27 Sep Cybercrime Bytes: Romance Scams, Ransomware On Whiskey, CISO Seating
Weekly news that keeps you on the cutting edge of cybersecurity
– The editors at Cybercrime Magazine
Sausalito, Calif. – Sep. 28, 2020
This week’s rundown is sponsored by Absolute — New enterprise security trends, threats & opportunities revealed in 2020: The State of Endpoint Resilience™ Report, our annual study of 8.5 million devices.
— According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), romance scams result in greater financial losses to victims when compared to other online crimes. Last year, almost 20,000 complaints categorized as romance scams were reported to IC3, and the losses associated with those complaints exceeded $475 million. Cybercrime Magazine
— Bloomberg recently reported that U.S. liquor giant Brown-Forman, the owner of Jack Daniel’s whiskey, had been victim to a ransomware attack. When the U.S. corporation’s network was infiltrated, hackers stole more than one terabyte of data, including potentially sensitive data. Manufacturing Business Technology
— Cybersecurity needs to transition from a back-office operational function and move into its own area aligned with law, privacy and enterprise risk. The chief information security officer (CISO) should have a seat at the table alongside the CIO, COO, CFO and the CEO. TechTarget SearchSecurity
— Ransomware attacks are getting bolder and way too many businesses are unprepared. A recent study from IBM Security revealed even amongst the more advanced organizations that have security playbooks for different types of attacks, less than half have plans in place for ransomware. Computer Business Review
— As reported by The New York Times, Cybersecurity Ventures projects a staggering 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs globally by 2021, increasing from one million such positions in 2014. Organizations must be resourceful and groom talent internally, “upskill” and “reskill” current staff, and look outside traditional talent pools. Forbes
Cybercrime Radio: Dr. Chase Cunningham
What Hollywood tells us about hackers isn’t true
— Ransomware attacks have become a daily occurrence, and it’s only getting worse. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, ransomware attacks will increase 30 percent from 2019 to 2021, resulting in an attack every 11 seconds. With the surge in remote working and online businesses, ransomware attackers are exploiting all vulnerabilities with sophisticated and costly attacks. ITProPortal
— The FBI reported that business email compromises (BEC) exceeded $26 billion in actual and attempted losses last year. BEC tricks employees into wiring money to a fake account. Once it hits the fake account, the money is distributed over a range of offshore banks, making it impossible to recover the funds. Unfortunately, many companies and employees have never heard of BEC, let alone know how to detect it. Woz U
— Cybercrime Radio podcast host Hillarie McClure interviewed Hal Glatzer, author of “The Trapdoor,” a classic 1980s hacker thriller book that has been reissued for Kindles and tablets. Glatzer, who started out his career as a reporter, always had a knack for explaining technology in simple terms. As an elementary school student, he gave a presentation about how color television was going to work. Cybercrime Magazine
— John Kindervag, field CTO at Palo Alto Networks and a former analyst with Forrester Research, created the Zero Trust Network. It became popular in 2010. Now, more than a decade later, this mentality of Zero Trust is being implemented. Just like the name implies, Zero Trust is a concept that is founded on organizations not automatically trusting anything, be it inside or outside its perimeters. Vulcan Post
— An infographic featuring statistical data from Cybersecurity Ventures reveals the healthcare sector is the most targeted, accounting for 41 percent of all cybersecurity breaches reported. The healthcare industry is also subject to the highest volume of ransomware attacks. ISACA | CMMI Institute
Cybercrime TV: The World’s First Chief Information Security Officer
Meet Steve Katz, CISO at Citicorp, 1995-2001
— Right now, American democracy is being challenged as it never has been before, according to Scott Schober, who reviewed the book “Manipulated: Inside the Cyberwar to Hijack Elections and Distort the Truth” by cybersecurity expert and former White House CIO Theresa Payton. Schober gives the book a 5-star rating, the best possible. Cybercrime Magazine
— One of the key risk management strategies collated from the Australian Cyber Security Centre, New York University, Harvard University, and the U.S. Department of Defense, is that cybersecurity spend should represent about eight percent of an overall IT budget. Australian Institute of Company Directors
— There’s a huge talent crunch in the cybersecurity sector, made even worse by the COVID-19 work-from-home phenomenon. “The pandemic has shown that we’ve planned for fire, flood, buildings collapsing,” says Sean Duca, APAC and Japan regional CISO for Palo Alto Networks. “But we haven’t planned for the idea that we’d have to run everything remotely. In today’s situation, the requirements for the cybersecurity skillset can be quite steep.” People Matters
— Unfortunately most businesses — including food — don’t like to share any information about ransomware attacks they’ve sustained. A cyberattack not only creates costly downtime but also can destroy IP, cause food safety issues and just be plain expensive — whether or not you pay the ransom. Food Engineering Magazine
— The COVID-19 pandemic has wiped out most of the live cybersecurity conference calendar schedule through the end of 2020. Security professionals are on standby for the latest news on venues and dates in 2021. Cybersecurity Ventures has compiled a list of the biggest and best upcoming events over the next year in its annual Cybersecurity Events Calendar. Cybercrime Magazine
More next week.
– From the editors at Cybercrime Magazine
Sponsored by Absolute
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