The latest news has reported that UCL has been hit by a severe ransomware attack that disrupted systems and forced the IT Team to block access to shared drives. Commenting on the attack is Paul Edon, Director at Tripwire and Dean Ferrando, Systems Engineering Manager (EMEA) at Tripwire, who believe ransomware attacks won’t be going away anytime soon but have given advise on how enterprises can avoid future attacks. Paul Edon, Director at Tripwire: “Ransomware is a serious threat to any IT system regardless of geography or market sector. Despite the recent and well publicised incidents, we still seem to have difficulty preventing the infection and…
ISBuzz Team
At this point, everybody knows phishing is a threat. But then, it’s difficult to deny. As Verizon points out, over 90 percent of data breaches include a phishing or social engineering component, including many of the high profile breaches we all read about each week. In fact, from a security perspective, phishing is the single greatest threat to most organizations, whether they’re tiny family owned businesses or huge multinational conglomerates. So, what are most organizations doing to defend against phishing? Naturally, they’re… doing almost nothing. Best case, they might be holding an annual awareness session in some dark basement room,…
In a blog post yesterday, social media giant Facebook said that it will use artificial intelligence (AI) to find and remove terrorist content before other users see it after the platform was criticised for not doing enough to tackle extremism. Homer Strong, Director of Data Science at Cylance commented below. Homer Strong, Director of Data Science at Cylance: “Overall this direction is promising. A major issue with using humans to provide ground truth for AI is that humans are not perfect either. There needs to be processes for evaluating human judgement in parallel to machine judgement. Otherwise the AI can end up learning the subjectivities of individual reviewers, distracting…
With Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre confirming suspicions that North Korea was responsible for last month’s WannaCry ransomware attack, Pete Turner, Consumer Security Expert at Avast commented below. Pete Turner, Consumer Security Expert at Avast: “The NCSC is essentially confirming the rumours that have been swirling around since the WannaCry outbreak last month. Coupled with reports in recent days that major universities have been hit by ransomware attacks, this news will do little to abate the public’s fears around North Korea’s growing cyber arsenal. “The important thing for both people and organisations is not to panic, and to remain diligent…
Given today’s report from consumer watchdog which highlighting the UK’s fraud hotspots (full coverage on BBC News) that have been most prominently hit bycomputer viruses, malware and spyware; fraud; online retail fraud; and social media hacking, Peter Carlisle, VP of EMEA at Thales e-Security commented below in response to this story. Peter Carlisle, VP of EMEA at Thales e-Security: “These findings from Which? highlight not only how rife incidents of fraud are across the country but also how many different types of fraud there actually are. From retail fraud to social media hacking, fraudsters will stop at nothing in their quest to obtain valuable personal…
Malware attacks on small-to midsized (SMB) businesses in the US jumped 165% in the first quarter over the same period last year, according to a new Malwarebytes study. Michael Patterson, CEO of Plixer commented below. Michael Patterson, CEO at Plixer: “All companies and organizations are hit by infection attempts every day. Preventative measures, like firewall rules and patched operating systems do a decent job at protecting companies from a wide array of known threats. However, most targeted zero day attacks cannot be stopped by machines. Human intervention remains the last defense against the spread of malware. Once the contagion is inside,…
In response to the recent news that four UK cyber-criminals have been arrested amid an NCA crackdown, Pete Turner, Consumer Security Expert at Avast provides an insight below. Pete Turner, Consumer Security Expert at Avast: “The business of cyber-attacks can be viewed as exactly that, a business. Cyber-criminals, like those just arrested in the UK, are as opportunistic as any other and are always searching for the next chance to make money. Trying to develop counter antivirus platforms is a prime example of how hackers are constantly trying to update their arsenals and infiltrate the modern internet user. However, despite criminals developing these tools,…
News broke earlier this week that Samsung, the most popular smartphone maker in the world, left millions of customers vulnerable to hackers after it let expire a domain that was used to control a stock app installed on older devices, security researchers say. Tim Helming, Director of Product Managment at DomainTools commented below. Tim Helming, Director of Product Managment at DomainTools: “Over the years, researchers have found many instances of expired domains still figuring in live code, which has the potential to give attackers various kinds of dangerous unauthorized access. Considering the low cost of registering domains–I’d guess that Samsung spends more annually on little red coffee…
News broke yesterday that E-cigarettes can be used to hack computers. Many e-cigarettes can be charged over USB, either with a special cable, or by plugging the cigarette itself directly into a USB port on a computer, security researchers warn that your computer could actually be compromised by the simple act of charging a vape pen with just a few simple tweaks to the vaporizer. Adam Brown, Manager of Security Solutions at Synopsys commented below. Adam Brown, Manager of Security Solutions at Synopsys: “Last year the University of Illinois and University of Michigan published research that showed if a hacker deliberately dropped a USB stick (which could have malware…
THE RISE OF MOBILE One of the most disruptive trends in IT, both in the consumer space and in the enterprise, has been a progression towards mobility. Whether it be employees accessing corporate data on corporate owned mobile devices or the rise of BYOD initiatives for cell phones and laptops, IT professionals in organizations large and small have to rethink the way they deliver services to their end users. With the influx of millennials in the workplace, as well as a growing acceptance of different styles of work, enabling this type of mobility can be a competitive differentiator for acquiring…