The recent takedown of one of the world’s most prolific botnets should make the cyberworld much safer, but analysts warn that organizations must remain vigilant. Given Emotet’s remarkable resilience over the years, we may not have seen the last of the notorious malware and botnet.
Email turns 50 years old this year, and it seems as though analysts having been predicting the technology’s impending demise for at least half that time. Instead, it continues to be the de facto standard for business communication with upwards of 300 billion messages sent and received every single day.
A recent global survey illustrates the critical need for reliable, modern communications technologies to support remote business operations during the ongoing pandemic. Nearly three-quarters of businesses surveyed by the Savanta research firm say the shift to remote work exposed shortcomings in their systems.
Organizations didn’t have much time to prepare when the pandemic forced a sudden shift to a work-from-home (WFH) model. Many employees and even IT managers had no choice but to figure it out on the fly. Given the circumstances, businesses were remarkably successful at navigating such a significant change to continue functioning.
There has been a lot of focus on the security threats associated with remote workers — and rightfully so. In the Acronis Cyberthreats Report 2020, 31 percent of organizations reported daily cyberattacks, primarily targeting remote workers. The rapid shift to remote work greatly expanded the attack surface, with employees’ devices connecting to corporate resources from outside the network perimeter.
In our last post, we discussed four cyber threats that you should prepare for in 2021. Ransomware, threats targeting personal devices, encrypted threats and attacks on virtual private networks are among the cyberattacks expected to cause the most damage in the coming year.
Cybersecurity threats skyrocketed in 2020. Hackers took advantage of the fear and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to lure in victims with phishing campaigns. The rapid transition to work-from-home strategies left organizations vulnerable to attacks on remote workers with inadequate security controls.
A new study finds that the majority of companies hit with ransomware attacks choose to pay the ransom in hopes of quickly regaining access to their data. However, federal officials warn that those who negotiate with ransomware extortionists may expose themselves to millions of dollars in fines and penalties.
In October, a Dutch security researcher claimed he was able to access President Trump’s Twitter account by guessing the password — “maga2020!” — after only six tries. Victor Gevers said that after he alerted U.S. cybersecurity officials, the password was changed, and two-factor authentication was added.
Say Goodbye to Adobe Flash Player
New Year’s Eve celebrations are likely to be tamer than usual this year due to social distancing requirements, but IT professionals everywhere will probably still break out the noisemakers and confetti. When the clock strikes midnight, they’ll finally be able to say goodbye and good riddance to the security-plagued Adobe Flash Player.
