Editor's News

You may have read news stories over the New Year’s break about hackers causing power outages in Ukraine, using malware as their primary toolkit for attack. Ars Technica went as far as to lead with the headline: “First known hacker-caused power outage signals troubling escalation.” (You may have to read that headline several times: you need to parse signals as a verb, not a noun; and troubling as an adjective, not a verb.) The article was perhaps a little more...

Yann Ranchere, Partner at Anthemis, discusses why 2016 could see game changing challengers enter the banking sector. “2016 will see a strong competition in the core banking space. In Europe especially, a crop of new banks and alternative banks will push strongly in the market. European digital banks such as Fidor are expanding beyond their core market. The UK regulator’s push to lower the barrier to entry to become a bank will come to reality...

A leading crime lawyer predicts 2016 to be the year where organisations appoint dedicated cyber security and data breach reporting officers as part of their legal compliance obligations. Dan Hyde, a partner at the London law firm Howard Kennedy says that increasing fines and prosecutions for cyber breaches will force businesses and organisations to take greater steps to tackle rising cyber attacks. Dan Hyde, Partner, Howard Kennedy said: “2015 saw some of the biggest data...

Cyberattacks against energy companies in Ukraine in December 2015 are connected to attacks on media and targeted cyber-espionage against Ukrainian government agencies. Analyzing the KillDisk malware used in the attacks, ESET researchers found out that the new variant of this malware contained some additional functionality for sabotaging industrial systems. On December 23 2015, around 700 thousand people in the Ivano-Frankivsk region in Ukraine, half of the homes there, were left without electricity for several hours....

Over recent years there have been significant developments in cyber terrorism with attacks being carried out globally. The UK’s GCHQ now identifies over 200 cyber attacks every month that target critical organisations and networks or come from significant sources, such as hostile states. That compares to 100 a month in the summer of 2014. Following the recent increase in cyber threats, Chancellor George Osborne pledged that the UK will spend £1.9bn over the next five...

As 2016 kicks off, leading cloud security company iSheriff has forecast the top five security threats that businesses will face in the next 12 months.  While some of these trends started in 2015 and are expected to continue, others will bring new challenges for security professionals.   1. More POS device breaches.  In 2016, we can expect more headlines about credit card information being stolen in bulk. The ongoing problems with lax security configuration, weak...

Nearly half (44 per cent) of Internet users admit to having shared their passwords with somebody or leaving them visible for people to see, according to the findings of Kaspersky Lab’s recent consumer surveys*. This demonstrates a lack of cyber-savviness, making it easier for cybercriminals to unlock and gain access into the online lives of consumers. Despite this, when asked about the importance of passwords, respondents were more likely to think strong passwords were necessary...

As cyber-attacks continue to increase in frequency, magnitude and sophistication one the most effective defences for public and private sector alike can be found through enhanced cooperation and partnership. The agreement with Symantec will boost two-way information sharing, in particular on cyber threats.  This is often the highest-impact, lowest-cost and fastest way to enhance cyber resilience, improve incident handling and mitigate vulnerability to attack. "Today's agreement is as an excellent and concrete example of how...

Proofpoint researchers recently analyzed a wide variety of apps available on iOS and Android app stores and quantified the extent of the risk they pose to their users, as well as their personal and company data. One of the key findings from the study is that clearly, one cannot ‘judge a book by its cover’: from card games to flashlights to holy books, some apps steal data, some track users’ location and message contacts while others...

How to calculate ROI and justify your cybersecurity budget By Ilia Kolochenko, CEO of High-Tech Bridge If you speak with management about money – speak their language and you will definitely get what you need.  Almost eight years ago, Bruce Schneier wrote a great article about the problems of ROI calculation for cybersecurity spending within organizations. Since then, both annual spending on cybersecurity and the cost of global cybercrime have significantly increased. Despite that organizations increased their information security budgets...