A new organization became a victim of ransomware every 10 seconds in 2020 with remote workers experiencing a sharp uptick in threats, according to Check Point. The security vendor’s 2021 Security Report is compiled from its ThreatCloud intelligence sensor data, its own research and recent surveys of IT professionals. The report claimed that consumers and organizations face 100,000 malicious websites and 10,000 malicious files every day, with double extortion ransomware in particular on the rise….

Security team members are the principal defenders of enterprise cyber assets. It makes sense, then, to verify that current staffers and potential new hires aren’t hiding secrets that could place essential systems and data at risk. Unfortunately, conducting thorough and meaningful background checks isn’t easy or straightforward. Even if an individual consents to a background investigation, regulations designed to protect staff and applicants from unwarranted snooping and employment practices can make it challenging to delve…

In my day job I am often asked about the use of cloud for disaster recovery. Some organisations only operate out of a single data centre, or building, while others have a dual-site setup but want to explore a third option in the cloud. Either way, using cloud resources for disaster recovery can be a good way to learn and validate different technologies, potentially with a view to further migrations as data centre and hardware…

According to Risk Based Security’s 2020 Q3 report, around 36 billion records were compromised between January and September 2020. While this result is quite staggering, it also sends a clear message of the need for effective database security measures. Database security measures are a bit different from website security practices. The former involve physical steps, software solutions and even educating your employees. However, it’s equally important to protect your site to minimize the potential attack…

Proof-of-concept exploit scripts for a critical remote code execution flaw, along with mass scanning activity, indicate that organizations should apply vCenter Server patches immediately. Background On February 23, VMware released a security advisory (VMSA-2021-0002) to address two vulnerabilities in vCenter Server, a centralized management software for VMware vSphere systems, as well as a vulnerability in the VMWare ESXi hypervisor. The most notable vulnerability disclosed as part of this advisory is CVE-2021-21972, a critical remote code…