The Dark Side of Technology: Deepfakes and their Threat to Cyber Security
Introduction In 2019, when the head of a UK energy firm (1) received an urgent call from the CEO of the company’s German headquarters, advising that he immediately transfer a sum of GBP 220,000 to a Hungarian supplier, he had absolutely no reason to doubt the authenticity of the call. After all such interactions at […]
Zero Trust Security for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses: What You Need to Know
In today’s digital age, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats. According to a study conducted by the Ponemon Institute, 76% of SMBs experienced a cyber attack in 2020. As cyberattacks become more sophisticated, traditional security measures such as firewalls and antivirus software are no longer enough to protect businesses from […]
Social Engineering at Work
In early 2020, when a manager in a bank in Hong Kong received a phone call from a director of a company he knew (1), asking him to transfer some USD 35 million from his company’s account to various beneficiaries, he never could have imagined he was being duped. To add to the phone call, […]
AI – The Twin-Edged Sword Shaping the Future of Cybersecurity
Almost all new inventions that promise to revolutionize a field or remedy a despairing situation are fraught with dangers that bear examination. Take the case of how the aviation industry struggled to shake off the apprehensions of safety after the early debacles of the Wright brothers. Decades would pass before the industry reached maturity, and […]
Calls for Greater Data Privacy and Cybersecurity Regulation Gain Momentum
As the Russian-Ukraine conflict enters its second year, the cybersecurity industry will recall the signing of the March 22, 2022, cyber incident reporting law by US President Joe Biden. This law mandates both public and private entities to report critical infrastructure attacks(1) within 72 hours. The law covers all major sectors(2) deemed critical to the […]
Why Cyber Insurance is Changing the Cybersecurity Landscape
Introduction The growing trend of remote work across various industries, coupled with advancements in technology such as IoT, 5G, and metaverse, has elevated the significance of cyber insurance in our digital-centric society. As a result, its importance for businesses is greater than ever before. The larger the organization’s business revenue, employee strength, network security, dependence […]
Challenges for Cybersecurity in a World of Quantum Computers
In the 2013 documentary Taming the Quantum World (1), physicists in the Canary Islands are working on a project to build a quantum computer by harnessing the mysterious powers of quantum physics. They hope to create a ‘global quantum internet’ that will instantaneously teleport a humungous amount of data to anywhere in the world, using […]
The In and Out of Insider Threats
The In and Out of Insider Threats ‘Trust no one, verify everyone’ is a mantra commonly referred to when speaking about Zero Trust Architecture (1). Threat actors are not just out there but are very much within our own circle of operation. Take the case of the Waymo self-driving car project of Google’s parent company […]
The Endless Need for Employee Education and Awareness in Cybersecurity
When employees of tech giants Google and Facebook, arguably amongst the most inviolable when it comes to scamming and certainly amongst the most updated when it comes to security awareness, fell for a phishing scam in 2015 (1) that resulted in approximately USD 100 million being lost, heads in the cybersecurity world turned and almost […]
Attacks on Critical Infrastructure – An Uphill Battle
In May 2021 when the gasoline supplies to the East Coast of the US went down as a consequence of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, nobody foresaw the mass panic that the hack would entail. Breaching the internal systems which controlled the company’s billing and supplies with the aid of a compromised password, DarkSide crippled […]
