Hardening in Cybersecurity Cybersecurity hardening is a comprehensive approach to keeping your organization safe from intruders, and mitigating risk. By reducing your attack surface, vulnerability is reduced in tandem. Hardening (or system hardening) considers all flaws and entry points potentially targeted by attackers to compromise your system. While innovative and determined cybercriminals will...

The cybersecurity landscape is continuously evolving. It has led businesses to question how they are protecting themselves and their consumers from data breaches. Since 2014, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has commissioned the Cybersecurity Breaches Survey of the UK to understand what protections are in place, and where the UK can improve for future security postures...

From its inception, the automotive industry has been shaped by innovation and disruption. In recent years, these transformations have taken shape in rapid digitization, ever-growing Electric Vehicle (EV) infrastructure, and advanced connectivity. These shifts have redirected the automotive industry, meeting and surpassing customer expectations for what vehicles should accomplish. However, they...

Security researchers have released a new decryption tool that should come to the rescue of some victims of a modified version of the Conti ransomware, helping them to recover their encrypted data for free. Conti was one of the most notorious ransomware groups, responsible for hundreds of attacks against organisations, which netted criminals over $150 million. Its victims included the government of...

The world of security advisories is disjointed, with disparate systems holding critical documentation in various formats. To make matters more challenging, despite living in a digital-first era, most of these documents are not legible for machines and must be parsed, reviewed, or referenced by humans. As system administrators contend with a rapidly changing threat landscape and the need to remain...

If you were to poll the folks in a typical office about which aspect of the infamous CIA Triad was most important to them, you would likely get different answers from different people. While confidentiality, integrity, and availability are all important and serve to function together, for the sake of fun, what if you had to choose one factor as the most critical? The legal team would most likely...

Around 39 billion records were compromised between January and December of last year, according to Flashpoint’s 2022 A Year in Review report. While this result is quite staggering, it also sends a clear message of the need for effective database security measures. Database security measures are a bit different from network security practices. The former involves physical steps, software solutions...

We all know about the attacker who leverages their technical expertise to infiltrate protected computer systems and compromise sensitive data. This type of malicious actor ends up in the news all the time. But they’re not the only ones making headlines. So too are “social engineers,” individuals who use phone calls and other media to exploit human psychology and trick people into handing over...

Governments play a key role in the continued operation of society. While getting a speeding ticket or paying taxes may not be anyone’s favorite thing to do, they contribute to the government’s ability to protect its citizens while maintaining its infrastructure and services. Cybersecurity is critical for all organizations and government agencies, as they may hold sensitive information on both...

Organizations are progressively moving towards a predominantly cloud-based computing environment. What this means is that essentially all of their back-end infrastructure, systems, and client-facing applications can be accessed and distributed through the cloud. Modern cloud computing goes a step further than simply being present in a virtual environment. Companies now have more flexibility and...

Application dependencies occur when technology components, applications, and servers depend on each other to provide a business solution or service. Developers have a specific technology stack in mind when building solutions. This can typically include operating systems, database engines, and development frameworks (such as .Net or Java), as well as other infrastructure. There are various types of...

As the world grows increasingly digital and dependent on the internet, cyberthreats are constantly evolving to clash with newer and more rigid security features. Despite cybercriminals’ propensity for finding new and innovative ways to take advantage of their targets, however, there are also tactics that have been in use since the early days of the internet. These tried-and-true methods continue...

When it comes to acronyms, Technology and Cybersecurity often rival various branches of government. Technology acronyms are usually somewhat bland, amounting to little more than the arcane argot of the profession, such as SOC, SIEM, and DNS. Government, however, rarely disappoints in its inventiveness, whether it is the acronym of the Puppies Assisting Wounded Servicemembers (PAWS) for Veterans...

The Compliance Landscape Only those hiding from the news, prospects, and customers can miss the data security and privacy challenges that are occurring. More businesses are relying on data analytics (garnered from data collection) for more and improved service and product offerings. More individuals want data privacy and security. More nations want their citizens protected from corporate tactics...

Today’s energy sector is undergoing massive change, especially as more utilities try to usher in clean or renewable energy alternatives like solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, and wind power. In addition to the clean energy transition, grid modernization is another major shift in the energy industry. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is expected to transform the energy grid and support...

We create massive amounts of data daily, from the exercise stats compiled by our wearable devices to smart meters used at our homes to reduce expense consumption to maintenance statistics of critical systems in industrial settings. If data creation continues at its present rate, more than a yottabyte (a million trillion megabytes) will likely be generated annually by 2030. Even though big data is...

Tripwire's January 2023 Patch Priority Index (PPI) brings together important vulnerabilities for Microsoft and Adobe. First on the patch priority list this month are patches for Microsoft Visio and Microsoft Office that resolve 6 vulnerabilities, including remote code execution and information disclosure vulnerabilities. Next are patches for Adobe Reader and Acrobat that 15 vulnerabilities...

UK banking group TSB is calling on social networks and dating apps to better protect their users from fake profiles, following an alarming spike in romance fraud. Examining data from December 2020 - January 2022, TSB determined that romance fraud almost doubled compared to pre-pandemic levels, with a record increase in losses of 91% - averaging £6,100 per incident. The bank's findings uncovered...

Extortion, and especially “sextortion” emails, are becoming more frequent, and they can be extremely alarming when received. Such emails work by using threats to extort money, evoking intense fear. This type of correspondence comes in many guises and features various elements, but essentially, they work in the same way. These activities can refer to real-life experience such as cheating on a...

The cybersecurity landscape has become something of a battle royale: companies and cyber criminals are continually trying to outsmart one another in an effort to be the last one standing. Thankfully, many businesses are seeking a proactive approach, aiming to avoid the proverbial egg on their face when it comes to cybersecurity breaches. Learning from other organizations’ costly misfortunes, many...