Scammers have leapt at the opportunity to exploit vulnerable UK residents by sending bogus messages telling them they need to take action to receive help with their winter heating bills. In July, the UK's new Labour Government announced that it was limiting who was eligible for assistance with their winter fuel bills by making eligibility means-tested. The controversial decision appears to have...

When tasked with the IT security of an organization, it can be easy to get bogged down in particulars and definitions and lose heart before you’ve even begun. With a plethora of terms to learn, details to secure, and moving parts to keep track of, building an effective cybersecurity strategy is no simple task. It requires a great deal of effort, planning, and coordination.Security is a crucial...

In today's cybersecurity landscape, controlling access to USB drives is critical, particularly for organizations looking to maintain compliance with regulations like NERC CIP and bolster their security posture. Unauthorized USB usage poses significant risks, from data exfiltration to malware injection. However, restricting USB access entirely isn't always practical. Instead, organizations can...

Understanding the threats we face is crucial to protecting against them. Industry research and reports are invaluable to this understanding, providing insights to inform mitigation efforts.Few cybersecurity reports are as valuable or comprehensive as the annual ENISA Threat Landscape Report (ETL). Now in its 20th year and published by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), the ETL...

File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) is a key intelligence and audit tool in an advanced security portfolio. While it is a logical component to integrate into your Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) tooling, it’s important to consider your approach to ensure you can gain the most benefits from it.Classify FirstThe sensible starting place for your integration is to consider your FIM...

Users who do not have the appropriate security awareness training are considered a weak link in the security of an enterprise. These untrained users are easier to exploit than finding a flaw or vulnerability in the equipment that an enterprise uses to secure its network. Attackers could convince unsuspecting users to unintentionally provide access to the enterprise network or expose sensitive...

Tripwire's October 2024 Patch Priority Index (PPI) brings together important vulnerabilities for Microsoft.First on the list are patches for Microsoft Edge, Office, Excel, and Visio that resolve remote code execution, elevation of privilege, and spoofing vulnerabilities.Next are patches that affect components of the core Windows operating system. These patches resolve over 80 vulnerabilities,...

Real Estate Fraud is Running Rampant in the USReal estate is an area ripe for fraud and scams: transactions usually involve large sums of money, convoluted paperwork, and messaging back and forth. Criminals can use a wide variety of methods to intercept legitimate communications or launch their own scams in order to deceive their targets.This type of fraud is on the rise right now in the United...

Cybersecurity threats to manufacturing and process plants come from a wide range of attack vectors, including supply chain, logistics, enterprise computing, remote connections, operator stations, programmable logic controllers, distributed control systems (DCSs), smart sensors, and new smart devices. Internet of Things (IoT) technologies offer greater connectivity and endless applications, but...

The industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is growing rapidly. While that’s good news for businesses in terms of productivity and cost savings, these devices carry unique cybersecurity risks that demand attention. Amid such rising concerns, IIoT threat detection is a must.Why Organizations Need IIoT Threat DetectionIIoT endpoints are inherently risky because of the potential for lateral movement....

As the United States of America enters the final days of the race for the White House, the FBI has warned that fraudsters are using the presidential election campaign to scam citizens out of their savings and personal data.According to a public service announcement published by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), scammers who have previously exploited state and local elections are targeting...

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) is a United States federal law that aims to enhance corporate transparency and accountability. Signed into law on July 30th, 2002, the Act came in response to a slew of major corporate accounting scandals, including those involving Enron and WorldCom, that came to light in the early 2000s.Its primary aim is to enhance corporate transparency and accountability, ensuring...

Enterprises today rely on partners and vendors to help manage their data. Some companies depend on third-party infrastructure for day-to-day operations, so understanding the regulations and protection standards that a service provider is promising to uphold is very important.Key Takeaways from Control 15Identify your business needs and create a set of standards that can be used to grade service...

In recent years, the security of the United States' critical infrastructure has become a pressing concern, particularly in the oil and gas sector, due to its pivotal role in the nation's economy and energy supply. Recognizing this, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) implements several new directives in July each year aimed at enhancing the security and resilience of vital energy...

You can’t do large-scale business in 2024 without having a successful, well-run IT infrastructure. Arguably, it’s difficult to do any sort of business well (large or small) without tuning your IT capabilities to your business objectives. This allows them to work as one, not against each other.COBIT is a framework created by ISACA (International Systems Audit and Control Association) to do this...

Security configuration management (SCM) is all about making sure your security systems do what you think they’re doing.In tennis, there is something called an unforced error. This is when a player loses points for a mistake they made themselves, not due to the skill of the other opponent. In a big way, security misconfigurations are those unforced errors on the security side or instances in which...

Historically, Mac users haven't had to worry about malware as much as their Windows-using cousins. Although malware targeting Apple devices actually predates viruses written for PCs, and there have been some families of malware that have presented a significant threat for both operating systems (for instance, the Word macro viruses that hit computers hard from 1995 onwards), it is generally the...

The way in which we interact with applications has changed dramatically over the years. Enterprises use applications in day-to-day operations to manage their most sensitive data and control access to system resources. Instead of traversing a labyrinth of networks and systems, attackers today see an opening to turn an organization's application against it to bypass network security controls and...

DDoS attacks have become an annoyance most companies assume they may have to deal with at some point. While frustrating, minor website disruptions from small-scale hacktivist campaigns rarely create substantial business impacts. However, a particularly insidious DDoS spinoff has emerged over the past decade – one aimed at blackmail.This evolutionary milestone stems from what's called Ransom DDoS ...

Also known as change monitoring, File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) solutions monitor and detect file changes that could indicate a cyberattack. They determine if and when files change, who changed them, and what can be done to restore files if those changes are unauthorized. As such, FIM solutions are useful for detecting malware and achieving compliance with regulations like PCI DSS and are a...