Insight

We all experience artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) every day, whether through search engines, voice-controlled devices or simply taking a photograph on a smartphone. For certain areas of industry that rely on big data analysis, both are already proving their value, identifying patterns in data, or relationships between seemingly unrelated information and then defining algorithms that can automate decision making processes. In cybersecurity too, there are clearly some solutions that meet the accepted...

As the global pandemic has shifted life into the online space, cybercriminal groups have keenly exploited the digitisation of society’s interactions over the lockdown period. One particularly notorious group that security teams should be aware of is Magecart, a shadowy criminal syndicate responsible for many of the recent high-profile credit card skimming attacks. Who is Magecart? Magecart – whose name is derived from a portmanteau of Magento and shopping cart – is an online criminal...

Working with the largest organisations in government, finance and critical national infrastructure, we see good and bad every day. In a confusing hybrid war where APT groups launch attacks that could potentially turn out the lights, it is hard to remain impartial. The fact that a political act of devastation manifests as an innocuous looking line of code viewed over a cup of tea does nothing to detract from its destructive and vicious intent. For...

Small businesses are now on the front line in the fight against cyber crime. The vital position many SMEs have in supply chains means cybersecurity professionals should be doing everything to support small business leaders - for the benefit of everyone.   The number of UK businesses succumbing to cyber attacks has doubled in the last five years.   Around 1.5 million (or a quarter of all UK businesses) fell victim in 2019. This was...

It’s that time of year again. The air feels a bit crisper; the days are a bit shorter; and children around the world prepare to go trick or treating. Even as an adult, Halloween is probably my favourite holiday. I love seeing and thinking about monsters and things that lurk in the shadows… maybe – just maybe – that’s what drew me to a career in cybersecurity. As we ponder the horrors of the night,...

It seemed like such a good idea at the time, but Masahiro Hara has regrets. He's the engineer responsible for the quick response (QR) code - that square block of pixels that now adorns everything from restaurant tables to subway posters. The problem? They're just not secure enough. "Now that it's used for payments, I feel a sense of responsibility to make it more secure," said Hara last year. Like many technologies, the QR code expanded beyond...

Ransomware has already proven itself to be a powerfully profitable weapon in the cybercriminal arsenal. According to Emsisoft, in 2019, ransomware incidents could have had a combined cost of more than $7.5 billion (£5.65 billion). That’s just for US-based incidents too. As cybersecurity professionals and the public at large have come to realise, cybercrime is now a huge business, with organised threat groups sharing resources and techniques to boost profitability. Despite ransomware’s stellar ROI, cybercriminal...

What’s behind the simple click of a computer mouse for a shopping purchase on a web page? For most, it’s the last step of buying an item and is innocuous enough to do on autopilot. Just buy and forget about it until the item arrives at your front door. But what happens when that final step has something untoward going on in the background that could be hugely damaging to both the consumer and the...

The pandemic has ushered in irreversible changes to our lifestyles – the way we shop, travel and work is considerably different to how things were at the beginning of the year. Part of this change has seen us spend more time online, and this has unfortunately made us all more susceptible to cybercriminals. The move to widespread home working blurred the lines between our personal and professional lives, meaning security has become intrinsic to our...

Across industries, IT teams have been working flat out throughout the Covid-19 crisis. From managing the rapid mass shift to remote working, to keeping virtual communications up and running, to fixing technical issues for disrupted supply chains, the role of the IT team has been fundamental to business continuity. Cyber attacks in particular have been a major cause for concern. Malicious email traffic increased from 12% to 60% in the six week period from the...