iCyberDefence

Cybersecurity is a never-ending arms race between criminals who are always probing for vulnerabilities and security professionals trying to anticipate their next moves. With AI firmly in the mainstream and quantum computing on the horizon, 2025 promises to be a pivotal year. What do you foresee as the biggest challenge ahead for the cybersecurity sector?

This is a cautionary tale for all #CriticalNationalInfrastructure operators. The company running the Sellafield nuclear waste site in the UK - home to the world’s largest stockpile of plutonium - has pleaded guilty to permitting “significant vulnerabilities” to #Cyberattack to persist for a long time. In recent years, we have seen a growing number of attacks on CNI - from railways, to energy, to healthcare - from state-sponsored and criminal actors all around the world. There was no cyberattack on Sellafield during the period during which it was compromised. But what if there had been? CNI is a tempting target to cyber attackers, and it must be protected adequately. Criminals would never be allowed simply to walk through the gates at Sellafield. The same should be true of its IT infrastructure. #Cybersecurity #Sellafield 

Naturally thoughts turned to #Cybersecurity last Friday, when organisations around the world experienced significant IT outages, leading to cancelled flights, postponed operations and medical appointments, payments system failures, and more. But just like the FAA database crash which paralysed aviation in 2023, last week’s CrowdStrike/Microsoft crisis was brought on by a faulty update. Yes, those companies bear primary responsibility for what happened. But so does every CISO, admin, or enterprise or security architect who were unable to articulate appropriately to their employers the critical importance of #BusinessContinuityPlans (#BCPs) in an environment where this kind of stack failure is increasingly common. That’s doubly true when it comes to #CriticalNationalInfrastructure (#CNI) like hospitals and airports. Isn’t it the most basic form of good practice and security-by-design (#DesignThinking) to avoid single points of failure? How thoroughly are downstream supply chains being investigated for risk factors like those exposed at CrowdStrike? Examples of taking it offline like the one below from Belfast Airport show great human ingenuity, but it shouldn’t be left to staff on the ground to cope!

After so many well-publicised cyberattacks on US #Healthcare businesses and institutions, it was probably only a matter of time before the UK’s NHS was targeted. Last month, thousands of London out-patient appointments and operations were affected by a #Ransomware attack on the pathology testing organisation, Synnovis. Like many healthcare providers around the world, the NHS’s IT infrastructure is ageing and increasingly obsolete. It also houses vast amounts of data, across multiple systems, with hundreds of thousands of users and entry points, meaning that even unsophisticated attacks can be successful. Of course, thoroughgoing cybersecurity investment is expensive - but training staff on basic precautions and patching known vulnerabilities can make a big difference. #Cybersecurity

While much of the #Cybersecurity debate is preoccupied with the role of #AI and large-scale corporate #Ransomware attacks, it should not be ignored that a great deal of #Cybercrime is relatively low-tech and aimed at relatively small businesses. As new research from Kaspersky shows, Microsoft Excel has leapt to prominence in 2024 as the primary vector for #Malware-bearing files mimicking legitimate software. Of course, Excel and other Office applications have long been in hackers’ sights, but this is quite a remarkable jump among SMB users. As regards the type of attacks reported by Kaspersky, Trojans remain by far the most common kind of malware aimed at SMBs. Is this your experience?  https://lnkd.in/e-h3JkxY

Shortages of skilled personnel and an ever-darkening threat landscape is putting #Cybersecurity professionals under massive levels of stress. According to A new global survey by Bitdefender: - Around 70% feel obliged to work on weekends - Around 66% are looking for new jobs And the picture in the UK is particularly bad (81% and 71%, respectively). Is this a picture you recognise in your organisation?

Police authorities across Europe have broken up a massive #Botnet #Malware network, culminating in four arrests, eight names being added to Europol’s Most Wanted List, and more than 2,000 malicious domains taken under law enforcement control. Many within the #Cybersecurity community will be familiar with names like IcedID, Smokeloader, SystemBC, Pikabot and Bumblebee - which were amongst the botnets taken down earlier this month. This is great news, but it comes too late for the many businesses compromised, extorted, and robbed by these cybercriminals. The #Ransomware business remains incredibly lucrative, with one of the suspects named reported to have “earned” more than 69 million euros from his activities. Businesses need to take fast, decisive action to protect themselves. Sadly, law enforcement always comes too late for at least some of the scammers’ victims. 

According to The Record, the UK government is planning to make reporting of #Ransomware attacks mandatory and to require a licence to be obtained before making ransom payments. The consultation - due to start next month - is also set to propose banning extortion payments by #CriticalNationalInfrastructure bodies. Are these proposals you would support? #Malware #Cybersecurity

Pleasing to see that the US administration is recognising the massive threat to #Healthcare in the USA posed by #Cybercriminals and #Ransomware in particular. The recent attack on Change Healthcare (see our previous posts for details!) - which brought prescribing and insurance claims to a virtual standstill - has brought home just how vulnerable many organisations vital to the running of the economy and society itself are. Reportedly, the Change hack touched one in three sets of patient records in the whole country. But is this too little too late? With no timeline promised for the new directives, how likely is change to take place fast enough?

⚠️ Any C-suite or #Banking executives unsure about where #Cybersecurity should fit into their investment priorities - read this now! ⚠️ Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters explains to The Record why “cybersecurity is religion” at his company and why it dominates board meetings. Great to see the human side (training, awareness) given as much prominence as technology too. With 85,000 employees, that’s a lot of potential attack vectors! #Phishing #MoneyLaundering #FinancialCrime #Cryptocurrency #Cybercrime #Ransomware #Malware https://lnkd.in/e_MJ2V35