With digital transformation comes risk, and the implementation of new and innovative digital technologies without the appropriate safeguards can come at a very real financial and operational costs.
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.
US military personnel were warned against turning on unsolicited smartwatches mailed to service members that auto-connect to Wi-Fi and smartphones, potentially collecting sensitive information.
The breach of the Microsoft Exchange email server software is estimated to have hit tens of thousands of victims. The Biden administration has formally declared that Chinese state-backed APT groups were behind the original cyber attacks.
The FBI, CISA, and the Treasury Department warned about Maui ransomware attacks by state-sponsored North Korean hackers targeting US healthcare organizations.
A loose group of Russian criminals and amateur hackers are behind a wave of DDoS attacks that has disrupted the normal function of the websites of numerous US airports.
Law enforcement and cyber authorities in the United States and Japan have attributed North Korean hackers to the DMM Bitcoin crypto heist worth about $308 million.
The US Department of Treasury and the UK’s Foreign Office have sanctioned 11 Russian nationals for their role in Conti ransomware and TrickBot cybercrime gangs.
US Authorities seized cryptocurrency worth $24 million in Operation Egypto, targeting an online fraud scheme that stole over $200 million from tens of thousands of Brazilian investors.
The situation is very similar to the assorted US bans on TikTok, but concerns about Kaspersky products are not new among federal agencies; the national government banned its civilian agencies from using them in 2017.
U.S. Cyber Command uploaded a total of 7 new malware samples used by North Korean hackers to draw attention to tactics used to steal state secrets, conduct corporate espionage and find backdoors into the nation’s critical infrastructure.










