Research

A new study by Specops Software explores the resilience of SHA256, a commonly used cryptographic hashing algorithm, against modern password-cracking techniques. The findings emphasize the algorithm’s effectiveness in protecting data, especially when combined with strong, complex passwords. However, the research also highlights vulnerabilities when using short or simple passwords, even with this robust technology. SHA256, renowned for its collision resistance and speed, is widely implemented in areas like blockchain, digital certificates, and password storage. However,...

The majority of large enterprises spend an average of 3-5 months integrating and training teams on each new security solution - at the expense of threat hunting, vulnerability scanning and security awareness training  However, major contradictions are rife, with 76% believing more tools equate to better security  Attitudes to cybersecurity within the UK's largest organisations are highly contradictory and risk exacerbating existing risks, stress, and inefficiency, new research from SenseOn has today revealed. The research...

Today, Keeper Security have announced the release of the Keeper Security Parental Practices Report: Conversations on Cybersecurity, which explores parental attitudes, practices and concerns regarding cybersecurity discussions with their children and sheds light on this imperative topic for families. The report found that one in three (30%) of parents admitted that they have never spoken to their children about cybersecurity.  Additionally, over 40% of parents who admitted that they didn't know how to create strong...

Comparitech recently conducted research into exactly this, looking at the top 100 stadiums in world football around the world, to figure out which football fans are the most watched. They have collated the number of cameras found in each stadium, focusing on the number of cameras recording the public in and around the grounds but excluding those that record and stream matches on television. Football matches are always closely monitored, whether it be the World...

Today, Armis released new research identifying the riskiest connected assets posing threats to global businesses. The company's findings highlight risk being introduced to organisations through a variety of connected assets across device classes, emphasising a need for a comprehensive security strategy to protect an organisation’s entire attack surface in real-time. “Continuing to educate global businesses about the evolving and increased risk being introduced to their attack surface through managed and unmanaged assets is a key mission...

Between 2018 and 2023, 478 manufacturing companies have suffered a ransomware attack, leading to a loss of approximately $46.2 billion in downtime alone. Serious cyber incidents affecting manufacturing companies can lead to significant disruptions to production lines. As a result, customer orders can be left unfulfilled and day-to-day operations come to a standstill. Comparitech recently analysed how widespread these types of attacks on the manufacturing sector are to find out their true cost. Using their...

The IT Security Guru, working in conjunction with market research firm Censuswide and cybersecurity PR agency Eskenzi PR, has uncovered some shocking statistics relating to scams and the cost of living crisis. The results of the survey found that 11% of Brits were tempted to engage in ‘illegal or illicit online behaviour’ in order to help manage the fallout from the cost of living crisis. This statistic becomes even more concerning when focused on younger...

With data from its SecurityCoach product, KnowBe4 has revealed the top 10 risky behaviours that employees have engaged in on their work devices. SecurityCoach helps IT/security professionals to develop a strong security culture by enabling real-time security coaching of their users in response to risky security behaviour. Leveraging an organisation’s existing security stack, IT/security professionals can configure their real-time coaching campaigns to immediately deliver a SecurityTip to their users related to a detected event. The...

Comparitech recently conducted a series of freedom-of-information requests, which found that UK government employees received an average of 2,246 malicious emails each in 2022. The results showed that, across 250 government organisations, Comparitech estimates that 2.16 million government employees received a total of 2.75 billion malicious emails in 2022. The study also found that: Government employees received an average of 2,245.88 malicious emails each in 2022 250 government organisations received an estimated 2.75 billion malicious...

Salt Security, the API security company, has released new threat research from Salt Labs highlighting several critical security flaws in Booking.com. The now remediated flaws were found in the implementation of the Open Authorization (OAuth) social-login functionality utilised by Booking.com, which had the potential to affect any users logging into the site through their Facebook accounts.   The OAuth misconfigurations could have allowed for both large-scale account takeover (ATO) on customers’ accounts and server compromise,...