This Week's Gurus

Out of all the potential ransomware variants currently infiltrating the market, they can all be blocked with one simple technique: whitelisting. The trick that some organisations may be missing, is to minimise the admin overhead of setting up a whitelist, and ensuring the vetting of software and privileges are maintained. This Ransomware-As-A-Service trend also highlights common weaknesses of traditional (signature-based) defences such as anti-virus, that can never realistically keep up with the number of ransomware...

Malicious email attacks have dominated the security headlines in recent months, with 2017 already seeing large campaigns targeting Netflix and Amazon customers. Despite the number of incident however, many individuals and businesses alike don’t actually know what kind of attacks they are being hit by. In order for a business to defend against malicious email attacks it is essential that they are able to identify whether they have been hit with a phishing, BEC or...

WikiLeaks this month released thousands of documents containing several hundred million lines of code that it claims shine a light on the solutions and tactics the Central Intelligence Agency used to spy and hack into devices, including smartphones, computers and smart televisions. While there are still questions around the documents’ authenticity, if they are legitimate they show that the C.I.A. has used sophisticated tools to, among other things, conceal malware and listen to technology in...

Undoubtedly, today’s borderless networks pose security challenges and provide hackers with greater scope to cause chaos. A data breach in one organisation’s network can provide hackers with an avenue into another, and initiate a chain-reaction of breaches compromising the confidential data of numerous organisations. Though data sharing is actively encouraged, there has not been a big push  to ensure that organisations are sharing threat intelligence with their partners and peers. Instead, it has been too...

Blockchain is expected to disrupt the payments industry with unprecedented levels of security for both end-users and businesses, alike. But what exactly is Blockchain, and how does it work to prevent fraud in the digital payment environment? What is Blockchain? Blockchain is a peer-to-peer network of transactions that was originally developed to enable safe Bitcoin trading. Each completed transaction adds another block to the chain in a linear, chronological method, with the dates and values...

We’re living in an era where collaboration is king, and the average workplace is adapting to accommodate this trend. The traditional “cube farm” office layout is slowly being replaced by large, open-space environments, and buzzwords like ‘hot-desking’ and ‘huddle room’ continue to dominate the vernacular of office professionals. These changes have come as a result of businesses realising the benefits of giving their employees more collaborative freedom. Simple brainstorm sessions give individuals the opportunity to...

According to a recent report by PhishMe, 91% of cyber attacks begin with a phishing email. The attack method remains one of the most successful available to hackers as it exploits the inherent weakness of individual users. Since the advent of networked computers, human error has almost always been at the heart of failings in cyber security, and despite increasing attempts to improve user awareness and security training, individuals continue to fall foul. With the...

Last year saw an unprecedented uptick in the volume, size and scope of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Led mostly by the Mirai malware, this drumfire of DDoS attacks took advantage of unsecured Internet of Things (IoT) devices to build massive botnets and launch mammoth DDoS attacks, the likes of which the industry had never seen. For the first time, DDoS attacks exceeded the 1 Tbps threshold. And Mirai is still making waves. In...

Digitalisation is blasting the cobwebs out from enterprises and organisations of all kinds – freeing them to innovate and take advantage of the always-on economy. But it’s also helping new disruptive players to gain an unexpectedly strong foothold in many markets. One of the key advantages these new players have is that they're basing their business models on advanced algorithms and APIs (application program interfaces) to make decisions about the services they’ll offer customers –...

In today’s world, not being able to see potential threats to applications is fatal for business where data is king. As the digital economy grows, business intelligence relies on three crucial areas: visibility, context and control. Did you ever see such a thing in your life? Today, there is no rhyme or reason why companies should not focus on implementing robust application security solutions to protect customer data. With rapidly increasing encrypted traffic, being able...