Energy, transport, water, health and other critical services firms are at risk of being fined up to £17m in May, if they don’t adopt best-practice cyber-security methods. In an attempt to boost the cyber-protection of the UK’s most critical industries, the government is pushing firms to turn to the best standard of cyber defence available. But will these fines be enough to encourage the C-Suite to take action? In recent years, there have been sudden shutdowns of transport systems and power grids that we are familiar with from Hollywood blockbusters but nowadays these have become real-world possibilities as hackers continue…
ISBuzz Team
Security Experts believe a new Era of warfare is here that combines destructive military might with malicious cyberattacks. Triton, a sophisticated malware on par with the likes of Stuxnet, that almost took down a petrol chemical plant in Saudi Arabia last August was the first shot across the bow. Triton was able to penetrate the safety system’s firmware at the petrol chemical plant and injected a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) that would allow it to receive instructions from outside the plant through an electronic backdoor. Had it not been for a flaw in the software that cause part of the…
For the fifth year in a row, Kaspersky Lab has again retained the top spot in its TOP3 cybersecurity metric, based on independent tests. Kaspersky Lab products outperformed those of all other security vendors in a broad spectrum of independent tests in 2017 – coming first place 72 times out of 86 tests and reviews, and finishing in the top three 91% of the time. According to the TOP3 metric, Kaspersky Lab is still the most tested and most awarded security vendor on the market. These results have cemented the company’s position as industry leader, because of its ability to defend users with the best…
In light of the news relating to the breach of sensitive data of California state employees, Jon Fielding, Managing Director, EMEA at Apricorn commented below. Jon Fielding, Managing Director, EMEA at Apricorn: “It is frustrating to see incidents like these continue to occur when the remedy is so simple. Organisations have it within their gift to mandate the use of a corporate standard, encrypted USB device and to enforce its use through locking down their ports so that only these devices will be accepted. We are moving towards an expectation that best practice such as this will be implemented and audited through the upcoming…
In 2017, Verizon’s Data Breach Investigation Report revealed 61 percent of all cyberattacks target small businesses. And according to the U.S. Cyber Security Alliance, 60 percent of small business that suffer a cyberattack go out of business within six months. Bad actors are using phishing and ransomware attacks to steal information to empty bank accounts via wire transfers, steal customers’ private information, commit health insurance fraud and file false tax refunds. All in all, the Ponemon Institute found the average price for small businesses to recover after being hacked stands at $690,000, and for middle market companies it’s over $1…
The latest Big Brother Watch report has found that more than 25% of UK councils have had their computer systems breached in the past five years. The report found 114 councils had experience at least one incident between 2013 and 2017 which was based on Freedom of Information requests. The data all reported that the number of cyber-attacks on local authorities, which hold the data of millions of residents, at 98 million between 2013 and 2017. This amounts to 37 attacks every minute. IT Security experts commented below. Paul Edon, Director at Tripwire: “The truth of the matter is that many organisations,…
A website created by anonymous hackers has been launched allowing anyone to search for unsecured sensitive data stored in the cloud – Buckhacker is a tool that trawls servers at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and searches for exposed data. Mark Hickman, Chief Operating Officer at WinMagic commented below. Mark Hickman, Chief Operating Officer at WinMagic: “Regardless of the cloud service enterprises use, they must fulfil their part of the ‘shared responsibility’ deal when it comes to security. Customers should encrypt all data before it is placed in the cloud, it is the last line of defence if a hacker gains…
Personal information of thousands of FedEx customers worldwide was exposed on the web due to an Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud storage server which was not secured with a password. Security researchers from Kromtech Security found the open AWS bucket which contained 119,000 scanned documents, including passports, drivers’ licenses and Applications for Delivery of Mail Through Agent forms, which contain names, home addresses, phone numbers and ZIP codes. IT security experts commented below. Willy Leichter, Vice President of Marketing at Virsec Systems: “This story keeps repeating as often as Groundhog Day. Many data breaches don’t involve sophisticated hackers – just a…
In response to the Prime Minister’s speech made today in Munich, Julian David, techUK CEO, commented below. Julian David, CEO at techUK: “The Prime Minister is right that nothing within the complex Brexit negotiations should be allowed to stand in the way of the security cooperation needed to keep people safe. We need a close partnership to tackle the threats we face, from global terror, to drug trafficking to increasing cyber security challenges. “Critical to delivering this partnership is securing cross border data sharing between law enforcement, security and intelligence agencies. It is very welcome that the Prime Minister was…
Nick Bilogorskiy, Cybersecurity Strategist at Juniper Networks commented below on SWIFT/Russian central bank. Nick Bilogorskiy, Cybersecurity Strategist at Juniper Networks: Verizon’s 2017 DBIR report shows financial institutions get breached almost twice as much as the next most breached vertical, healthcare. Most cyber attacks today are financially motivated, cybercriminals “rob banks because that’s where the money is.” The two methods to steal money from banks commonly used by cyber gangs are ATM jackpotting and SWIFT wire transfers. Banks know this and spend heavily on countermeasures and security response. Collectively J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Citibank and Wells Fargo spent $1.5 billion…