Bandwidth security against rogue IoT botnets could be the next critical investment priority for the telecommunications sector after a report from NOKIA found that 78 percent of network-based malware detection in CSP networks in 2018 is attributed to IoT botnet activity used in DDoS and crypto-mining activity. This is up a staggering 33 percent from two years ago, confirming that malware is here to stay and growing in complexity.
As 2018 draws to a close, we inevitably take the opportunity to take a look back at the year it has been, and make predictions about what 2019 might bring for cybersecurity.
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Anyone who takes part in a corporate board of directors meeting these days is likely to hear conversations about cyber security and regulatory compliance. These areas have become so critical to the risk management strategies of organizations that they can’t be ignored by the very people responsible for guiding businesses to success in their markets.
A U.S. House committee has released a staff report that concludes the Equifax breach from 2017 was “entirely preventable.” The report includes many notable findings, including recommendations for the business sector to avoid such incidents in the future.
Ransomware lost its spot as the number one cyberthreat to consumers and enterprises during the first half of 2018, after topping the list for years. Despite being somewhat outpaced by cryptojackers, though, ransomware has made a rapid recovery, showing that file-encrypting malware is here to stay. And all signs point to a 2019 riddled with emerging new threats.
A look back on 2018 shows the financial services industry turned out to be the most at risk, with security incidents and breaches skyrocketing. Top threats to the financial services industry include cloud security and third-party risks, while the most prevalent techniques are DDoS, social engineering, spear-phishing, ransomware and insider threats, according to a Bitdefender white paper.
An activity alert by the US Department of Homeland Security and the FBI this week warns organizations from multiple industries in critical infrastructures that they are a top target for SamSam ransomware, also known as MSIL/Samas.A, and provides a list of guidelines to help prevent and mitigate these attacks.
First the good news: according to a published report there were more than 16,000 software vulnerabilities disclosed during the first nine months of this year. Now, that’s quite a few vulnerabilities that could enable attackers, exploits, and malware to scurry onto an enterprise environment. However, it is 7 percent fewer vulnerabilities than 2017.
Last year the OWASP Top 10 committee was prophetic in at least one of its inclusions in the update to its industry benchmark list. For the first time, the group included insecure APIs as one of the most common attack vectors that developers need to avoid adding to their code when creating software. Looking back on 2018, you can see why they sounded the warning.
Mariottt International has suffered what can be considered one of the largest data breaches in history, trailing only the 2013 Yahoo breach. The world’s largest hotel chain said some 500 million customer records were compromised.
This year’s online holiday shopping season was kicked off to tremendous fanfare, as deal hunters went crazy last week with record-breaking spending. According to USA Today, holiday sales on Cyber Monday topped $7.9 billion in just the US alone. Meanwhile, mega retailer Amazon reported that Cyber Monday was the single biggest global shopping day in its company history—people ordered more than 18 million toys from Amazon on Cyber Monday and Black Friday combined.
If your organization has a healthy cybersecurity culture, consider yourself lucky — less than five percent of organizations do.
