Cynet | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

H0lyGh0st, Magecart, and a slew of state-sponsored hacker groups are diversifying their tactics and shifting their focus to… You. That is, if you're in charge of cybersecurity for a small-to-midsize enterprise (SME). Why? Bad actors know that SMEs typically have a smaller security budget, less infosec manpower, and possibly weak or missing security controls to protect their data and infrastructure. So, how can you prepare for the imminent onslaught from new and emerging threat groups?  You need a plan. Start with the NIST Cyber Security Framework The good news is you don't have to create your security strategy from scratch. The National Institute of Standards and Technology Cyber Security Framework (NIST CSF) is one of the most respected and widely used standards in the world. While originally designed for critical infrastructure industries, the NIST CSF is flexible enough for organizations of all sizes, sectors, and maturities to use in large part because the framewor

Employee well-being has become a primary focus for many businesses. Even before the pandemic, the C-suite was acutely aware of how employee mental health impacts business outcomes.  But for cybersecurity professionals, stress has always been a part of the job. A  new survey  revealed that one of the most concerning aspects of employee mental health is how it impacts cybersecurity programs and, more broadly, a business' ability to protect itself from cyberattacks. CISOs and their teams appear to be taking the brunt of unmitigated work-related stress levels and it's affecting the entire organization.  CISOs at small to midsize businesses with teams of five employees or fewer were surveyed to better understand how work-related stress is impacting CISOs – from their ability to do their job and lead their team to how it's affecting their own professional outlook and personal life. Here's what the survey results revealed.  The Impact of CISO Work-Stress Levels on Small

When it comes to ensuring the security of your APIs, there are four critical capabilities.

To succeed as a cybersecurity analyst, you need to understand the traits, values, and thought processes of hackers, along with the tools they use to launch their attacks.  During a  webinar called The Hacker Mindset,  a Red Team Researcher shared how you can use some of these tools for your own detection and prevention of breaches. He also demonstrated how an attack takes place using the  Follina exploit  as an example. So, what does "the hacker mindset" mean?  The hacker mindset can be characterized by three core values: a strong sense of curiosity, an adversarial attitude, and persistence.  3 core values of a hacker's mindset  1  —  "Curiosity might have killed the cat, but it had nine lives." Curiosity drives hackers to explore and understand systems, networks, and software in order to identify vulnerabilities. Not only are they constantly seeking new knowledge and skills to improve their abilities and stay ahead of security measures, they're cons

Tis the season for security and IT teams to send out that company-wide email: "No, our CEO does NOT want you to buy gift cards."  As much of the workforce signs off for the holidays, hackers are stepping up their game. We'll no doubt see an increase in activity as hackers continue to unleash e-commerce scams and holiday-themed phishing attacks. Hackers love to use these tactics to trick end users into compromising not only their personal data but also their organization's data.  But that doesn't mean you should spend the next couple of weeks in a constant state of anxiety.  Instead, use this moment as an opportunity to ensure that your incident response (IR) plan is rock solid.  Where to start?  First, make sure that your strategy follows the six steps to complete incident response.  Here's a refresher: The 6 steps of a complete IR Preparation:  This is the first phase and involves reviewing existing security measures and policies; performing risk assessments to find potentia

More zero knowledge attacks, more leaked credentials, more Gen-Z cyber crimes - 2022 trends and 2023 predictions. Cybercrime remains a major threat to individuals, businesses, and governments around the world. Cybercriminals continue to take advantage of the prevalence of digital devices and the internet to perpetrate their crimes. As the internet of things continues to develop, cybercriminals will have access to a greater number of vulnerable devices, allowing them to carry out more sophisticated attacks. Cybercrime is expected to become increasingly profitable as criminals continue to find new and better ways to monetize their attack as entry barriers to cybercrime keep going down.  This article discusses key trends we've noticed in 2022 that will likely continue in 2023, which we'll also elaborate on in the upcoming webinar " The Rise of the Rookie Hacker - a new trend to reckon with " on January 11th. Leaked credentials will continue to be the main attack vect

