As a result of major cyberattacks in 2020, security leaders were forced to be even more cognizant of their approach to protecting their organization, often forcing them to refine and future proof their approaches to this new world of security. After watching the events of 2020 and analyzing threat actors’ approaches, here’s what I expect to see in 2021:
U.S. employers are expanding efforts to enhance their employees’ wellbeing as they map out a benefit strategy for operating in a post-pandemic environment. These initiatives come as less than three in 10 employers say their wellbeing (29%) and caregiving (27%) programs have been effective at supporting employees during the pandemic.
Sophos has published new research, “Gootloader Expands Its Payload Delivery Options,” that details how the delivery method for the six-year-old Gootkit financial malware has been developed into a complex and stealthy delivery system for a wide range of malware, including ransomware. Sophos researchers have named the platform, “Gootloader.” Gootloader is actively delivering malicious payloads through tightly targeted operations in the U.S., Germany and South Korea. Previous campaigns also targeted internet users in France.
When Derrick A. Butts first started his role as Chief Information and Cybersecurity Officer at Truth Initiative, a large non-profit public health organization dedicated to making tobacco use and nicotine addiction a thing of the past, he had an 18-month plan dedicated to increasing cybersecurity confidence, IT members’ skillsets, and overall security posture within the organization while rebranding the IT department as a positive security and technology resource.
In the spring of 2020, the second New York Cyber Task Force (NYCTF) was formed under the direction of its Executive Director Greg Rattray, gathering key high-profile members and leading experts to analyze the degree to which the U.S. was ready for future cyber challenges, including political, economic, and technological developments; changing cyber conflict dynamics; and the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the NYCTF released its new report, “Enhancing Readiness for National Cyber Defense through Operational Collaboration” with Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), revealing U.S. cyber response readiness against national security challenges in cyberspace.
On Feb. 22, 2021, the “Minnesota Consumer Data Privacy Act” (MCDPA) was introduced in the Minnesota House of Representatives. The MCDPA is now the primary candidate to become Minnesota’s omnibus consumer privacy law. To learn more about the MCDPA and privacy regulations, Security magazine spoke to attorney Nadeem Schwen, from Winthrop & Weinstine, who has been at the forefront of this bill’s creation and leads data privacy work for the firm.
Malwarebytes’ Threat Intelligence analysts introduced a new APT group they have named LazyScripter, presenting in-depth analysis of the tactics, techniques, procedures, and infrastructure employed by this actor group.
Netskope revealed new research showing that the majority of all malware is now delivered via cloud applications, underscoring how attackers increasingly abuse popular cloud services to evade legacy security defenses putting enterprise data increasingly at risk. The findings are part of the February 2021 Netskope Cloud and Threat Report, which analyzes the most interesting trends on enterprise cloud service and app use, web and cloud-enabled threats, and cloud data migrations and transfers.
Contact center call volumes will vary from industry to industry and from month to month, but the general trend is steeply upward. Adding new agents isn’t the only or even the most efficient way that contact center managers can respond to the great COVID crunch of 2021. A properly deployed Interactive Voice Response system can make workloads manageable for agents while keeping customers from long and frustrating minutes on hold. Still, new options for callers may correspond to new opportunities for attackers.
Quantum computing, the use of quantum phenomena such as superposition and entanglement to perform computation, is expected to impact many sectors, including healthcare, energy, finance, entertainment, and security.
Before this large-scale impact is achieved, several challenges need to be overcome, and security leaders should start preparing for this change, says Sergey Strakhov, Chief Technology Officer at IronCap. Here, we talk to Strakhov about the impact quantum computing will have on security and the potential risks it poses.
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