If you’ve been putting off a migration to the Windows 10 operating system, you got a wakeup call on May 12. That’s the day hackers exploited known vulnerabilities in older versions of Windows to launch the largest cyber extortion attack ever.

The WannaCry ransomware attack was astonishing in both scale and speed, striking hundreds of thousands of computers in more than 200 countries within a span of 48 hours.

Remember the legend of the little Dutch boy who stuck his finger in the leaking dike and saved his village from flooding? In many ways, he has become a metaphor for modern application security practices. Organizations must continually apply patches to plug security holes that would otherwise allow hackers to access your IT systems.

In recent years, the FBI has issued multiple warnings about the Business Email Compromise scam. This phishing scam comes in several forms. Hackers often pose as company executives in emails and order employees to process wire transfers for confidential or time-sensitive business transactions.

Earthquakes typically produce a series of smaller quakes in the same area long after the original. These “aftershocks” vary in intensity and can continue over a period of weeks, months or even years. Information security experts now believe that companies should be prepared for similar long-lasting reverberations following a number of high-profile data breaches.

When the CIO of the Department of Transportation (DOT) launched a project to implement Microsoft Office 365, he quickly discovered a big problem. No one had ever really designed the department’s network — end-users simply installed networking equipment as needed.

It was only a matter of time before the rise of mobile led to the rise of mobile security threats. From smartphones and tablets to wearables and Internet of Things devices, the number and variety of endpoints have made it difficult for organizations to maintain control over mobile environments and deliver security updates in a timely fashion.

The IRS is warning organizations about an email “phishing” scam targeting human resources departments. An email that appears to be from a company executive will ask someone in HR or payroll to send W-2 forms or a list of employees with their salaries and personal information.

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are becoming easier to launch, harder to stop and larger than ever, according to a new report from Deloitte Global. The consulting firm anticipates that more than 10 million such attacks will occur in 2017.

Gone are the days when low-level hackers used DDoS attacks to make a political statement or simply for their personal amusement.

The security landscape is continually changing, and our last post described a few of the latest threats cybercriminals are employing in their efforts to compromise your networks and endpoints. As threats evolve, organizations must continue to employ a variety of strong countermeasures.

Technology is evolving at a rapid pace, with mobile, cloud, analytics and other big initiatives driving significant shifts in the IT world. Rest assured that cybercriminals are doing their best to keep pace.

Security experts predict that malicious threat actors will differentiate their tactics in the coming months in order to capitalize on the changing technology landscape.