Roulette wheel

Gambling with cyber risk -- the odds are not on your side

A new report from secure collaboration platform Wire, produced in collaboration with a global poker champion, looks at the risks businesses run with cyber security and comparing them to other everyday occurrences, with some startling findings.

Among them are that an employee is three times more likely to infect a colleague with a malicious email than they are to spread the flu to their partner, and that an employee's chances of spotting a phishing email are as slim as hitting a specific number on the roulette wheel.

By Ian Barker -
Mistake

Workplace errors increase risk of data breaches

Around two thirds of businesses have experienced a data breach in the last year and seemingly innocent workplace mistakes could be one of the main causes.

A new report produced by the Ponemon Institute for document security specialist Shred-it reveals that 71 percent of managers have seen or picked up confidential documents left on a printer.

By Ian Barker -
Data breach

One year on from the Facebook data breach -- what has changed? [Q&A]

One year ago this week Facebook suffered a massive data breach that prompted the company to reset access for around 90 million accounts.

A year on from this event what has been done to make users' data more secure and are people becoming more aware of the risks to their privacy from using social networks and other sites? We spoke to Fouad Khalil VP of compliance at SecurityScorecard to discuss these things and more.

By Ian Barker -
Burning money

Poor incident response costs business time and money

Inefficient incident response to email attacks is costing businesses billions in losses every year. For many organizations, finding, identifying and removing email threats is a slow and manual process that takes too long and uses too many resources.

Research from Barracuda Networks finds that that, on average, a business takes three and a half hours to remediate an attack, and 11 percent of organizations spend more than six hours on investigation and remediation.

By Ian Barker -
Network security

Modified PcShare backdoor replaces Windows Narrator to gain full control of systems

Security researchers have discovered a modified version of the open source backdoor PcShare which seems to originate from a Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) group.

The malware has been used to target technology firms, and it is deployed via side-loading by a legitimate NVIDIA application. As part of the attack, a Trojanized version of Windows' Narrator screen reading tool is used to gain remote access to systems without the need for credentials.

By Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson -
Thomas Cook

Cybercriminals target Thomas Cook customers in the wake of the company's collapse

The collapse of travel firm Thomas Cook has caused chaos for hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers around the world. But if losing out on planned trips was not bad enough, cybercriminals are taking advantage of the confused situation to scam customers out of their money.

There have been numerous reports of fraudsters pretending to be representatives of either Thomas Cook or a bank, using the promise of a refund to get people to part with bank account details.

By Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson -
Encryption backdoor

Two thirds of consumers don't think government encryption backdoors will protect them from terrorists

A new survey by machine identity protection company Venafi shows consumers don't trust major cyber security policies pushed by their governments.

Government officials in nearly every country believe the security risks inherent in government-mandated encryption backdoors are less important than giving law enforcement broad access to encrypted personal data. However, US and European consumers overwhelmingly disagree. When asked if laws allowing governments to access encrypted personal and private data would make them safer from terrorists 64 percent don’t agree.

By Ian Barker -
BullGuard premium 2020

BullGuard launches new internet security range

BullGuard is launching its range of 2020 security products which include a new Secure Browser and machine learning capabilities.

The 2020 product suite also now enables direct integration with BullGuard VPN to ensure users' privacy when connecting to public Wi-Fi.

By Ian Barker -
Fraud stop

Insurance companies face online fraud threats

Increasing numbers of people are using digital platforms when engaging with their insurers and this opens up the industry to a range of new fraud challenges.

A new report from TransUnion and iovation identifies 9.14 percent of online insurance transactions as risky, compared to just over five percent across all industries.

By Ian Barker -
Black iPhone

Apple iOS 13 and iPadOS bugs grant third-party keyboards 'full access'

If you're using a third-party keyboard on your iPhone or iPad, Apple has a warning for you. A bug in the recently released mobile operating system means that such keyboards could be granted "full access" permissions.

The bug means that third-party keyboards could capture any and all keystrokes entered by a user, including sensitive data such as usernames and passwords.

By Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson -
Cyber attack

Retailers remain a top target for cyberattacks

US retailers are under siege as nearly two thirds (62 percent) report experiencing a data breach and over a third (37 percent) say they were breached in the past year, according to the latest report produced by IDC for Thales.

This high rate of data breaches comes amidst a decline in the rate of growth in security spending. Less than two thirds (62 percent) say that they are increasing spending this year compared to 84 percent last year, yet nearly all (96 percent) of the retailers surveyed claimed they use sensitive data within digitally transformative environments.

By Ian Barker -
frustrated user

85 percent of employees don't get the resources they need on starting a new job

Only 15 percent of employees have all the resources they require to be productive on day one according to a new report from Ivanti.

When it comes to employee onboarding, 38 percent of IT professionals report it takes between two and four days to get a new employee everything they need to do their job, while 27 percent say accomplishing this goal can take more than a week.

By Ian Barker -
Ransomware

The top vulnerabilities in enterprise ransomware attacks

A new report from vulnerability management company RiskSense looks at the most common vulnerabilities used across multiple families of ransomware that target enterprises and government organizations.

Among its key findings are that almost 65 percent target high-value assets like servers, close to 55 percent have CVSS v2 scores lower than eight, nearly 35 percent are old (from 2015 or earlier), and the vulnerabilities used in WannaCry are still being used today.

By Ian Barker -
Phishing

Why we get hooked by phishing attacks

What makes us click on phishing links? A new study from Webroot has surveyed 4,000 office professionals from the US, UK, Japan and Australia to find out.

While a majority (79 percent) of people report being able to distinguish a phishing message from a genuine one, 49 percent also admit to having clicked on a link from an unknown sender while at work.

By Ian Barker -
Microsoft glass building logo

Microsoft releases emergency patches for Internet Explorer zero-day and Windows Defender flaw

Microsoft has released a pair of emergency patches, one for a remote code execution zero-day in Internet Explorer, and one for a denial of service vulnerability in Windows Defender.

In the case of Internet Explorer, the security flaw -- discovered by Clément Lecigne from Google's Threat Analysis Group -- is being actively exploited. Microsoft describes it as a "scripting engine memory corruption vulnerability", and has assigned it CVE-2019-1367.

By Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson -
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