News

Ransomware has been through a meteoric rise over the past 12 months. Going from a barely known form of malware to one of the most commonly deployed threats around, the criminal world appears to be fully incorporating ransomware into its business model. That's according to Palo Alto Networks, who've released a new report studying this form of attack. Considering 2016 has seen several institutions including hospitals being held hostage by ransomware, as well as through DDoS...

The IT Security Guru has been lucky enough to be able to share a series of videos from the security specialists at AppRiver, award winning e-mail and web security solutions providers. The videos will break down the findings from AppRiver's Global Security Report, a quarterly study published by the company that explains the latest trends and threat actors they've seen as they carry out their work, securing millions of inboxes around the world. This first...

Ask any top-level security bod and they'll tell you that they're sick and tired of their part of the company appearing at odds with the rest of it - despite their shared goals and incentives! So we took a seat with David Cramer, Vice President at BMC Software to get his take on why this seems a natural part of doing business today and what differences we can make in how we work and communicate to...

According to a study by Kaspersky Lab, people are still carelessly sharing private information over the Internet despite the consequences. 28 per cent of people share confidential data by accident, while 16 per cent willingly disclose secrets about themselves – despite the fact that information shared online can cost them a relationship or a job. The survey, which was conducted in co-operation with B2B International, questioned more than 12,000 people worldwide and found that many...

Despite the lengthy legal arguments, we now know that the FBI were able to hack into the San Bernadino shooter’s iPhone without Apple’s help. But that’s not to say the public debates were a waste of time – it was an opportunity for everyone to think clearly about where they stand on matters of privacy and national security. These issues aren’t going away any time soon, so it’s imperative that we take the discussions seriously....

Chris Pogue of Nuix has penned a whitepaper that argues that the security industry has been "fighting the wrong battle" using the wrong tools for 20 years. He cites the human vulnerability as the factor behind this assertion. “In the more than 2,500 data breaches I have investigated, I can count exactly zero that were caused by non-human-initiated system failure—like it or not, people are the problem,” said Pogue, Nuix’s Senior Vice President, Cyber Threat Analysis....

Symantec has today launched its annual Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR), which reveals highly-skilled cyber criminals with skills sets that echo those of nation-state attackers, are fuelling an exponential growth in online crime. This is leaving businesses at risk of suffering more than 3 cyber-attacks a year according to new research from Symantec who are calling for CISOs to plan for more than one attack. Cyber criminals are adopting corporate best practices and establishing professional businesses...

Cyber criminals targeting public institutions with modified form of Qbot malware. A team of leading cyber experts has identified a new strain of Qbot, malicious software that has infected over 54,000 PCs in thousands of organisations across the world. An emergency response to a Qbot attack on a public sector organisation has given BAE Systems unparalleled insight into how the updated malware infects hosts, updates itself and hides from all but a very few antivirus...

Cyber security is often stated as a problem organisations need to deal with, but it’s an issue which is never going to be completely fixed. Instead of viewing cyber security as a problem, organisations need to start viewing their cyber security as a game and cyber adversaries as challengers in that game. The difference being that problems, like 1+1, have a singular answer. Too much network traffic load for your security perimeter? That’s a problem...

Csaba Krasznay, Product Manager of Shell Control Box, Balabit (www.balabit.com) Hackers may have many challenges, but it seems gaining access to a corporate network using social engineering techniques is not one of them. Social engineering – a technique whereby an individual is tricked into revealing personal or log-in information – is nothing new, but its evolution in recent years is shocking. Recently, the biggest and costliest data breaches (such as OPM or Ashley Madison) were...