Articles about Security

The field of AI has been around for decades, but its current surge is rewriting the rules at an accelerated rate. Fueled by increased computational power and data availability, this AI boom brings with it opportunities and challenges.

AI tools fuel innovation and growth by enabling businesses to analyze data, improve customer experiences, automate processes, and innovate products -- at speed. Yet, as AI becomes more commonplace, concerns about misinformation and misuse arise. With businesses relying more on AI, the risk of unintentional data leaks by employees also goes up. For many though, the benefits outweigh any risks. So, how can companies empower employees to harness the power of AI without risking data security?

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An urban myth used to suggest that Linux was immune to viruses and malware, and is totally secure. This is, of course, nonsense, even if the comparatively low usage makes Linux-based system less likely to be attacked than Windows or macOS.

Highlighting the fact that there is no such thing as a completely secure operating system, Kaspersky has released a new malware scanner for Linux systems. Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool (KVRT) for Linux is a free tool that, although it fails to offer real-time protection, can be used to scan for and remove various forms of malware... albeit with a slight caveat.

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Artificial Intelligence is dramatically transforming the business landscape. It streamlines operations, provides critical insights, and empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions efficiently. Through machine learning, predictive analytics, and automation, AI assists in identifying trends, forecasting sales, and streamlining supply chains, leading to increased productivity and improved business outcomes. It isn't, unfortunately, without problems.

We talked to Matt Hillary, Vice President of Security and CISO at Drata, about the issues surrounding AI when it comes to critical security and compliance.

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The C-Suite’s perception of cybersecurity has evolved dramatically over the past decade. It’s gone from being an afterthought for technology departments to worry about, to a cornerstone for business survival and operational strategy. The heightened awareness of cybersecurity stems from a deeper grasp of the legal, reputational and financial implications of data breaches. This, combined with regulatory pressures such as the original NIS directive, has forced leaders to enhance their organizations’ cybersecurity measures.

The result is that 75 percent of organizations now report that cybersecurity is a high priority for their senior management team. While on the surface this should be celebrated, when digging deeper, conversations between CISOs and the wider C-Suite often just revolve around high-profile or user-centric security risks. More technical and advanced threats such as those related to application security are overlooked. The race to embrace AI and increasingly complicated cloud infrastructures have also made communicating cybersecurity priorities even more difficult for CISOs.

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Maintaining a secure cloud environment is one of the most important responsibilities of any CISO today, given that over 50 percent of all cyberattacks now originate in the cloud. However, this is a daunting task, as security must now be balanced against other priorities such as maintaining agile operations and the need to innovate.

Organizations today are racing to accelerate their cloud adoption due to the need for greater scalability and cost-efficiency. It has, therefore, become a critical business strategy to ensure efficiency, accessibility, and sustainability in operations. As a result, cloud investments are soaring across the board. Gartner predicts that end-user spending on public cloud services will reach $679 billion by the end of this year and exceed $1 trillion by 2027.

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We lose a bit of our digital privacy with every data breach that occurs. A breach like the one at AT&T -- which exposed Social Security numbers and other personal information needed for identity theft -- is particularly serious in the landscape of data breaches. The percentage of users with Social Security numbers exposed in our data bases following the AT&T breach increased from less than 1 percent to almost 15 percent. Sensitive personal information getting out -- especially when it's easily accessible on the public internet, not just the dark web, which requires special software to be accessed -- opens you up to a huge risk of abuse.

The most notable threat users face is the potential for identity theft, where malicious actors access email, bank, and credit card accounts to impersonate victims. This can also include gaining unauthorized access to accounts by resetting passwords and even taking control of your phone number to bypass text message confirmations. What’s more, if a thief has access to your personal details, they might go as far as taking out loans or credit cards in your name -- a tactic that remains one of the most common types of identity theft.

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AI is one of the most powerful innovations of the decade, if not the most powerful. Yet with that power also comes the risk of abuse.

Whenever any new, disruptive technology is introduced to society, if there is a way for it to be abused for the nefarious gain of others, wrongdoers will find it. Thus, the threat of AI is not inherent to the technology itself, but rather an unintended consequence of bad actors using it for purposes that wreak havoc and cause harm. If we do not do something about these cyber threats posed by the misuse of AI, the legitimate, beneficial uses of the technology will be undermined.

