As of June 15, 2024, smaller reporting companies must comply with new Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) breach disclosure rules. Under the rules, publicly traded companies must report a security incident within four days after determining it is “material.

Organizations expand geographically for many reasons, whether to tap into new markets, better serve existing customers, gain needed skill sets, or take advantage of lower real estate or labor costs. An organization’s geographic footprint can expand quickly due to mergers and acquisitions, and more and more employees are working remotely in home-based offices that become an extension of the business.

Evasive malware is exactly what the name suggests — malware that can continually change its characteristics to avoid detection. And the latest research from WatchGuard’s Threat Lab finds that it’s increasing dramatically.

To compile its Internet Security Report for Q4 2023, WatchGuard analyzed threat telemetry from tens of thousands of its network appliances and millions of endpoint products.

Various studies show that unpatched software vulnerabilities are a primary source of cyberattacks. A recent report from the Ponemon Institute found that unpatched vulnerabilities were directly responsible for 60 percent of all data breaches. Cybercriminals target known software security bugs in operating systems and applications and attack systems that haven’t been patched.

Organizations are adopting generative AI tools to automate tasks and gain new insight into data. Gen AI has the potential to transform operational processes and enable unprecedented levels of efficiency and innovation. However, gen AI also creates new security threats.

Tax-filing season is upon us, but it’s like Christmas for cybercriminals.

Each spring, scam artists unleash their annual flood of fraudulent emails, phone calls and text messages designed to steal money or information. Millions of Americans are duped by scammers every year, losing billions of dollars.

The near-constant attacks on computer networks make it clear that cybersecurity is no longer a human-scale problem. Traditional security measures such as firewalls and antivirus software aren’t enough to ward off the onslaught of increasingly sophisticated attacks leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning.

A regional health network in Illinois was forced to shut down two rural hospitals last summer, in part due to losses sustained during a prolonged ransomware attack two years earlier. It marked the first time a hospital closing was directly linked to a cyberattack.

Since the beginning of the computer age, IT teams have doggedly worked to prevent all cyberattacks and system outages that could disrupt operations. That may no longer be an achievable objective. Modern technologies and threats have become so complex and sophisticated that IT failures now seem nearly inevitable — 96 percent of IT organizations worldwide experienced at least one outage in the past three years, according to one study.

Stolen or compromised credentials are the leading cause of data breaches, but password-based authentication isn’t going away anytime soon. With more than 80 percent of organizations still depending on them, passwords are easily the most prevalent method of user authentication.