Author: Admin

Applications have opened for the next cohort of the NCSC For Startups program, which is looking for early-stage companies focused on protecting the UK’s critical national infrastructure from cyber threats. The program, launched in 2021, is run by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in partnership with Plexal. A successor to the NCSC Cyber Accelerator, the program offers cybersecurity startup companies the opportunity to work with experts from within the NCSC to develop, adapt or pilot…

Threat actors are moving away from macro-based attacks to other tactics, in one of the biggest shifts in the email threat landscape in recent history, according to Proofpoint. Microsoft announced in October 2021 that it would soon block XL4 macros which are specific to Excel. Several months later it said the same about VBA macros, which are used in Office applications. Threat actors typically use social engineering to convince users they need to enable macros…

For the past few years, IT leaders at a US financial services company have been struggling to hire data scientists to harness the increasing flood of incoming data that, if used properly, could improve customer experience and drive new products. To deal with this hiring problem, they’ve had to get creative. They’re not just offering remote work and flexible hours. Oh, no. They’ve also created a relationship with universities, setting up a pipeline of emerging…

XaaS is, regrettably, defined as, “any computing service that is delivered via the internet and paid for in a flexible consumption model rather than as an upfront purchase or license.” Do some Googling about XaaS and you’ll find much repetitive gushing, but for the more jaundiced among us, it’s hard to avoid concluding that XaaS is, in fact, little more than the intersection of cloud-based computing and charge-backs. And yet in all of the discussion,…

Since Microsoft’s shutdown of macros in Office apps, attackers are using container file types to deliver malware in one of the largest threat landscape shifts in recent history. Image: Adobe Stock After Microsoft announced it would begin blocking VBA and XL4 macros by default for Windows Office applications late last year, attackers began using container files such as ISO and RAR attachments and Windows shortcut (LNK) files to deliver payloads instead. “We are seeing behaviors…

UK police are warning of a surge in social media hacking incidents in which victims’ accounts are flooded with indecent images of children. Action Fraud said it had received scores of reports since the start of the year, with incidents increasing month by month. “Based on the review of these Action Fraud reports, there appears to be no financial motivation behind this hacking, with no report received mentioning a ransom demand,” it explained. “Offenders have…

Malware – what are the threats? Malware can come from and in a variety of attack vectors. Besides using ‘traditional’ methods of spreading malware, adversaries can leverage more sophisticated methods to turn your Power System into a ‘malware host’. The key target is your data. Data is valuable, and organisations have paid at least $602 million to ransomware gangs in 2021.  If they are not stealing it to sell on the dark web (social security…

Microsoft’s decision to turn off Office macros by default has had a significant impact on the use of the mini-programs by hackers, according to enterprise security company Proofpoint. In a blog posted today, the company noted its researchers have found that the use of macro-enabled attachments by threat actors has decreased approximately 66% between October 2021 and June 2022. “We’ve seen them switch their tactics away from leveraging malicious macros into other kinds of attacks…