We need to talk about ransomware, says James Lyne, global research adviser at Sophos: "It's not the big, sexy security topic that it once was, but there's some really interesting evolution in their tactics." Lyne rounds up the latest tactics and describes how machine learning is offering new defensive hope.
Recent failures of IT systems at some major airports and banks are a reminder that as an organization launches a digital transformation project, or seeks to move more of its processes to the cloud, those efforts won't necessarily proceed smoothly or securely, says Skybox Security's Justin Coker.
To stop malware, it helps to spot it as fast as possible and keep tabs on what it might be trying to do. "We all know that a well-funded, patient, creative attacker - there's no way to keep them out," says Lastline's Patrick Bedwell.
The latest challenge to face CISOs: Finding the best way to keep their organization secure while at the same time navigating political edicts that may lack any technical detail or present solid facts or alternatives to suspect technology, says Jaya Baloo, CISO of KPN Telecom.
When communications giant Publicis Groupe launched its GDPR compliance project, CISO Thom Langford says, "it was more a case of honing and polishing, rather than building from the ground up," thanks to its existing information security management system and complying with ISO 27001.
Driven by the EU's General Data Protection Regulation and other regulations, as well as the move to the cloud, more organizations are turning to data classification to help them silo and protect their most sensitive information, says Tony Pepper, CEO of Egress.
For attackers, "credential stuffing" - using stolen usernames and passwords to log into any site for which a user reused their credentials - is the gift that keeps on giving, says security researcher Troy Hunt. Here's how organizations can mitigate the threat.
Financial services firms write off a certain level of online fraud as a cost of doing business, but these losses directly fund organized crime and help legitimize cybercrime as a career path, says Trusted Knight's Trevor Reschke, who stresses the sector must do more to combat fraud.
Never underestimate the human factor in attacks. Indeed, many of today's top attacks - from malware to phishing - require some level of interaction from victims. "They're targeting people - they're targeting the users within our businesses," says Proofpoint's Adenike Cosgrove.
Symantec says it has uncovered a cyber espionage campaign that targets telecommunications operators in Southeast Asia - as well as a defense contractor and satellite communications operator - and warns that the hacking group, dubbed Thrip, may be laying the groundwork for more destructive attacks.
In the past 12 months, there's been a blistering series of high-impact attacks that increasingly blur the lines "between statecraft and criminal organizations," says CrowdStrike's Zeki Turedi. How much of this blurring is intentional?
Email attacks continue to bite businesses, with organizations reporting not only a steady stream of ransomware, but also increasingly targeted social engineering attacks and account takeovers for cloud service users, says Barracuda's Hatem Naguib.
As the prevalence and scale of data breaches continues to increase - with attacks such as WannaCry and NotPetya having compromised entire business sectors - organizations must focus much more on preventing attacks, says Check Point's Gad Naveh.
The U.S. Department of Justice has charged a former CIA officer, 29-year-old Joshua A. Schulte, with providing 8,000 documents that describe the agency's offensive malware tools and practices to WikiLeaks, which published them in 2017 as the "Vault 7" archive.
Human resources software developer PageUp says it doesn't appear that personal data exposed in a malware attack was actually removed from its systems. But it has also found authentication error logs that recorded incorrect login attempts from before 2007.
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