Mobile devices are an essential part of today’s remote and hybrid work models. Employees need the ability to access IT resources using their mobile devices so they can communicate, collaborate and remain productive.

However, mobile devices are also prime targets of hackers.

Cybercriminals aren’t stupid. They time and engineer their attacks for maximum effectiveness. According to the Malwarebytes 2024 State of Ransomware Report, most ransomware attacks occur between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. in the victim’s local time. What’s more, ransomware attacks that once took weeks to execute can now be completed in a matter of hours.

Every organization is fighting a never-ending cyber war, even if they don’t realize it. On one side, organizations are constantly defending their data, systems and other assets. On the other side, well-funded, highly organized hackers are trying to penetrate their defenses to steal or compromise data and profit from these activities.

First introduced in the late 1980s, the firewall is one of the original network security tools — and it remains one of the most important. However, improperly maintained firewalls open the door to security breaches and regulatory failures.

Firewalls exist to prevent unauthorized network access.

The applications we rely on every day are not monolithic. They’re a complex interplay of software from a wide range of sources. If a threat is introduced anywhere within that software supply chain, it can wreak havoc on systems further down the line.

The SolarWinds hack is the best-known supply chain attack.

Trying to prevent network intrusions with conventional perimeter defenses is a bit like trying to dam a river with chicken wire — there are way too many holes to plug.

For decades, organizations focused on perimeter security measures to prevent intruders from accessing the network.

The cloud, distributed computing and remote work models have dramatically changed network traffic patterns. Traditionally, most traffic stayed within the company LAN, and networks were designed to move that traffic efficiently. Because remote users primarily accessed centralized applications and resources, WANs focused on moving traffic into and out of the LAN.

When organizations first began adopting cloud services, they treated them as an extension of their IT environments.

Cybercriminals never stop changing their techniques to evade defenses. Ransomware remains a favored form of attack, with variants that target Windows, Linux and virtual machines. Increasingly, ransomware gangs are attacking endpoints and using remote encryption to compromise the entire IT environment.

The FBI has announced that it now has more than 7,000 decryption keys for the LockBit ransomware. Victims of a LockBit ransomware attack are encouraged to visit the Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov to obtain a decryption key for free. It could enable those organizations to recover their data, but sadly, it won’t make a dent in the ransomware scourge.

Phishing is by far the most common type of cybercrime. According to Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) data, individual users reported almost 300,000 phishing and spoofing attacks in 2023, compared to fewer than 56,000 personal data breaches. Researchers with Zscaler ThreatLabz found that phishing attacks increased more than 58 percent in 2023.

A 2024 report by Egress found that 94 percent of organizations fell victim to phishing attacks in the preceding 12 months, and 96 percent were “negatively impacted” by those attacks.