The cyber attack impacted a "small number of servers" but nevertheless caused issues with NHS 111 scheduling, and the system outages may not be fully resolved for at least several days.
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.
Most ransomware attacks begin with some combination of phishing and social engineering. An enterprising ransomware gang in Nigeria appears to be skipping this messy step, simply making a direct pitch to employees to join in on the attack.
Nissan has confirmed that the North American data breach exposed the sensitive personal information of over 53,000 employees, contrary to its previous assessment that had ruled out PII.
Nissan Oceania is notifying approximately 100,000 individuals in Australia and New Zealand that the December 2023 data breach by the Akira ransomware gang leaked their personal information.
Federal agencies NIST and CISA issued guidelines to defend organizations and vendors against acquiring or distributing programs compromised through software supply chain attacks.
The new NIST algorithms are far from the end of the preparatory process, but allow organizations to begin taking concrete action on post-quantum encryption strategies that may need to be operational by the early 2030s.
NIST has released a guideline paper meant to give AI developers a bird's-eye view of potential cyber threats that may present during the development and early deployment of their models.
Covid highlighted the need for organizations to fully understand the world of their information and to mature their information governance program. While we are still reevaluating where we work, it is the perfect time to also reevaluate how we work.
To ensure responsible Trusted Computing, it is vital that organizations employ full-coverage security measures including the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) and Self-Encrypting Drive (SED).
SMBs paid ransomware hackers more than US$301 million last year. Hackers are finding it more lucrative to prey on SMBs without ransomware protection.










