X-Industry

Research from Cofense has found that user credentials are being targeted by hackers and scammers on a scale never seen before.  Indicators of compromise (IoC), digital evidence of a cyber attack, for credential phishing have increased in Q3 by close to 45% over Q2, the company's report found.

IT Management Solutions - Compared to the Q3 period of 2022, IoCs of credential phishing are up 85% with PDFs being the most common malicious file extension attached to a phishing email.

Do not take the bai

According to cyber threat professionals, every 11 seconds an organization falls victim to a ransomware attack.  In today's interconnected world, cybersecurity looms as an ever-present concern that organizations can no longer afford to sideline. A 48% increase in cyber risk last year should serve as a wake-up call to all business managers.  Whether a business pays hackers a ransom or not, there are significant costs involved which will include items such as digital forensics and data restoration,

When I review the cybersecurity e-newsletters, the unsolicited vendors, and PR pitches offering solutions and commentary related to breaches, it is clear that the bad actors do not care which industries they affect.  Their goals are to disrupt, and if they can get some ransom money in the process or make it difficult for organizations to function normally, especially if they are friendly to their political foes, they are more than happy to do it for fun and profit.[1]

Here are some companies fro

It is not just the frequency of the cyber-attacks, but also the severity can be critical, for example the Port of Nagoya in Japan that had to shut down operations for more than three days after a ransomware attack.  In addition, new critical vulnerabilities were published in major hardware and software commonly used by shipping companies: just in the last month we saw new critical vulnerabilities in major brands of firewalls, routers, internet browsers (practically all of them), operating system

A new tool allows artists to add invisible changes to the pixels in their art before they upload it online so that if it is scraped into an AI training set, it can cause the resulting model to break in chaotic and unpredictable ways.  The tool, called Nightshade, is intended to fight against AI companies that use artists’ work to train their models without the creator’s permission.  Using it to “poison” this training data could damage future iterations of image-generating AI models, such as DALL

The attack surface widens by the day, with new threats being posed by artificial intelligence (AI) and increasingly cunning social engineering exploits.  And, while the global cybersecurity workforce has grown to help defend against mounting threats, the gap of required workers remains at an all-time high, according to ISC2’s annual Cybersecurity Workforce Study out today.  To adapt to that reality, the nonprofit member association emphasizes, organizations must move beyond legacy practices.

Yes

In the secretive world of venture capital and startups, information means access and it means money.  And so, it is rare that we see closely-guarded information the financials, the emails, the cap table all picked apart and challenged for anyone who chooses to pay attention.  It is rare we hear a startup’s executives give unadulterated answers to questions on the record, under oath laying out how things really went under the hood.  We only get that kind of a look at a private company when things

A highly sophisticated piece of malware posing as a cryptocurrency miner has stayed hidden for five years, infecting more than one million devices, cybersecurity investigators warn.  Named StripedFly, the threat contains code sequences previously observed in the malware used by the threat actor known as the Equation Group, known for APT malware and attacks, which has been linked to the US National Security Agency.

Designed as a modular framework, StripedFly can target both Windows and Linux and

In today’s cyber threat landscape, no single technology can universally fight every attack. Cyber threats are becoming more advanced, and adversaries are more skilled in exploiting vulnerabilities.  Sophos’ Active Adversary Report for Tech Leaders found the overall median dwell time was just eight days in the first half of 2023, decreasing from 10 days in 2022, suggesting threat actors are speeding up and advancing their attacks.

Preventing the most advanced attacks requires human-led threat hun

Aindrea Campbell knows more than most about high-tech production.  In her previous role, she was senior director of iPad operations at Apple, helping to run the sophisticated assembly lines in China that produce tens of millions of tablet computers each year.  As chief operating officer of Agility Robotics, Campbell will oversee the production of pioneering products in the US.  In September, the company announced that its 70,000 sq ft RoboFab, the “world’s first factory” for building humanlike r

Since the introduction of ChatGPT, the media and security experts have warned that phishing tactic are now more powerful, compelling and increasing in numbers. IBM’s X-Force Red wanted an objective assessment on this subjective assumption.  The method chosen was to test an AI-generated phishing email and a human generated email against employees working for a healthcare firm. Sixteen hundred staff members were selected: 800 received the AI phish, while the other 800 received the human phish.[1]

This Fortiguard article in the Ransomware Roundup covers the Knight ransomware.