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Think you’ve been hit by a cyber-attack? You need to move fast, but what immediate actions should you take, or should you not take?  Here’s a Cyber Incident Responder’s guide to steer you through the turmoil. The actions your team takes -- or doesn’t take -- can greatly impact the overall duration of recovery, cost, and the potential to uncover vital evidence left by threat actors within your infrastructure.

Identifying a cyber security incident can be challenging. Many threat actors have mastered the art of quietly infiltrating IT systems and hiding their digital footprints. Not all cyber-attacks are as overt as encryption-based ransomware or mandate fraud. The rise of encryption-less ransomware and corporate and state-level espionage is concerning. These silent intruders can lead to data and intellectual property (IP) loss, diminished competitive edge or market share, potential regulatory fines, and reputational damage.  All of which can be just as devastating, if not more so, to an organization, its employees, and investors, than a single ransomware incident.

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Streaming video services have clamped down on password sharing and have -- as Netflix has shown -- reaped the financial benefits. But while many companies are keen to stamp out the practice of sharing passwords, Google is actively embracing it.

A policy change that was talked about back in February is now rolling out, bringing a new password sharing option to Google Password Manager. The feature makes it possible to share a password in a secure way, without having to write it down.

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As the foundational component of the internet, DNS has been around for over 40 years and yet, it remains a major vector for bad actors even today. You might think that DNS wouldn’t be such a big security concern today given how much time we’ve had to come up with a better way to secure it, but lo and behold, it’s still at least partially responsible for a large percentage of cyber-attacks.

DNS-based attacks can include everything from malware to phishing, to domain theft and DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, among others. And these can have major consequences for the organizations hit by them. While there are countless examples, some of the most recent and well-publicized ones have included takedowns of ChatGPT and Google Cloud, though almost every bit of modern malware leverages DNS in some way.

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The decentralized nature of the cloud provides great flexibility for users, but it also introduces great vulnerabilities for data center operators. As an abundant source of valuable data, the modern data center has become a prime target for cybercriminals, from small business facilities to the huge hyperscale colocation data centers run by Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.

Protecting these interconnected facilities and the hardware and software systems that they physically host provides a perpetual job for security teams. But it’s important to recognize the clear distinction between securing information technology (IT) inside a data center facility, versus securing the operational technology (OT), or what’s called “cyber-physical systems” needed to run the facility itself. IT and OT involve two complementary but distinct categories of security and risk.

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In the current era of digitalization, cybersecurity has become a topmost priority for businesses, regardless of their size and nature. With the growing dependence on digital infrastructure and data, safeguarding against cyber threats has become crucial to ensure uninterrupted business operations. However, the evolving nature of cyberattacks poses significant challenges for traditional security measures.

This is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerges as a game-changer, offering substantial benefits and inherent risks in cybersecurity.

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Cryptocurrency has been increasingly professionalized in recent years, offering millions of transactions to a global base of everyday users. However, this trend of mainstream investment has happened in tandem with recent high-profile prosecutions of former crypto leaders.

The decentralized nature of cryptocurrency still presents opportunities for bad actors to exploit, particularly for laundering money. Approximately $72 billion a year of illicit transactions is being paid for with crypto, a large portion of which is cleaning dirty money, according to a recent Europol report.

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Microsoft has released its monthly patches for Windows 11 in the form of the KB5037771 update. There are lots of fixes in this release including for problems with domain controllers, VPNs, and SMB clients.

There are a number of security fixes, but also more controversial changes -- including ads in the Start menu (or app recommendations as Microsoft calls them). Other changes include improvements to Widgets and Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2).

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In The DevSecOps Playbook: Deliver Continuous Security at Speed, Wiley CISO and CIO Sean D. Mack delivers an expert analysis of how to keep your business secure, relying on the classic triad of people, process, and technology to examine -- in depth -- every component of DevSecOps.

In the book, you'll learn why DevSecOps is as much about people and collaboration as it is about technology and how it impacts every part of our cybersecurity systems.

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