New legislation is on the horizon in Australia that is set to change the way businesses deal with ransomware attacks. This law, not unlike the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA) in the US, aims to improve transparency when it comes to paying ransoms.There's no question that cybercrime is on the rise in the country. In its 2022/23 Annual Cyber Threat Report, the...

The National Information Assurance (NIA) Policy is a framework for offering organizations a foundation for information security management. It was designed and developed to aid organizations with the necessary steps to ensure information security, from assessing and classifying risk to choosing and implementing controls for mitigation.The NIA policy provides businesses with guidelines to support...

In the second quarter of 2024, 877,536 phishing attacks were reported, a marked decrease from the 963,994 attacks reported in the first quarter of the same year. However, this might not be a reason to celebrate just yet, as this reduction might be due to the fact that email providers have made it increasingly difficult for users to report phishing attempts.Complaints and testing reveal that...

Depending on the industry, location, and business operations of your organization, you may have any number of cybersecurity regulations to comply with. Keeping track of each law that affects your organization and the various requirements associated with them can be overwhelming, but the consequences of noncompliance are often far worse.While diligent adherence to regulatory requirements is not a...

Penetration testing is something that more companies and organizations should be considering as a necessary expense. I say this because, over the years, the cost of data breaches and other forms of malicious intrusions and disruptions are getting costlier. Per IBM Security’s “Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024,” the average cost of a breach has increased 10% year over year, with the healthcare...

Resilience is one of the hottest topics of the moment, but for good reason. For most organizations, suffering a cyberattack is a matter of when, not if. Attackers are, lamentably, always one step ahead of defenders and, as such, responding to an attack and maintaining business operations have become arguably more important than protecting an organization in the first place. The NIST Cybersecurity...

Today’s VERT Alert addresses Microsoft’s October 2024 Security Updates. VERT is actively working on coverage for these vulnerabilities and expects to ship ASPL-1127 as soon as coverage is completed. In-The-Wild & Disclosed CVEsCVE-2024-43573A vulnerability in the Windows MSHTML Platform has seen active exploitation attacks against a spoofing vulnerability. Based on the CWE that Microsoft selected...

Cybersecurity skill gaps and shortages are often cited as a major reason that many organizations fail to implement effective security tools and practices. The UK’s Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT) conducts an annual survey of the cybersecurity labor market in order to measure trends over time.This year’s research is largely in line with previous years, though there are...

What Is Container Security?Container security involves protecting containerized environments and the applications they run. As containers package applications and their dependencies, they offer consistency across different environments. However, this also raises security concerns, such as ensuring the integrity of container images, securing the runtime environment, and managing vulnerabilities in...

Breaches, be they accidental, careless, or malicious, are an inevitability for most companies. Depending on the industry, the consequences could range from something as minor as a little public embarrassment to hefty fines, lawsuits, expensive remediation actions, and loss of customer confidence (and, with that - business).The question is, how can compliance use this to its advantage and get a...

International law enforcement agencies have scored another victory against the LockBit gang, with a series of arrests and the seizure of servers used within the notorious ransomware group's infrastructure. As Europol has detailed in a press release, international authorities have continued to work on "Operation Cronos", and now arrested four people, seized servers, and implemented sanctions...

Tripwire's September 2024 Patch Priority Index (PPI) brings together important vulnerabilities for Microsoft.First on the list are patches for Microsoft Excel, Visio, and Publisher that resolve remote code execution, elevation of privilege, and security feature bypass vulnerabilities.Next are patches that affect components of the core Windows operating system. These patches resolve over 35...

Human nature tells us that we’ll go for the low-hanging fruit before climbing a tree. Since threat actors are (after all) human, the same applies to them. Since databases are particularly vulnerable to many lower-level attacks, they are constantly at high risk. From misconfiguration to credential theft, these repositories of sensitive information can be preyed upon by even the most nascent...

Have you ever stopped to consider all of the components that comprise a working automobile? Even a cursory examination reveals more parts than might be considered when we turn the ignition key. However, many of these components are useless when detached from the full product. A steering wheel without a car is not exactly an efficient mode of transportation.However, when multiple entities work...

We’re over halfway through the year, and ChainAnalysis has released parts one and two of their 2024 Crypto Crime Mid-Year Update. The update provides valuable insight into the cryptocurrency and cybersecurity landscape, so let’s look at the key takeaways and what they mean.There’s Been an Overall Decline in Illicit ActivityContrary to what one might expect, aggregate illicit activity on the...

For the past few years, the CRM market has witnessed steady growth and it is projected to reach $89 billion by 2024. Estimates are that this growth will continue into the foreseeable future. Essentially, CRM systems have come to stay and have become the backbone of many organizations.However, the bleak state of cybersecurity cuts across many industries, and CRM systems are equally vulnerable....

It cannot be denied that the rise of remote work has opened up many opportunities for both employers and job seekers. Despite this, however, it has also presented a plethora of challenges when it comes to recruiting in the cybersecurity and tech spaces, one of the most notable of which is the proliferation of candidates who either don’t exist entirely or who aren’t who they claim to be.Companies...

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has warned that malicious hackers continue to be capable of compromising industrial control systems (ICS) and other operational technology (OT) using "unsophisticated methods" - suggesting that much more still needs to be done to secure them properly.In an advisory posted on CISA's website yesterday, the agency said that internet...

Privacy and convenience have always been at odds, especially regarding digital onboarding or online sign-ups. For modern organizations, striking a balance between the two has become increasingly important. At the same time, a recent report said 53% of customers suggest that they would give up their interaction with a brand if it took longer than two minutes, while as many as 87% expect basic...

At a time when digital connectivity is the lifeblood of all business operations, the specter of network attacks is greater than ever. As entities depend on complex network infrastructures, malefactors exploit vulnerabilities with growing sophistication and frequency.Understanding the diverse nature of these threats—from DoS and DDoS attacks to reconnaissance exploits—is crucial for devising...