Cyber attacks become more targeted with data theft as the goal
Mass cyber attacks are now being outnumbered by targeted attacks, with 65 percent of the total in the third quarter of 2019 being targeted, compared to 59 percent in the previous quarter.
The latest threatscape report from Positive Technologies also shows data theft grew to 61 percent of all attacks on organizations and 64 percent of all attacks on individuals (compared to 58 and 55 percent respectively in the second quarter). The share of attacks with direct financial motivation was 31 percent.
Why digital transformation and security should go hand-in-hand [Q&A]
Digital transformation is becoming an essential part of many business initiatives and of course security is a high priority too. You would think that two such essential areas would exist in close harmony, but it isn't always the case.
In the age of digital transformation security can get left behind. So, what can businesses do to ensure that new digital initiatives are secured from the start? We spoke to John Worrall, CEO at application and infrastructure security specialist ZeroNorth to find out more.
Why mobile healthcare apps are at risk [Q&A]
Cyber-attacks represent a real threat to unprotected healthcare mobile apps. The overall operational integrity of these apps is at risk, but there's also a significant risk of malicious attacks on the medical devices themselves, personal health information, and intellectual property.
We spoke to Rusty Carter, VP of product management at Arxan to find out more about the risks and how they can be addressed.
A quarter of UK smaller businesses don't have an IT disaster plan
Almost one in four of UK SMEs -- around 1.4 million businesses -- don't have an IT disaster recovery plan in place. Yet, 80 percent of businesses who suffered a major incident ended up failing within within 18 months, according to the Association of British Insurers.
A survey of over 1,100 IT workers by technology services provider Probrand also finds 54 percent reveal that their disaster plan isn't regularly tested to identify and fix any potential flaws in their DR process.
Cybersecurity is not top priority for enterprises say CISOs
Chief information security officers (CISO) are regularly being summoned by the board of directors to provide recommendations for the business, but this doesn’t mean cybersecurity is being prioritized.
A new study of over 300 cybersecurity executives by 451 Research for Kaspersky finds 60 percent of respondents say business leaders need input from their CISO most often when an internal cybersecurity incident happens, while 57 percent schedule meetings with the board on a regular basis, and 56 percent are requested to provide their expert opinions on future IT projects.
How the real-time data gold rush creates steep learning curves for developers [Q&A]
By 2025, industry analyst firm IDC predicts that 30 percent of all data will be real-time. The avalanche of streaming data frameworks, libraries and processing engines has created a massive learning curve for developers.
We spoke with Craig Blitz, product director of cloud native application platform Lightbend to learn more about where we are in these early days of streaming data development, and how Lightbend's newly launched open source framework, Cloudflow, aims to support developers pursuing real-time use cases.
Overcoming information overload with knowledge graphs [Q&A]
Businesses are generating ever larger quantities of data, much of it in unstructured form. Extracting value from this massive amount of information can be difficult, which is why it can sometimes feel as if there is simply too much data.
Augmented intelligence specialist Yewno believes it has the technology to help people research and to understand the world in a more natural manner, inspired by the way humans process information from multiple sensorial channels. We spoke to the company's CEO, Ruggero Gramatica, to find out more.
Browser push notification scams triple in 2019
Fraudulent browser push notifications as a means of delivering phishing and advertising are becoming more common, up from 1.7 million in January to 5.5 million in September this year according to the latest Kaspersky research.
Push notifications were introduced several years ago as a useful tool to keep site visitors informed with regular updates, but today are often used to bombard people with unsolicited advertisements or encourage them to download malicious software.
F-Secure builds 'swarm intelligence' to boost cyber security
We hear a lot about the use of AI in improving security products, but in most cases the assumption is that it will in some way mimic human intelligence.
Finnish company F-Secure is challenging that assumption with an initiative it calls Project Blackfin. This aims to use collective intelligence techniques, such as swarm intelligence, to create adaptive, autonomous AI agents that collaborate with each other to achieve common goals.
AI makes humans better at spotting cyber risks
Ethical human hackers supported by machine learning and artificial intelligence are 73 percent more efficient at identifying and evaluating cyber risks and threats according to a new report.
The study from crowdsourced security platform Synack also finds this combination of cybersecurity talent and AI results in 20 times more effective attack surface coverage than traditional methods.
Breaches decline as confidence in cybersecurity grows
When major cybersecurity incidents make the headlines it's easy to assume that defenders are fighting a losing battle, but in fact a new report from threat intelligence company DomainTools shows that in breaches are down and confidence in security programs is up.
More than 500 cybersecurity professionals were surveyed and the results show 30 percent of respondents gave their program an 'A' grade this year, doubling over two years from 15 percent in 2017. Less than four percent reported a 'D' or 'F'.
Cybercriminals target shopping apps ahead of Black Friday
A new report from attack surface management company RiskIQ shows attackers will leverage popular brands and unsafe consumer shopping habits in the run up to the peak holiday shopping period.
Of all apps that can be found by searching for terms related to holiday shopping, 951, or two percent, are blacklisted as malicious -- a 20 percent increase.
Businesses need to get the data privacy balance right
With multiple privacy regulations and laws having gone into effect over the past year or so and more on the way affecting both consumers and business alike, it’s no wonder people are sometimes confused about how their personal data can be used.
Cisco is releasing the findings of its 2019 Consumer Privacy Survey, highlighting the top areas where consumers continue to struggle to understand how companies are handling their personal data, and how far data privacy trust has progressed.
Third-party access management leaves organizations exposed
A survey of more than 1,000 IT security professionals exposes shortcomings in organizations' approach to managing third-party user identity and access that could leave them vulnerable to compromise.
The study by Dimensional Research for One Identity finds that while 94 percent of organizations grant third-party users access to their network, 61 percent admit they are unsure if those users attempted to or successfully accessed files or data they are not authorized to see.
IT professionals are still keen to embrace the cloud
Of organizations with on-premise data centers, 88 percent plan on moving at least some of their workloads to the cloud, managed hosting or co-location in the next three years.
This is one of the findings of a new State of IT Infrastructure Management report from data center and cloud solutions firm INAP, which also finds 38 percent of IT professionals expect to see a reduction in their on-premise workloads by 2022.
Ian's Bio
Ian spent almost 20 years working with computers before he discovered that writing about them was easier than fixing them. Since then he's written for a number of computer magazines and is a former editor of PC Utilities. Follow him on Mastodon
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