Knight Ransomware Overview: 
Knight is a relatively new ransomware group that arrived in August 2023. Like many attackers, the gang behind this variant employs double extortion tactics, where the Knight ransomware encrypts files on victims’ machines and exfiltrates data for extortion purposes.

The predecessor of Knight, Cyclops, had multi-OS tools for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. So, while FortiGuard Labs had only loc

What if a QR (Quick Response) code was shown on a TV advertising spot, and the company behind that commercial had malicious intent?  For example, the QR code displayed during the AD opened your phone's browser and automatically downloaded and installed a piece of ransomware.  Given the number of people who watch the televised events, the outcome of that attack could have been disastrous.   That is Quishing, fooling a person (or several people) into thinking something is harmless (or necessary),

The cybersecurity landscape is full of threats and new ones are emerging.  This makes it increasingly difficult for businesses to protect themselves and their supply chains from cyberattacks.  One way to mitigate supply chain risk is to implement a global cybersecurity rating system.  This would allow businesses to assess the security posture of their suppliers and identify any potential risks.

Could there be a service/system where businesses could simply check a rating to see how secure their s

The RagnarLocker ransomware’s infrastructure and the website the group used for shaming victims were taken down this week as part of a coordinated law enforcement effort.  Active since 2020, RagnarLocker has been involved in numerous attacks, with at least 52 entities across 10 critical infrastructure sectors falling victims to this ransomware family, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

See:  https://redskyalliance.org/xindustry/ragnar-locker-ransomware

Unlike other

My question is, “Who has not stolen my personal information?”  Equifax, Home Depot, Target, Anthem, and the OPM have already lost my PII.  I recently declined an invitation to register with ID.me, https://www.id.me .  ID.me is an American online identity network company that allows people to provide proof of their legal identity online. ID.me digital credentials can be used to access government services, healthcare logins, or discounts from retailers.  This potential theft will allow an unknown

Last year, Forbes wrote a scary article about facts and patterns that applied to Halloween and Cybersecurity Awareness Month of October.[1]  After another year, the online environment and digital dangers are still unsettling, if not scarier.  So, exploring some of the stats and trends is time again.

“In 2023, the World Economic Forum, for the first time, ranked cybercrime and cybersecurity as one of the top ten global risks over a 2-year and 10-year period.  Legislation in the US and Europe is m

The Fortinet 2023 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity Report is their fifth annual study based on data from an in-depth worldwide survey of 570 OT professionals conducted by a respected third-party research company.

Protecting OT systems is now more critical than ever as more organizations connect their OT environments to the internet.  Although IT/OT convergence has many benefits, it is being hampered and handicapped by advanced and destructive cyberthreats. The spillover of these

As October is winding down, we turn our focus to Training.  October 2023 marks the 20th annual Cybersecurity Awareness Month.  While it was initially founded as a national movement in the US, Cybersecurity Awareness Month has since grown into a global initiative.  And for good reason.  Today's cybersecurity market is suffering from a skills gap of 3.4 million trained professionals, with security practitioners being overwhelmed by a continuous onslaught of increasingly sophisticated attacks while

Back in 1975, singer-songwriter Barry Manilow wrote and sang a song, I Write the Songs.  Forty-eight years later, Barry might be out of a job with AI now writing songs.  Universal Music https://www.universalmusic.com sued AI startup Anthropic https://www.anthropic.com  over “systematic and widespread infringement of their copyrighted song lyrics,” per a filing in a Tennessee federal court in October 2023.  One example from the lawsuit: When a user asks Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude about the lyr