Google has been issuing direct personal warnings to users that appear to have been targeted by a state-sponsored hacking group. The company has taken the unusual step of issuing a general public warning about an Iran-backed threat.
Cyber Security
Cyber criminals, state-sponsored hackers and even the occasional disgruntled employee are constantly looking to gain unauthorized access for a variety of purposes: theft of money, cyber espionage, personal information for sale or for use in scams, and damage to critical infrastructure for just a few of the most common.
So how does an organization mitigate an entire world full of continual cyber attacks? Just as buildings have a number of necessary elements of physical security: access control, cameras, alarms and so on; there are similar key elements of cyber security that are absolutely vital for just about any modern business.
It starts with identifying and closing the most common doors that attackers use. For example, phishing attacks on employees are far and away the most common initial point of entry. The breach of even a low-level employee account can quickly turn into an escalation in access privileges and the ability to reach sensitive information. This is also true of smart devices, which are generally more poorly secured than computers and phones.
Acer suffered another cyber attack in Taiwan by the Desorden group that hacked the company in India. Hackers warned of Acer's poor cybersecurity practices and vulnerable Asian servers.
While cybersecurity risks will continue to accelerate across the healthcare industry, organizations can help protect themselves from ongoing dangers by being vigilant, creating resiliency, an incident response plan and building security awareness.
Microsoft reported that the Russian hackers behind the devastating SolarWinds attack are employing similar tactics to worm their way into tech supply chains, looking to establish long-term footholds for espionage purposes.
A cybersecurity advisory by CISA, the FBI, and the NSA warned that BlackMatter ransomware is actively targeting critical infrastructure entities and food organizations in the US.
If organizations want to effectively combat the ongoing skills gap war in the cybersecurity field, as well as properly prepare against the next new cyber threat, they will need to become creative in how they become involved with the education of the next generations of cyber professionals.
A dark web forum recruited affiliates in a phishing campaign targeting YouTube creators with cookie stealing malware to hijack their accounts and stream cryptocurrency scams.
For IT and security teams, the dramatic increase in demand for applications and digital services, coupled with these heightened expectations for flawless application performance, creates a huge challenge.
Vendor relationships with B2B sharing economy companies are more transactional and often the workforce is also less meticulously vetted. The biggest risk most vendors face today (and one that CIOs are increasingly wary of) when leveraging B2B sharing services is cybersecurity.
Some threat actors are still willing to take whatever opportunities they can find. A recent ransomware attack on the developing and mostly-rural Papua New Guinea illustrates this.










