Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

At the recent Xalient 2023 Summit: Shaping a Secure Connected Future held at the iconic Abbey Road Studios in November, there were several fascinating talks around the challenges facing senior leaders in IT as they prepare for the future.

Data is the lifeblood of organizations. It drives decision-making, fosters innovation, and underpins business operations. However, this wealth of data is scattered across multiple cloud platforms, making it an attractive target for cybercriminals, and rendering traditional approaches to data protection obsolete. This is where data-centric security comes into play. This article will explore the concept of data-centric security, why businesses need it, and the benefits it offers.

CISA sent out a warning about a Russian advanced persistent threat (APT) called Star Blizzard warning about their long-game social engineering tactics. They create fake email and social media accounts, contact their potential victims, talk about a non-threatening subject to gain the victim’s confidence, and wait to launch their malicious attack. I call this long-game social engineering.

Researchers at Nisos warn that North Korean threat actors are impersonating skilled job seekers in order to obtain remote employment at US companies. “The identified personas claim to have highly sought-after technical skills and experience and often represent themselves as U.S.-based teleworkers, but Nisos investigators found indications that they are based abroad,” the researchers write.

Analysis of nearly a year’s worth of emails brings insight into exactly what kinds of malicious content are being used, who’s being impersonated, and who’s being targeted. I love data built on statistically relevant data samples, as the larger the data set, the more relevant and representative of an entire industry, country, or world it is. One such report is Hornetsecurity’s just released Cyber Security Report 2024.

APT28 exploits a critical Outlook vulnerability, QR phishing campaigns grow more complex, and an SQL brute force attack results in BlueSky ransomware.