Internet of things (IoT) is expected to make an enormous impact on pretty much every industry in the upcoming months and years, but it seems as organizations don’t really know how to secure their devices. This is according to a new report by ForeScout Technologies, which surveyed 201 senior IT decision makers in the UK, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

First, the report says the threat surface is going to increase dramatically. An average business will operate 7,000 IoT devices in the next 18 months, which is "far more" than what the average company is used to securing and defending. Second, almost two thirds (65 percent) have "quite", "little", or "no" confidence in identifying and controlling their IoT devices. And third, the biggest challenge seems to be having IT functions working together.

Doing more of our day to day transactions online increases the risk of falling victim to some kind of fraud. Increasingly therefore companies are turning towards biometrics to ensure users are who they say they are.

Digital verification company Jumio is adding biometric facial recognition to its Netverify product to verify users on mobile devices.

According to new research from the consumers' association Which?, a number of major UK banks have failed to protect their customers online by not adopting two-factor security, which greatly protects against online banking fraud.

The association tested the customer-side security of 11 banks, revealing that over half had failed to implement two-factor ID checks on customers when they logged into their accounts. Lloyds Banking Group, Lloyds, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Santander and TSB were the banks which scored the lowest on the tests conducted by Which?.

A vulnerability discovered in the Linux kernel has been present for nine years, and users are being advised to seek out and install a patch as soon as they possibly can. Dubbed Dirty COW, the bug is a privilege escalation vulnerability which can be found in just about every Linux distro out there.

Discovered by security expert Phil Oester, Dirty COW is described as one of the most serious bugs of its type ever found in Linux. Assigned the code CVE-2016-5195, there is evidence that the vulnerability has been exploited and a website set up to alert people to the problem advises that the "security community should deploy honeypots that entrap attackers and to alert about exploitation attempts".

Despite a desire to be more connected than ever before, people are simultaneously more concerned than ever about their security and privacy. This is certainly true when it comes to messaging tools, and the privacy features offered by a particular app or service can be what sways your decision to use it one way or the other.

Justice group Amnesty International has spent some time analyzing the privacy and encryption found in a number of popular messaging tools and compiled results in a ranked list. The findings make for interesting reading, not least because Facebook is ranked the most highly.

Cyber attackers know that the weakest point of an organization's security is usually the endpoint and they'll increasingly try to hide malware's presence from security tools by running it only in memory.

Endpoint security specialist Endgame is releasing an update to its platform which expands coverage of the attacker lifecycle to anticipate innovations.

Threats like ransomware means it’s more important than ever to keep your computers safe both online and off.

Emsisoft has just released Anti Malware 12, the latest version of its respected anti-malware software, and Christian Mairoll, the company’s CEO, took time to speak to me about the ever evolving threat landscape, the best ways to keep your system safe, and the benefits of paid versus free solutions.

The UK economy lost £10.9 billion as a result of online fraud and cyber crime last year, according to new research, which works out at about £210 for every person aged over 16 in the country.

The figures come from a survey by Get Safe Online and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau and reveal that 68 percent of people in the UK have been targeted in some way by cyber crime.

Increasingly people are suffering from password fatigue, so when signing up to websites it's very tempting to use existing social media accounts.

However, according to a survey from customer identity and access management specialist Janrain, 93 percent of people are concerned about how their account data and activity are being shared and used.

Yahoo users have started to lose faith in the company following the theft of millions of account details and the revelation of collusion with the NSA and FBI. But it is not just users who are becoming disillusioned and looking to move elsewhere -- Yahoo's partners are also concerned.

One such company is StartPage, described as "the world's most private search engine". Concerned by privacy violations, it is ditching Yahoo search results from its metasearch tool Ixquick.eu. The parting of ways will take place by the end of the month, and StartPage CEO Robert Beens believes more companies will follow suit.

Mobile games are increasing in popularity, boosted by augmented reality apps like Pokémon GO. But if individuals are using their devices for BYOD too then these games could present a major security risk.

According to a new study from licensing specialist Flexera Software which tested 60 of the most popular iOS games, 73 percent support location services and tracking. 68 percent support social networking, 58 have calendar access and 54 percent support SMS.

Network security operations are evolving and becoming more difficult to implement according to a new survey by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), sponsored by network visibility specialist Gigamon.

The complexity of network security operations is as difficult, or more difficult, as it was two years ago according to 85 percent of surveyed respondents. This is primarily due to increased traffic, more connected devices on the network and diversity of network and security technologies used to address emerging and known security threats.

British banks are afraid that if they disclose the full picture of the cyberattacks they're under, they might suffer public backlash resulting in reputational damage and loss of customers. That's why they never fully report when they're under cyberattack. And the attacks are getting more frequent.

This is all according to Reuters, which cites Israeli-based cyber security firm Illusive Networks, Barclays, and others.

It seems as no one wants to buy NSA’s exploit tools. Or maybe ShadowBrokers, the group selling the tools, overpriced the deal.

The group, allegedly formed by Russian, state-sponsored hackers, decided to pull the auction on the tools. Instead, it turned it into a crowdfunded sale, aiming for 10,000 bitcoin, or slightly over $6 million.

There's an expectation that public Wi-Fi will be available pretty much everywhere we go these days. We access it almost without thinking about it, yet public networks rarely encrypt data leaving users vulnerable.

A new survey of more than 2,000 business users by networking company Xirrus finds that while 91 percent of respondents don't believe public Wi-Fi is secure, but 89 percent use it anyway.