Cybersecurity Expert

A roundup of UK focused Cyber and Information Security News, Blog Posts, Reports and general Threat Intelligence from the previous calendar month, October 2020. London's Hackney Borough Council has been tight-lipped about "a serious cyber-attack" which took down its IT systems, impacting its service delivery to citizens. Providing scant information about the attack, but it does have all the hallmarks of a ransomware outbreak. The council says it is working with the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the Ministry of Housing to investigate and understand the impact of the incident. Ransomware attacks continue to be a major blight for UK public services, with councils to hospitals struggling to defend their IT systems against ransomware. Earlier this year Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council said it had been hit by a ransomware attack, which cost it more than £10m. It looks like the ransomware will continue to pose a major threat to the UK for some time to c...

Guest article by  Andrea Babbs, UK General Manager, VIPRE 2020 has forced businesses to revise many of their operations. One significant transition being the shift to a remote working model, for which many were unprepared in terms of equipment, infrastructure and security. As the government now urges people to return to work, we’re already seeing a shift towards a hybrid workforce , with many employees splitting their time between the office and working from home. As organisations are now reassessing their long-term office strategies, front and centre to that shift needs to be their IT security underpinned by a dependable and flexible cloud infrastructure. Andrea Babbs, UK General Manager, VIPRE, discusses what this new way of working means long-term for an organisation’s IT security infrastructure and how businesses can successfully move from remote working to a secure and agile workforce. Power of the Cloud In light of the uncertainty that has plagued most organisations, many a...

A roundup of UK focused Cyber and Information Security News, Blog Posts, Reports and general Threat Intelligence from the previous calendar month, September 2020. COVID-19 wasn't the only virus seriously disrupting the start of the new UK academic year, with ransomware plaguing a number of University and Colleges in September.  Newcastle University was reportedly hit by the 'DoppelPaymer' crime group , a group known for deploying malware to attack their victims, and behind leaking online documents from Elon Musk's SpaceX and Tesla companies. The northeast university reported a personal data breach to the UK Information Commissioner's Office after its stolen files were posted online, along with a Twitter threat to release further confidential student and staff data if a ransom payment was not paid. In a statement, the university said "i t will take several weeks" to address the issues, and that many IT services will not be operating during this period"...

Written by Sarah Doherty, Product Marketing Manager at  iland Around the world, IT teams are struggling with choosing between less critical, but important tasks, versus focusing on innovative projects to help transform your business. Both are necessary for your business and need to be actioned, but should your team do all of it? Have you thought about allowing someone else to guide you through the process while your internal team continues to focus on transforming the business?  DRaaS Data protection dilemma; outsourcing or self-managing? Disaster recovery can take a lot of time to properly implement so it may be the right time to consider a third-party provider who can help with some of the more routine and technical aspects of your disaster recovery planning. This help can free up some of your staff’s valuable time while also safeguarding your vital data. Outsourcing your data protection functions vs. managing them yourself Information technology has raised many ques...

Guest article by Adrian Taylor, Regional VP of Sales for A10 Networks  Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are now everyday occurrences. Whether you’re a small non-profit or a huge multinational conglomerate, your online services—email, websites, anything that faces the internet—can be slowed or completely stopped by a DDoS attack. Moreover, DDoS attacks are sometimes used to distract your cybersecurity operations while other criminal activity, such as data theft or network infiltration, is underway.  Why are DDoS attacks bigger and more frequent than ever? DDoS attacks are getting bigger and more frequent The first known Distributed Denial of Service attack occurred in 1996 when Panix, now one of the oldest internet service providers, was knocked offline for several days by an SYN flood, a technique that has become a classic DDoS attack. Over the next few years, DDoS attacks became common and  Cisco predicts that the total number of DDoS a...

A roundup of UK focused Cyber and Information Security News, Blog Posts, Reports and general Threat Intelligence from the previous calendar month, August 2020. Taking security training courses and passing certification exams are common ingredients in the makeup of the vast majority of accomplished cybersecurity and information security professionals. As such, two security incidents last month raised more than just a surprising eyebrow or two within the UK security industry.  The first involved the renown and well respected United States security training company, The SANS Institue , announcing that a successful email phishing attack against one of its employees resulted in 28,000 personal records being stolen .  SANS classified this compromise as "consent phishing", namely where an employee is tricked into providing malicious Microsoft Office 365 OAuth applications access to their O365 accounts. In June 2020,  Microsoft warned 'consent phishing' scams were targetin...

Guest post by Adrian Taylor, Regional VP of Sales for A10 Networks    The Emotet trojan recently turned from a major cybersecurity threat to a laughingstock when its payloads were replaced by harmless animated GIFs. Taking advantage of a weakness in the way Emotet malware components were stored, white-hat hackers donned their vigilante masks and sabotaged the operations of the recently revived cyberthreat. While highly effective as well as somewhat humorous, the incident should not distract attention from two unavoidable truths.  First, while the prank deactivated about a quarter of all Emotet malware payload downloads, the botnet remains a very real, ongoing threat and a prime vector for attacks such as ransomware. And second, relying on one-off operations by whimsical vigilantes is hardly a sustainable security strategy. To keep the remaining active Emotet botnets—and countless other cyber threats—out of their environment, organisations need to rely on more robust an...