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The COVID-19 outreach is turning out to be not only health, social, and economic hazard but also a cybersecurity crisis. The pandemic has presented new challenges for businesses in the areas of remote collaboration and business continuity. With increased remote working for better business continuity, employees are using numerous Internet tools. As businesses and people have started relying more on technology and are busy fighting with the pandemic, the attackers now have plenty of options to target them more than ever. According to PWC's April report, the number of security threats to the Indian company doubled in March 2020—especially what's more worrying is a 100% rise between March 17 and 20—from Jan 2020. Sanjay Dhotre, the Union Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology (MeITY),  said  that India has seen over 350,000 cyberattacks in the second quarter, triple the number of recorded events in the first quarter of 2020. He also highlighted that ther

German investigating authorities have raided the offices of Munich-based company FinFisher that sells the infamous commercial surveillance spyware dubbed 'FinSpy,' reportedly in suspicion of illegally exporting the software to abroad without the required authorization. Investigators from the German Customs Investigation Bureau (ZKA), ordered by the Munich Public Prosecutor's Office, searched a total of 15 properties in Munich, including business premises of FinFisher GmbH, two other business partners, as well as the private apartments of the managing directors, along with a partner company in Romania from October 6 to 8. For those unaware, FinSpy is extremely powerful spying software that is being sold as a legal law enforcement tool to governments around the world but has also been found in use by oppressive and dubious regimes to spy on activists, political dissidents and journalists. FinSpy malware can target both desktop and mobile operating systems, including And

The introduction of Open AI's ChatGPT was a defining moment for the software industry, touching off a GenAI race with its November 2022 release. SaaS vendors are now rushing to upgrade tools with enhanced productivity capabilities that are driven by generative AI. Among a wide range of uses, GenAI tools make it easier for developers to build software, assist sales teams in mundane email writing, help marketers produce unique content at low cost, and enable teams and creatives to brainstorm new ideas.  Recent significant GenAI product launches include Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Salesforce Einstein GPT. Notably, these GenAI tools from leading SaaS providers are paid enhancements, a clear sign that no SaaS provider will want to miss out on cashing in on the GenAI transformation. Google will soon launch its SGE "Search Generative Experience" platform for premium AI-generated summaries rather than a list of websites.  At this pace, it's just a matter of a short time befo

A financially-motivated threat actor known for its malware distribution campaigns has evolved its tactics to focus on ransomware and extortion. According to FireEye's Mandiant threat intelligence team, the collective — known as FIN11 — has engaged in a pattern of cybercrime campaigns at least since 2016 that involves monetizing their access to organizations' networks, in addition to deploying point-of-sale (POS) malware targeting financial, retail, restaurant, and pharmaceutical sectors. "Recent FIN11 intrusions have most commonly led to data theft, extortion and the disruption of victim networks via the distribution of CLOP ransomware ," Mandiant said . Although FIN11's activities in the past have been tied to malware such as FlawedAmmyy , FRIENDSPEAK , and MIXLABEL, Mandiant notes significant overlap in TTPs with another threat group that cybersecurity researchers call TA505 , which is behind the infamous Dridex banking Trojan and Locky ransomware that'

Managed Security Services Providers (MSSPs) have it rough. They have the burden of protecting their client organizations from cyberattacks, with clients from different industries, different security stacks, and different support requirements. And everything is in a constant state of flux. MSSPs are turning to multitenant solutions to help reduce the complexity of managing multiple security solution instances across their client base. Multitenancy allows various independent instances of a solution to be managed in a single, shared environment. Cybersecurity company Cynet just published an instructive paper on the benefits along with the key considerations MSSPs should evaluate when selecting a multitenant platform ( download here ). Eliminating Information Overload with a Single Pane of Glass Many MSSPs suffer from information whiplash - jumping between screens every time a different client environment needs attention. And, effectively monitoring and responding to the torrent of se

Microsoft on Tuesday issued fixes for 87 newly discovered security vulnerabilities as part of its  October 2020 Patch Tuesday , including two critical remote code execution (RCE) flaws in Windows TCP/IP stack and Microsoft Outlook. The flaws, 11 of which are categorized as Critical, 75 are ranked Important, and one is classified Moderate in severity, affect Windows, Office and Office Services and Web Apps, Visual Studio, Azure Functions, .NET Framework, Microsoft Dynamics, Open Source Software, Exchange Server, and the Windows Codecs Library. Although none of these flaws are listed as being under active attack, six vulnerabilities are listed as publicly known at the time of release. Chief among the most critical bugs patched this month include  CVE-2020-16898  (CVSS score 9.8). According to Microsoft, an attacker would have to send specially crafted ICMPv6 Router Advertisement packets to a remote Windows computer to exploit the RCE flaw in the TCP/IP stack to execute arbitrary code

Days after the US Government took steps to disrupt the notorious TrickBot botnet , a group of cybersecurity and tech companies has detailed a separate coordinated effort to take down the malware's back-end infrastructure. The joint collaboration, which involved Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit , Lumen's Black Lotus Labs , ESET , Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center ( FS-ISAC ), NTT , and Broadcom's Symantec , was undertaken after their request to halt TrickBot's operations was granted by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The development comes after the US Cyber Command mounted a campaign to thwart TrickBot's spread over concerns of ransomware attacks targeting voting systems ahead of the presidential elections next month. Attempts aimed at impeding the botnet were first reported by KrebsOnSecurity early this month. Microsoft and its partners analyzed over 186,000 TrickBot samples, using it to track down the m

Since the beginning of this year, organizations' IT staff have faced numerous challenges and an increased workload as a result of the global pandemic and shift to a mainly remote workforce. Supporting end-users that are now working from home has introduced new challenges in troubleshooting since it isn't as simple as visiting an end user's desk to resolve issues as they arise. One support issue common to both on-premises and remote end-users is password resets and other account-related activities. These include accounts that are locked out, passwords that have expired, and password changes. Implementing a  self-service password reset (SSPR)  solution can be a quick win for IT staff who are now supporting both on-premises and remote workers and taking care of other normal daily tasks. Let's look at why SSPR solutions can lead to quick results in lowering the overall support burden on IT staff. Increased Strain On IT Staff The global pandemic this year has been challenging for

Microsoft has warned about a new strain of mobile ransomware that takes advantage of incoming call notifications and Android's Home button to lock the device behind a ransom note. The findings concern a variant of a known Android ransomware family dubbed "MalLocker.B" which has now resurfaced with new techniques, including a novel means to deliver the ransom demand on infected devices as well as an obfuscation mechanism to evade security solutions. The development comes amid a huge surge in ransomware attacks against critical infrastructure across sectors, with a 50% increase in the daily average of ransomware attacks in the last three months compared to the first half of the year, and cybercriminals increasingly incorporating double extortion in their playbook. MalLocker has been known for being hosted on malicious websites and circulated on online forums using various social engineering lures by masquerading as popular apps, cracked games, or video players. Pre