There are ghosts in the machine.Not the poetic kind. I mean literal, running-code-with-root-access kind. The kind that was set up ten years ago by an admin who retired five jobs ago. The kind that still wakes up every night at 3:30 a.m.; processes something no one remembers, and then quietly vanishes into the system logs. Until, of course, something goes wrong—or someone takes advantage of it...

Adhering to the ever-tightening letter of the law is the cost of doing business these days, and for many companies caught in the crosshairs, that cost is getting too high.New research by Bridewell Consulting revealed that 44% of all financial services institutions in the UK listed compliance as the top cybersecurity challenge their organizations currently face. And it may be no surprise as many...

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) was established to protect patient privacy and secure health information. While it has been around for nearly two decades, it is evolving to keep up with an increasingly digital world and in response to the skyrocketing number of cyber attacks the industry sees every year.On December 27, 2024, the Department of Health and Human...

According to the NIS Directive, Member States should adopt a common set of baseline security requirements to ensure a minimum level of harmonized security measures across the EU and enhance the overall level of security of operators providing essential services (OES) and digital service providers (DSP). The NIS Directive sets three primary objectives:to improve the national information security...

The cyber workforce gap is one of the most pressing and persistent challenges facing the cybersecurity industry. In 2024, ISC2 found that the gap amounted to 4.8 million people globally, up 19% from the previous year. Both public and private sector organizations – including the UK’s NCSC and the SANS Institute – have introduced countless initiatives in an attempt to close the cyber workforce gap,...

According to the 2024 State of Ransomware report by Sophos, there was a 500% increase in ransom bills in the last 12 months. Moreover, an analysis by Comparitech revealed 181 confirmed ransomware incidents targeting healthcare providers in 2024, with 25.6 million records compromised. Meanwhile, there were 42 more confirmed attacks on healthcare organizations not involved in direct care provision....

The FBI is set to report that ransomware was the most pervasive cybersecurity threat to US critical infrastructure during the year of 2024. As Reuters reports, complaints of ransomware attacks against critical sectors have jumped 9% over the previous year. The annual report from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) will reveal that the likes of manufacturing, healthcare, government...

Ransomware has evolved from a distant “I hope it doesn’t happen to us” threat to an insidious, worldwide crisis. Among the sectors most affected is manufacturing, which has found itself more and more in attackers’ crosshairs. Manufacturing has long viewed itself as immune to digital crime, but ransomware attackers have belied this belief. Industrial operations rely heavily on Industrial Internet...

New cybersecurity legislation is coming thick and fast. And for good reason: cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated, systems are becoming more connected, and geopolitical relationships are becoming more fraught. One of the most recent bipartisan legislations – the US Federal Contractor Cybersecurity Vulnerability Reduction Act of 2025 – is designed to modernize cybersecurity standards in...

Third parties have long been the hidden heroes of the payment card industry, providing specialized, streamlined support to merchants looking to host a website or spin up an app. But that convenience is not without a cost.According to PCI DSS 4.0 compliance standards, although merchants are free to use third parties, the responsibility for any incurred security liability will be all theirs. When a...

The healthcare industry is a prime target for cyberattacks due to the significant value of medical data and the critical nature of patient care. Unlike other sectors, healthcare organizations must balance cybersecurity with the need for immediate access to life-saving information. Ransomware attacks, in particular, have surged, with cybercriminals exploiting outdated systems, unpatched...

It’s been a pretty divisive few months in US politics. The Trump administration has made sweeping changes in almost all areas of policy, ranging from international relations to domestic regulations and everything in between. However, some areas of American politics aren’t so contentious; in fact, a few cybersecurity policies have received bipartisan support. The Cyber Conspiracy Modernization Act,...

As cyber threats evolve, so must the strategies and frameworks that protect the data and systems that are at the heart of national defense, intelligence, and security. At a time when cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated, the need to protect national security systems (NSS) has never been more critical. With this in mind, the Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS) was formed to...

As global privacy requirements evolve, many information security professionals are called upon to enhance or lead information privacy programs. While this transition may seem like a natural progression, I learned five important lessons when I moved from a focus on security and audit to the field of information privacy.What Constitutes PII? Understanding PII is essential to your team's success....

The energy sector has become a prime target for cyberattacks, with successful breaches posing severe risks to national security, economic stability, and public safety. Luckily, the industry is standing up and taking notice, with two-thirds of energy professionals (65%) now saying their leadership now sees cybersecurity as the greatest risk to their business. This was one of the findings from the...

For all the tremendous opportunities that the digitization of business operations has unlocked, there are also complex security and data privacy challenges that organizations have to navigate. In the interests of business privacy and security, legislation exists to hold organizations and policymakers to account. None are perhaps more influential and necessary than the EU’s General Data Protection...

Cybersecurity threats are no longer a matter of "if" but "when." While companies invest heavily in technical defenses, one important aspect often gets overlooked — communication.How an organization communicates during a cybersecurity incident determines the speed and effectiveness of its response, as well as the level of trust it maintains with stakeholders.Here, we’ll walk through the...

Over the past few years, many countries have made considerable efforts to bolster cybersecurity preparedness. These efforts are understandable when put into a geopolitical context: global relationships in the past five years have been among the most tumultuous in decades, cybersecurity threats are more sophisticated than ever, and the world is increasingly reliant on digital technologies.However,...

Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC) was mandated by the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in 2007 and provides a set of security standards that must be adhered to by all federal workstations and laptops running Windows XP or Vista.FDCC evolved into the United States Government Configuration Baseline (USGCB) starting in 2010, although some agencies and contracts may still be under...

Protecting individual privacy is paramount, given the proliferation of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and other sensitive data collected by enterprises across all industries. One way to protect sensitive data is through PII masking e.g., consistently changing names or including only the last four digits of a credit card or Social Security Number.What is data masking?Data masking...