Lessons learned from the many crypto hacks

The one poignant lesson that crypto investors globally have learned over the years is that despite the immutable, impenetrable nature of the technology behind cryptocurrencies and blockchain, their crypto investments and transactions are not secure. 2018, for example, witnessed some of the largest crypto exchange hacks globally. Not to mention, the alarming volatility in the…

Encrypted attacks growing steadily, cybercriminals are increasingly targeting non-standard ports

In 2018, SonicWall recorded the decline of cryptojacking, but more ransomware, highly targeted phishing, web application attacks and encrypted attacks. The company’s annual threat report, compiled based on threat intelligence obtained from 1+ million sensors around the world, marks a: 217.5 percent increase in IoT attacks in 2018 (compared to 2017) 11 percent increase in…

Less than 20% of IT pros have complete access to critical data in public clouds

Companies have low visibility into their public cloud environments, and the tools and data supplied by cloud providers are insufficient. Lack of visibility can result in a variety of problems including the inability to track or diagnose application performance issues, inability to monitor and deliver against service-level agreements, and delays in detecting and resolving security…

How to build an effective vulnerability management program

The concept of vulnerability management has undergone a number of changes in the last few years. It is no longer simply a synonym for vulnerability assessment, but has grown to include vulnerability prioritization, remediation and reporting. It has also grown in scope: vulnerabilities don’t just affect IT networks and databases, but also applications, cloud infrastructures,…

Latest tactics used by cybercriminals to bypass traditional email security

Cybercriminals are continuously using new strategies to get past email security gateways, with brand impersonation being used in 83 percent of spear-phishing attacks, while 1 in 3 business email compromise attacks are launched from Gmail accounts. Sextortion scams, a form of blackmail that makes up 10 percent of all spear-phishing attacks, continue to increase. Employees…

Average DDoS attack sizes decrease 85% due to FBI’s shutdown of DDoS-for-hire websites

The FBI’s shutdown of the 15 largest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) for hire vendors (booters) reduced the overall number of attacks worldwide by nearly 11 percent compared to the same period last year. Along with the fewer total attacks, the average size decreased by 85 percent as did the maximum attack size by 24 percent, indicating…