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Compiling data drawn from surveys sent out to more than a thousand IT and IT security practitioners within the UK and US, the Ponemon Institute, in collaboration with DomainTools, have recently published their insights in the report titled “Staffing the IT Security Function in the Age of Automation”. Will automation shrink IT security functions' headcount? According to the report, more than half of the respondents (51%) believe that automation will lead to a loss of...

As businesses’ daily operations become more dependent on cloud services, ransomware authors will follow to maximize profits. The good news: Many of the best practices for physical servers also apply to the cloud. Ransomware is now a billion-dollar enterprise for cybercriminals, and — as in any industry — it has evolved over time to become more efficient and maximize profits. Source: Dark Reading  

Mac laptops and desktops running OSX have a reputation as being virus- and malware-free, but as Apple's market share increases, cybercriminals are beginning to focus their efforts on OSX machines, according to a recent report by Malwarebytes. The State of Malware 2020 report is a deep dive into what this anti-malware company has found on computers and devices across its installation base, covering Windows, macOS/OSX, iOS and Android operating systems, and splitting threats into categories such as...

A very clever phishing campaign is underway that pretends to be fraud protection emails from American Express and Chase that ask you to confirm if the listed credit card transactions are legitimate. If you have credit cards and commonly use them, you may have received emails in the past asking you to confirm if a particular credit card transaction is valid. Source: Bleeping Computer  

The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. accidentally left over 440 million records publicly exposed after failing to password-protect a corporate database, according to a researcher who spotted the oversight. The misconfigured database was found to contain user emails in plain text, including those sent from internal email addresses; references to reports and internal documents; and IP addresses, ports, pathways and storage information. Additionally, it stored Production, Audit, Error, CMS and Middleware logs. All in all, a...

Katie Price has been forced to battle Facebook after hackers stole control of her account and changed it into a page for quotes and memes. The 41-year-old former glamour model has been locked out of her verified Katie Price account for weeks, and has accused mysterious repeat hackers of taking control of it for the third time. Katie's rep told Mirror Online: "She's been hacked - we've been trying to get it back via Facebook. Source: Mirror

New research has revealed 83 percent of IT security professionals feel more overworked going into 2020 than they were at the beginning of 2019, according to a Tripwire survey. The research, which was in partnership with Dimensional Research, examined how organisations and security pros are coping under the strains of the skills gap. Having surveyed 342 IT security professionals it was also found that 82 percent of security pros felt that their teams were understaffed....

Criminal groups are exploiting fears over the recent novel coronavirus outbreak in an email phishing campaign directed at the global shipping industry, according to a report issued Monday by a California-based cybersecurity firm. Source: Global News

Phishing emails have been uncovered that request a full rundown of personal data – even asking for photos of passports. A recently uncovered phishing campaign, targeting PayPal users, pulls out all the stops and asks victims for the complete spectrum of personal data – even going so far as to ask for social security numbers and uploaded photos of their passports. Source: Threat Post