Meet Max Vetter, Chief Cyber Officer of Immersive Labs. Before joining Immersive Labs, Vetter spent seven years working with the Metropolitan Police Service as a police officer, intelligence analyst, and covert internet investigator. After leaving his career in law enforcement, he trained the private sector and government agencies in ethical hacking and open source intelligence, specializing in darknets and cryptocurrencies. This included three years of teaching at the GCHQ Cyber Summer School. Here, we speak to Vetter about emerging threats in the cybersecurity space and general security trends he has been noticing throughout the industry.
OpenText acquired Carbonite and Webroot in December 2019, helping expand the company’s cyber resilience portfolio and strengthening its comprehensive information management offering. As it happens, the acquisition could not have come at better time. By the end of March 2020, 98% of OpenText’s global workforce of more than 14,000 had pivoted to remote work due to COVID-19. OpenText, like so many others, had to adapt to the new normal and find a way to protect the data and devices that were now well beyond the company network and firewall.
CYBER.ORG announced the kickoff of a new pilot program created to recruit a diverse body of K-12 students to pursue undergraduate cybersecurity degrees and bolster the U.S. cybersecurity workforce. Through a $250,000 grant provided by the National Security Agency (NSA), CYBER.ORG will develop a K-12 feeder program for Grambling State University (GSU) in Northern Louisiana, a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) and the first university in the state to create a cybersecurity undergraduate degree. The goal is to replicate this model between school districts and HBCU’s across the country.
To help software vendors and customers defend against these attacks, CISA and the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) have released Defending Against Software Supply Chain Attacks. This new interagency resource provides an overview of software supply chain risks and recommendations. The publication also provides guidance on using NIST’s Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management (C-SCRM) framework and the Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF) to identify, assess, and mitigate risks.
Data breach and privacy incidents occur daily at organizations of all sizes. It happens all too frequently. And while it is obvious that breaches continue impacting hundreds of thousands of lives, legal and compliance teams are not always brought in to manage each breach. With increased focus from regulators and law enforcement agencies to ensure organizations fulfill their obligations for post-breach notifications, legal teams can help quickly coordinate internal processes, and take swift action to begin the process of remediating damage and initiate immediate legal steps to protect the enterprise, and comply fully with all regulatory obligations. Here, we talk to AJ Samuel, co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Exterro, about the many benefits of retaining legal counsel, who can better protect the integrity and confidentiality of the incident response.
Many companies are struggling to adapt their security strategy to accommodate the new normal. With remote working now an ongoing reality, there has been a rush to adopt and integrate a slew of new tools and cloud platforms to facilitate collaboration and maintain productivity. However, in the race to connect everyone, security implications are often overlooked. This, coupled with the fact that relying solely on a corporate firewall is no longer a sound security strategy, puts many organizations at risk.
So, what should companies do now to adjust their security strategy? Here are five factors to adhere to that will prevent cybercriminals from taking advantage of the virtual business environment.
Kaspersky recently conducted a study based on anonymized OS metadata provided by consenting Kaspersky Security Network users. The survey found that almost one quarter (22%) of PC users are still using the end-of-life OS Windows 7, which stopped receiving mainstream support in January 2020 by way of the vendor no longer sending software updates including critical security fixes.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Homeland Security, and CISA have released a Joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) addressing Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) cyber actors—also known as Advanced Persistent Threat 29 (APT 29), the Dukes, CozyBear, and Yttrium—continued targeting of U.S and foreign entities. The SVR activity—which includes the recent SolarWinds Orion supply chain compromise—primarily targets government networks, think tank and policy analysis organizations, and information technology companies and seeks to gather intelligence information.
Comparitech researchers set up honeypots on the web to lure in attackers and record their actions. They recorded 73,000 attacks in 24 hours. The honeypots were left unsecured so that no authentication was required to access and attack it. Using this method, Comparitech researchers sought to find out which types of attacks would occur, at what frequency, and where they come from.
While COVID-19 paused many activities in 2020, cybercriminals continued to keep busy evolving their arsenal of weapons for more lucrative cyberattacks. While companies adopted remote work models and third parties experienced heightened disruption, cyber risk skyrocketed with increased ransomware, credential stuffing, malware, and Virtual Private Network (VPN) exploitation. As a result, the number of data breaches in the U.S. reached 1001 cases last year, with over 155.8 million individuals affected. Now following the SolarWinds hack, President Biden is set to sign off on an executive action to address gaps in national cybersecurity. The move is causing many CSOs to look for ways to evolve beyond the reactive model to an “always-on” approach -- one that proactively mitigates potential threats and risks before they disrupt business.
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