Out today: Defending against critical threats: A 12 month roundup – Cisco Blogs

Today we launch our brand new publication, Defending Against Critical Threats: A 12 month roundup.

Inside, we take a retrospective look at cyber threats, and how they have evolved in the last 12 months. In something a little different to our previous reports, we’ve designed this in a magazine style format to include both interviews with security experts, and research driven features.

Our intention is to help inform strategic decision-making, as organizations prepare for threats they may encounter in the future.

As a couple of callouts, we’ve included articles that address the ways cyber criminals sought to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic, be it through phishing campaigns, leveraging the great migration to remote work, or even going after health care organizations themselves.

Our interview with Esmond Kane, CISO for Steward Health Care, also shines a light on how COVID-19 impacted those on the security front line.

In other topics, we’ve seen a large evolution in ransomware over the past year. Edmund Brumaghin, threat researcher for Cisco Talos, has pulled together some terrific research on Big Game Hunting attacks. This is when cyber criminals seek to monopolize a ransomware deployment by targeting backup systems, domain controllers, and other business-critical servers during a “post-compromise” phase.

Our cover feature is the topic of election security. Cisco Talos spent four years conducting hands-on research into this field, and within this publication, we have an interview Matt Olney, Director of Talos threat intelligence and interdiction (who led this research) to capture his thoughts post-election.

As our team were pulling this magazine together, what really struck me was that the topics illustrate how cyber threats impact our lives on a human level – from threats against our democracy, to our healthcare, to the organizations we work within.

I hope you enjoy the read.

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For more on these threat topics, take a listen to the latest episode of the Security Stories podcast.

Ben Nahorney, (my co-editor for the magazine), and I are joined live by Edmund Brumaghin to learn more about big game hunting attacks. Plus, we have the full interview with Esmond Kane to hear more about his experiences leading security on the front line of healthcare.

Listen to the podcast below, or on on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you normally get your podcasts from by visiting the Security Stories Podcast page.

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