Network Security | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Many moons ago, when the World Wide Web was young and the nerd in me was strong, I remember building a PC and setting it up as a web server. In those exciting, pioneering days, it was quite something to be able to have my very own IP address on the internet and serve my own web pages directly from my Apache server to the world. Great fun. I also remember looking at the server logs in horror as I scrolled through pages upon pages of failed login, and presumably hacking, attempts. I'd buttoned things up pretty nicely from a security standpoint, but even so, it would only have taken a vulnerability in an unpatched piece of software for a breach to occur, and from there, all bets would have been off. Even today, many internet service providers will let you provision your own server, should you feel brave enough. Of course, the stakes were not high for me at home, but knowing what we know now about the growth of ransomware attacks and how AI is facilitating them, no organization would da...

The surge in DDoS attack traffic this year has been driven in part by the rapid expansion of IoT devices - from smart watches and home appliances to cars, hundreds of millions of new devices are joining the global internet. Many of these new devices feature poor security and are easily added to attacker's pool of botnets.  It is true that the DDoS threat grows alongside internet expansion. But the relationship isn't linear. The true catalyst behind this surge lies in the mass availability of botnet-for-hire platforms and low-barrier attack tools. Meanwhile, the number of high-value targets – such as financial institutions, governments, and critical infrastructure – remains relatively fixed. The result is a growing imbalance, in which more attackers are armed with more tools - targeting the same essential services with increasing frequency and complexity. How AI Makes DDoS More Dangerous  AI and machine learning are impacting the evolution of DDoS strategies and tactics. T...

Businesses are firmly in attackers' crosshairs. Financially motivated cybercriminals conduct ransomware attacks with record-breaking ransoms being paid by companies seeking to avoid business interruption. Others, including nation-state hackers, infiltrate companies to steal intellectual property and trade secrets to gain commercial advantage over competitors. Further, we regularly see critical infrastructure being targeted by nation-state cyberattacks designed to act as sleeper cells that can be activated in times of heightened tension. Companies are on the back foot. Leaders must be confident in their cyber posture: Are defenses up to the job of keeping attacks at bay? Does the leadership team have a complete understanding of the threats and risks the company faces? How can CEOs seize the initiative to get ahead of threats? Adoption of zero trust architectures to improve cyber defense Businesses that don't embrace true zero trust will find themselves increasingly vulnerable to br...

It's been reported that a new, generative AI worm dubbed "Morris II" has emerged. And for many, this new, generative AI worm is an understandable reason to panic.  Pushing back against hysteria, however, we discover that Morris II only targets AI apps and AI-enabled email assistants. No attack is a good one, but at least this one's very specific. More importantly, the recognition that just as AI is helping to accelerate and automate attacks, it will also drastically improve security efficacy.  While AI threatens to overwhelm reactive security teams with the pace and sophistication of its onslaught, it can likewise enable proactive prevention through predictive processes and controls. This is critical to giving security teams the chance to withstand the barrage that awaits them. Scaling alongside AI-enabled attacks There are two proactive efforts that scale well when accelerated attacks become the norm. Neither of these efforts need to be AI-powered to be effective against...

Despite the widespread adoption of DDoS protection solutions, disruptive DDoS attacks continue to make headlines. Why? Even "basic" attacks are bypassing established defenses, as evidenced by the recent DDoS attack on X.  Our analysis, based on over 100,000 hours of annual attack simulations, reveals that all deployed DDoS protections are highly vulnerable — gaps that often go unnoticed until an attack successfully disrupts services. With no effective way to address these weaknesses preemptively, organizations remain exposed. This article examines why DDoS attacks persist and continue to inflict significant damage. How Even Simple Attacks Bring Down the Best DDoS Protections In 2024, Cloudflare reported more than 25 million DDoS attacks - representing a 53% YoY increase. This growing number of DDoS attacks and their escalating cost from damage begs the question: What are we missing? And how can the risk of these attacks (and the damage they cause) be reduced?  Unlike oth...

Hackers are constantly scanning your network, often spotting vulnerabilities before you do. They're looking for misconfigurations, exposed assets, and weak points that could lead to a breach—are you seeing what they see? Every activity or interaction that your organization does online – website, social media accounts, cloud services, third-party integrations, and more – contributes to its digital footprint. This digital footprint is information attackers use to find your weaknesses and attempt to exploit them.  What if you could anticipate how hackers plan to exploit your vulnerabilities before they strike? Imagine identifying the weaknesses most enticing to an attacker—before they become exploited. Attack Surface Management (ASM) solutions help organizations continuously identify, monitor and manage aspects of public-facing IT assets, including those that may be forgotten. ASM is the tool in the battle of visibility – either you see your weaknesses first, or attackers will show ...

Most IT security professionals would agree that the key ingredient for safeguarding networks is "reducing the attack surface." Fewer avenues for breaches mean reduced risk and fewer incidents for an enterprise: Hackers can't attack what they can't see. Reducing attack surface is the key to securing your network, applications, and—most importantly—your data. Calling all servers . . . The "attack surface" comprises the sum of all exposed points through various vectors that an attacker could target to compromise a computing device or network. You can group the attack vectors into three main categories: the channel (a listening TCP/UDP port), assets (which include applications, services, webpages, files, executables, etc.), and access (user credentials). Below is a breakdown of the various attack vector options available to attackers. The channel —typically an exposed-to-the-internet communications protocol like TCP or UDP—allows all entities on the internet to communicate with each ot...

Coined in 2010 by Forrester Research , the term "zero trust" has long been hijacked by security vendors eager to take advantage of the hype that surrounds the concept. Today, it's so overused and misused that many see it as a meaningless buzzword—but that's far from the truth. In fact, its widespread misappropriation demonstrates the power of zero trust security. Why else would countless vendors try to capitalize on it? As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Zero trust is not a mere label. Rather, zero trust is an architecture—though you'll also hear of a zero trust methodology, framework, paradigm, and infrastructure—and it's based on the idea of zero implicit trust, meaning no one should be trusted by default. The key zero trust principle of least-privileged access says a user should be given access only to a specific IT resource the user is authorized to access, at the moment that user needs it, and nothing more. Hence the zero trust maxim,...

As I usually say: 'attackers are lazy'. In other words, they always follow the path of least resistance. As defenders catch up with their tactics, techniques, and procedures, the asymmetric gap between offensive and defensive capability shrinks, pushing attackers to shift their battlefield strategy, perpetuating a game that repeats over and over again. Take, for example, endpoint protection. For the last few years, endpoint protection, detection, and response have been the centerpiece of security strategies. As modern endpoint security products get better at anticipating threats based on AI-based engines, providing richer visibility and more contextual detection capabilities, attackers are pivoting away from them, looking for 'blind spots' in your architecture, leveraging vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in network devices, supply chains, and even firmware embedded deep within devices, areas where security visibility is limited. This trend is particularly significant due to the ...

Throughout history, societies have protected their most valuable assets by building walls, fortresses, and moats. Whether it was a medieval castle or an ancient city-state, security meant keeping threats on the outside and creating barriers around the things that mattered most.  We took these principles with us as we moved into the digital age, designing network security with firewalls, access controls, and gated perimeters to protect digital assets. Firewalls and network devices became our virtual walls, defining trusted and untrusted zones, and keeping the "bad actors" at the gate. For years, this perimeter-based approach was the primary line of defense in the world of cybersecurity, establishing a digital fortress around systems and data. But just as history has shown us that walls and borders can be breached, so too has modern cybersecurity taught us that no perimeter is foolproof. As organizations increasingly connect their IT systems to the wider internet and integrate the...