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For decades, organizations operated under the assumption that vulnerability management could be slotted into predictable maintenance windows. Monthly patch cycles, quarterly review periods, and planned outages became the standard rhythm of IT operations. Yet, in today's environment, where exploit code emerges within hours of a disclosure and attackers weaponize vulnerabilities on an industrial scale, those rhythms are dangerously outdated. The modern reality is that continuous patch management and end-to-end vulnerability lifecycle governance are no longer aspirational, they are the bare minimum. Security must be measured not by the comfort of predictability, but by the ability to remediate as close to real time as possible. The Problem with Periodic Maintenance Windows Exploitation Outpaces Response: exploits are increasingly released at or before vendor patch availability. A monthly or even bi-weekly patch cadence leaves systems exposed during the critical first days when atta...

Enterprises are spending more than ever on DDoS defense, but despite the increased investment, organizations are still suffering damaging downtime. MazeBolt's new DDoS Defense survey , produced in collaboration with Global Surveyz, quizzed 300 CISOs and security directors across the US and Europe, and uncovered some surprising perspectives. The following is a sneak preview from the report. Inside the Survey MazeBolt surveyed senior security leaders at banking, financial services, and insurance companies with between 500 and 25,000 employees and annual revenues of at least $250 million. These are organizations where business continuity is critical and where a single outage can cause severe financial and reputational damage. Attacks Keep Coming – and They're Costly Respondents reported an average of 3.85 damaging DDoS incidents in the past year. 60% said they suffered between 2 and 5 such attacks. Larger companies faced the most serious consequences, with enterprises of more than 1...

As hybrid and multi-cloud environments become the standard, organizations are under growing pressure to deliver scalable and secure remote access. Traditionally, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have been the go-to solution for connecting remote users to corporate networks. While VPNs have been essential for remote access, they were originally designed for simpler, perimeter-based security models. Organizations that rely solely on VPNs face significant limitations, including weak access control, increased risk of lateral movement and poor visibility. Continue reading to learn the limitations of VPN-based access and how KeeperPAM® provides a strong, modern alternative for securing remote access. Why VPNs are no longer enough Although VPNs have been used to enable remote access within organizations, the limitations of VPNs are becoming increasingly clear as IT environments span across multiple on-premises, hybrid and remote systems. Relying on VPN-based access alone can actually make ...

These days, there are plenty of ways to run DDoS simulation testing and make sure you're protected against attacks. You can do it on your own using commercial software or open-source tools—whatever works best for you. That said, there are a few must-haves when it comes to running DDoS tests. For one, you'll need a platform that allows you to easily start and stop attack simulations as needed. Plus, don't forget to notify and get approval from relevant parties, such as your cloud provider or tool vendor, before you begin testing. Beyond these basics, there are some best practices that can help you get the most out of your  DDoS testing . 1 – Plan tests to validate the protection of your most critical assets  While it may be easier to run black box testing (basically launching attacks without looking at the internal structure, architecture, and configuration of your protection), a white box testing approach is much more effective when it comes to uncovering serious vulnera...

The past year has marked a decisive shift in the way Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks operate. DDoS used to mean, simply speaking, the overwhelming of targets with massive amounts of traffic. But now, DDoS attacks have evolved into precision-guided threats – and this transformation can be partly attributed to AI.  The acceleration is measurable. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, DDoS incidents surged by 358 percent compared to the same period in 2024, according to Cloudflare. Even more concerning, the proportion of attacks that caused actual production downtime rose by 53 percent. This is not just a spike. It is a sign that attackers are fundamentally changing how DDoS campaigns are planned, launched, and adapted in real time. The consequences are significant: organizations that rely on legacy DDoS defenses or irregular testing methods are finding themselves exposed, often without knowing it. How Attackers are Enhancing DDoS Attacks DDoS attacks historically reli...

Sub: GenAI is here to stay. The organizations that thrive will be those that understand its risks, implement the right safeguards, and empower their employees to harness it safely and responsibly. For many people, generative AI (GenAI) began as personal experimentation in homes and on personal devices. Now, however, AI has become deeply ingrained in workplace habits, creating productivity gains, but also exposing organizations to significant security gaps. Sensitive company data, inadvertently or otherwise, regularly finds its way into public AI systems, leaving IT and cybersecurity leaders scrambling to respond. Once proprietary data is processed by a public AI tool, it may become part of the model's training data, serving other users down the line. For example, in March 2023, a multinational electronics manufacturer was reported to have experienced several incidents of employees entering confidential data, including product source code, into ChatGPT. Generative AI applications, su...

With thousands of endpoints, cloud instances, remote users, and third-party integrations, securing the enterprise has become a massive target. Each change in the IT environment - whether driven by digital transformation, M&A activity, or routine system updates - creates new opportunities for adversaries to leverage. Yet, the network is the backbone of business operations. It must always be available to support production, collaboration, and growth.  In this article, we'll explore the specific challenges large enterprises face when validating their security posture and how leading security teams are evolving their testing strategies to match the scale, speed, and sophistication of large, multi-faceted IT networks.  The Challenges of Validating Enterprise Network Security Enormous attack surface - In large enterprises, the attack surface spans countless assets across on-prem, cloud, and hybrid environments, making comprehensive security validation incredibly complex. Ac...

Gone are the days of mass phishing campaigns. Today's attackers are leveraging generative AI (GenAI) to deliver hyper-targeted scams, transforming every email, text, or call into a calculated act of manipulation. With flawless lures and tactics designed to outsmart AI defenses, cybercriminals are zeroing in on HR, payroll, and finance teams—exploiting human vulnerabilities with precision. The Zscaler ThreatLabz 2025 Phishing Report dives deep into the rapidly evolving phishing landscape and uncovers the latest trends, including top phishing targets, real-world examples of AI-driven phishing attacks, and actionable best practices to defend against the next wave of AI-powered phishing threats. Key findings on phishing attacks The ThreatLabz research team analyzed over 2 billion blocked phishing transactions captured across the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange™ cloud security platform from January 2024 to December 2024 and uncovered several key findings: Phishing is down but is more tar...

In today's digital landscape, where cyber threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated and pervasive, organizations must take a hard look at their traditional security models. For over three decades, firewalls and VPNs have been the backbone of network security. However, as the threat landscape evolves, it's clear that these legacy systems are no longer sufficient. Enter the Zero Trust model, exemplified by innovative solutions like Zscaler, which could revolutionize the way your organization approaches cybersecurity. Understanding the Risks Public IP Addresses as Attack Surfaces One of the critical vulnerabilities inherent in traditional security models is the reliance on public IP addresses. These addresses serve as direct attack surfaces for malicious actors. Just as having your phone number in a public directory makes you susceptible to unwanted calls, exposing public IPs makes organizations vulnerable to cyberattacks. Attackers can easily discover these IPs, allowing th...

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...