Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

The events of Friday the 19th 2024 had a profound impact on organizations around the globe. I suppose a widespread global IT outage has a way of clarifying the mind—and IT leaders are recognizing that resilience is crucial for maintaining operations for their consumers, customers, staff, partners, and shareholders. But much of the post-mortem analysis seems to be misunderstanding key lessons from the outage.

There are several different types of spyware, such as adware, stalkerware and keyloggers. No matter what kind of spyware is installed on your device, it is frightening to have your privacy invaded and sensitive information stolen by cybercriminals. Read more to learn what spyware is, the different types of spyware and how to protect your devices from spyware.

BlueVoyant’s Threat Fusion Cell (TFC) uncovered a focused campaign targeting the advanced manufacturing sector. This campaign aims to steal Microsoft credentials, by spoofing Microsoft’s login page, to phish for potentially compromising sensitive information.

Xeon Sender targets cloud APIs, Cisco Talos reveals UAT-5394 infrastructure, and attackers leverage public.env files to extort victims.

You can tell if you have spyware on your device by looking for signs such as your device’s battery draining quickly, overheating, increased pop-ups or data usage and unfamiliar apps. Spyware is a kind of malware that, once unknowingly installed on your device, allows cybercriminals to spy on you and steal your private information. This information could be used by cybercriminals or sold on the dark web to commit fraud or identity theft.

Thirty-four percent of state and local government entities were hit by ransomware in 2024, a new report from Sophos has found. While this is a decrease compared to the attack rate in 2023, the mean cost of recovery for these entities has more than doubled to $2.83 million. Seventy-two percent of ransom demands made to state and local government organizations in 2024 were for $1 million or more, with 37% of demands for $5 million or more.

Cyber insurance has a strange past: AIG first took cyber insurance to market in 1997 despite a total lack of actuarial data to inform premiums or policies. Essentially, the industry ran on guesswork. Even today, the cyber insurance market is remarkably unpredictable compared to long-established insurance policies such as those for housing or health.

To further raise awareness on threat actor activity in the dark web and hacking communities, today we are introducing the Cato CTRL Threat Actor Profile. This will be a blog series that profiles various threat actors and documents notable activity that we are observing. Our inaugural Cato CTRL Threat Actor Profile is on Yashechka.

You can mitigate the risk of ransomware attacks by regularly backing up your data, updating your device with the latest software, implementing least-privilege access, using a business password manager and educating employees about security awareness, among other things. Ransomware attacks occur when organizations are prevented from accessing files and data until they’ve paid a ransom to the cybercriminal who infected their devices with malware.