprise cyber-security.
UK businesses lose over £1 billion thanks to cybercrime
New figures released by Get Safe Online and Action Fraud, the UK’s national fraud and cyber crime reporting center, reveal the cybercrime cost for British businesses over in the last year.
In total, businesses reported £1,079,447,765 in loses as a result of cybercrime, which is a 22 percent increase from the previous year. Each police force in the UK recorded around £19.5 million in losses but this number may in fact be slightly higher as some businesses may not have reported or disclosed the full extent of the losses they incurred to the authorities.
SWIFT attacks date back more than a year
We reported a few days ago on banks using the SWIFT inter-bank transfer system being hacked, resulting in $81 million being stolen from the Bangladesh Central Bank.
Now Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs, has released more information on other banks affected, with attacks that stretch back more than a year.
Revealing the security habits of cyber criminals
Cyber crime is big business and that means the people behind it face many of the same challenges as legitimate organizations.
This includes operational security (OPSEC), a key tactic used by commercial and military organizations to protect privacy and anonymity. Research from cyber situational awareness specialist Digital Shadows reveals that criminals are using OPSEC as a means to an end -- avoiding detection, maintaining availability of their attack infrastructure, and retaining access to environments they have compromised.
Hackers going after Middle East banks
Researchers at the US cybersecurity company FireEye have discovered that hackers have begun to probe the defenses of banks in the Middle East by targeting bank employees with malware-infected emails to collect information about bank networks and user accounts.
The company started an investigation into the cyberattack in February in which hackers were able to steal $81 million from Bangladesh’s central bank. FireEye found no apparent connection between that attack and the similar attacks against banks in Vietnam and Ecuador. Currently in all three cases the hackers responsible for the attacks are unknown.
AI platform better predicts cyber attacks thanks to human experts
Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have collaborated alongside the machine learning startup PatternEx to demonstrate how an artificial intelligence platform that makes use of continuous input from human experts would be able to predict cyber attacks better than the systems that exist today.
CSAIL and PatternEx are calling their new AI platform AI² due to how it combines the intuition of analysts with artificial intelligence.
How the cyber crime business model is changing
Cyber crime is an increasingly serious business and a new report released today by Trustwave looks at the top trends from the past year based on real-world data from data breach investigations.
Key findings from the report include that 97 percent of applications tested by Trustwave in 2015 had at least one vulnerability. In addition 10 percent of the vulnerabilities discovered were rated as critical or high risk.
Attack by cyber terrorists feared by 63 percent of US security professionals
Key concerns of information security executives include the growing threats of global cyber terrorism, the current state of security within the US and the ability of organizations to prevent such attacks.
These are among the findings of a new study by account management solutions provider Thycotic of more than 200 security industry attendees at RSA.
New program ensures enterprises are prepared for cyber attacks
If a data breach happens customers expect a fast and reassuring reaction from the company affected. It's therefore crucial for businesses to have an incident response plan, but often those plans are only tested when a breach occurs.
According to an upcoming survey from customer security company AllClear ID the two most common challenges during a breach response are people related, with 66 percent citing internal politics and 60 percent "too many cooks in the kitchen".
China praises hacker who tried to steal US military secrets
Tensions could be set to mount between the US and China after the Communist government's Global Times newspaper praised Su Bin, the Chinese "government soldier" who pled guilty to trying to steal military secrets from US defense contractors.
Despite the Chinese government having previously said that it does not support cybercrime or online espionage, the state newspaper used an editorial to say "Su Bin deserves respect whether guilty or innocent". The hack was designed to gather data about, amongst other things, the F-22 and F-35 fighter jets and C-17 military transport aircraft.
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