Businesses know they need cybersecurity, but it seems like a new acronym and system is popping up every day. Professionals that aren't actively researching these technologies can struggle to keep up. As the cybersecurity landscape becomes more complicated, organizations are desperate to simplify it. Frustrated with the inefficiencies that come with using multiple vendors for cybersecurity, often stemming from a lack of integration of a heterogenous security stack, approximately  75% of organizations  are looking to consolidate their cybersecurity technology in 2022 — a 29% increase from 2020. Surprisingly, reducing spend isn't the number one goal for these organizations.  Of the businesses that are consolidating, 65% are doing so to improve their risk posture. Having more cybersecurity tools means a larger threat surface. And when cybersecurity products don't integrate easily, businesses end up with gaps in their protection. Why Companies Need To Consolidate Cybersecurity Technolog

Ransomware attacks keep increasing in volume and impact largely due to organizations' weak security controls. Mid-market companies are targeted as they possess a significant amount of valuable data but lack the level of protective controls and staffing of larger organizations. According to a recent RSM survey, 62% of mid-market companies believe they are at risk of ransomware in the next 12 months. Cybersecurity leaders' sentiment is somewhere on the spectrum between "top-of-mind" to "this gives me serious migraines." As ransomware is still the preferred way for actors to monetize their access, there's a dire need to understand organizational levels of preparedness, and to identify and remediate gaps before an attacker can exploit them. Lean cybersecurity teams can quickly gauge their ransomware readiness by following the NIST CSF framework, asking themselves, "Do we have something like this in place?" for each of the core functions: "

The best line of defense against holiday hacking schemes is a comprehensive  incident response strategy  that focuses on end-user vulnerabilities.  The holiday season is upon us and with it a slew of cybersecurity scams preying on end-user vulnerabilities. Because employees often use their business emails and cell phones as their primary point of contact, these scams quickly become a threat to employer computer systems. With so many people shopping online, tracking shipments, and entering sensitive data across multiple websites, holiday hackers are primed and ready to attack your networks by taking advantage of your employees' online actions and cell phone usage. According to the FBI, the two most frequent types of  holiday scams  include non-delivery and non-payment crimes – when a consumer either pays for a product or service that is never delivered or products being shipped without the seller receiving payment. Cybercriminals are also keen on gift card fraud and auction fraud, a

The news surrounding the slowing economy has many wondering how much of an impact it will have on their businesses – and lives. And there's good reason to start preparing.  A recent survey by McKinsey & Company found that 85% of small and midsize businesses plan to increase their security spending heading into 2023, while Gartner recently projected that 2022 IT spending will only grow by 3%, down from a 10% growth rate the year before. We're already seeing businesses making cuts and freezing budgets. And smaller organizations that already have limited budgets are more vulnerable than ever. While we are still dealing with the unknown, one thing  is  clear: even as the economy slows down, security threats don't. But there's hope.  A  new eBook  illuminates how one solution can not only help increase security operations efficiency but also provide economic safeguards for security teams that are already strapped for cash.  What is the solution? Consolidation. If

Cloud computing was the lifeline that kept many companies running during the pandemic. But it was a classic case of medicine that comes with  serious  side effects.  Having anywhere, anytime access to data and apps gives companies tremendous flexibility in a fast-changing world, plus the means to scale and customize IT at will. The cloud is an asset or upgrade in almost every way. With one glaring exception: cybersecurity.  The cloud promised to make companies more secure and security more straightforward. Yet over the same time period that the cloud took over computing, cyber attacks grew steadily worse while security teams felt increasingly overwhelmed.  Why?  We will explain shortly. For lean security teams, the more important question is how to make cloud security work, especially as the cloud footprint grows (a lot) faster than security resources. Will the cloud always cast a shadow on cybersecurity? Not with the strategy outlined in a free ebook from Cynet called " Th

