Researchers from the U.K.-based penetration testing service Pen Test Partners recently attacked a video surveillance system, and they pulled off a fairly scary feat. “We successfully switched video feeds from one camera to another through the cloud service, proving arbitrary access to anyone’s camera,” they wrote.
Don’t know what a penetration tester is? You’re not alone; more than 50 percent of U.S. adults surveyed by the University of Phoenix have never heard of pen testers or “White Hat” ethical hackers, among other cybersecurity job titles, and only about one in 10 survey respondents is “very familiar” with the 11 jobs in the industry queried in the survey.
At its National Cybersecurity Summit in late July, the Department of Homeland Security unveiled its new National Risk Management Center, which will coordinate national efforts to protect U.S. critical infrastructure.
Almost one in 10 U.S. security professionals admits to having considered participating in Black Hat – or cybercriminal – activity, according to the report White Hat, Black Hat and the Emergence of the Grey Hat: The True Costs of Cybercrime, conducted by Osterman Research and sponsored by Malwarebytes.
A review of 10,072,682 emails revealed 203,000 malicious links within were deemed safe by security systems – a ratio of one unstopped malicious link for every 50 emails inspected.
Despite the ever-evolving sophistication of hackers, security-conscious cloud providers now offer a far safer environment at a lower cost than most individual companies can provide for themselves.