In the world of insurance providers and policies, cyber insurance is a fairly new field. And many security teams are trying to wrap their heads around it.  What is it and do they need it? And with what time will they spend researching how to integrate cyber insurance into their strategy?  For small security teams, this is particularly challenging as they contend with limited resources. Luckily, there's a  new eBook  dedicated to helping small security teams better understand cyber insurance policies and how they may impact an organization's cybersecurity measures. Background In 1997, the "Internet Security Liability" (ISL) insurance policy was launched at the International Risk Insurance Management Society's convention in Honolulu. Underwritten by AIG, ISL insurance was designed to protect ecommerce retailers like Amazon that were collecting sensitive customer data and storing it on internal networks. It is credited as one of the very first cyber insurance policies to be made ava

For cybersecurity professionals, it is a huge challenge to separate the "good guys" from the "villains". In the past, most cyberattacks could simply be traced to external cybercriminals, cyberterrorists, or rogue nation-states.  But not anymore . Threats from within organizations – also known as "insider threats" – are increasing and cybersecurity practitioners are feeling the pain.  Traditional perimeter defenses are not designed to prevent these attacks. They also struggle to keep  external  attackers out. Clever hackers continuously find ways in and "weaponize" their trusted status inside the network to compromise sensitive assets and orchestrate larger attacks. And an increasing number of enterprise resources – applications, devices, data, and even people – now live outside the perimeter. It's difficult to protect these assets with legacy approaches, much less fortify the perimeter to keep attackers out completely. How can you protect your organization in this landscape? The

Cobalt, Lazarus, MageCart, Evil, Revil — cybercrime syndicates spring up so fast it's hard to keep track. Until…they infiltrate  your  system. But you know what's even more overwhelming than rampant cybercrime? Building your organization's security framework.  CIS, NIST, PCI DSS, HIPAA, HITrust, and the list goes on. Even if you had the resources to implement every relevant industry standard and control to a tee, you still couldn't keep your company from getting caught up in the next SolarWinds. Because textbook security and check-the-box compliance won't cut it. You've got to be strategic ( especially when manpower is limited! ). And lean. Learn the ropes now.  3 Pro Tips for Building Your Lean Security Framework Without a framework in place, you're either navigating the cyber-risk universe with blinders on — or buried so deep in false positives you couldn't spot a complex attack until it's already laterally advancing. But why build your secu

The Great Resignation – or the Great Reshuffle as some are calling it – and the growing skills gap have been dominating headlines lately. But these issues aren't new to the cybersecurity industry. While many are just now hearing about employee burnout, security teams have faced reality and serious consequences of burnout for years.  One of the biggest culprits? Alert overload.  The average security team gets tens of thousands of alerts  each day . Many analysts feel like they can't get their heads above water…and are starting to give up. This looks like physical burnout and even apathy. Surveys found that some security analysts feel so overwhelmed they ignore alerts and even walk away from their computers.  In fact, these surveys found that  70% of security teams  feel emotionally overwhelmed by alerts, and more than  55% of security professionals  don't feel fully confident that they can prioritize and respond to every alert that really does need attention.  Sadly, th

New survey reveals lack of staff, skills, and resources driving smaller teams to outsource security. As business begins its return to normalcy (however "normal" may look), CISOs at small and medium-size enterprises (500 – 10,000 employees) were asked to share their  cybersecurity challenges and priorities , and their responses were compared the results with those of a similar survey from 2021. Here are the 5 key things we learned from 200 responses: 1  —  Remote Work Has Accelerated the Use of EDR Technologies In 2021, 52% of CISOs surveyed were relying on endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools. This year that number has leapt to 85%. In contrast, last year 45% were using network detection and response (NDR) tools, while this year just 6% employ NDR. Compared to 2021, double the number of CISOs and their organizations are seeing the value of extended detection and response (XDR) tools, which combine EDR with integrated network signals. This is likely due to the increase in re