In today’s competitive market place, highly targeted marketing plans are essential for reaching your core audience and getting the most bang for your buck. This is what most organizations strive for, and hackers have taken note.
Over the past few years, cyber criminals have embraced a similar business model. Instead of playing the numbers game, which consists of randomly spamming tens of thousands of people in hopes of getting a small percentage of victims to click on their malicious code, malware attacks are now truly targeted. Acting sort of like niche malware, hackers design specific cyber attacks that target specific victims, companies and industries.
As a result, no vertical is safe today. Continue reading this post…
I believe that January has given us a nice preview of what is to come in 2011. From attacks targeting new platforms to the increasing “commercialization” of malware business models and toolkits, the ongoing need to secure endpoints — from servers to laptops, from SCADA systems to tablets–shows no sign of abating. Here are some of the top endpoint security stories for January 2011. Continue reading this post…
To evade detection, cyber criminals are constantly changing their tactics. To complicate matters, they’re also changing who they are targeting.
According to the article, “Cybercriminals new attack targets,” the newly released Cisco 2010 Annual Security report foresees a major turning point in cybercrime — a shift away from Windows-based PCs to other operating systems and platforms. As hackers’ “platform of choice” over the past decade, Windows operating systems, PC platform and application vendors have taken a tougher stance in protecting their products. As a result of finding it increasingly more difficult to exploit these platforms, scammers are moving on to other targets that, for the most part, have largely been ignored by hackers.
Does this mean Windows-based systems are now in the clear of cyber attacks? I hardly think so. But what it does suggest is that other platforms need to beef up their security to make sure they don’t become the next easy target for cyber criminals. Continue reading this post…
The one thing I’ve learned in my years in IT security is that change is the only constant. The cat-and-mouse game between cyber criminals and security professionals, unfortunately, is part of the evolutionary process of malware and security development. Combine that with the fact that enterprise networks are expanding beyond Windows to include platforms like Mac and Linux, it’s clear that controlling and securing endpoints that have traditionally been considered safe from more widespread attacks, is more important than ever.
Moving forward, I firmly believe that we will no longer be operating in a “Windows-only” world. Enterprises once believed to run under the radar of cyber attacks are no longer immune to malware that now targets specific information and the different systems users work on. Knowing this, enterprises can no longer afford to think they are impervious to such attacks.
This is why CoreTrace’s Bouncer 6 is the first enterprise-ready application whitelisting solution to protect endpoints for all major versions of Windows, Macs and Linux, with continued support for Solaris implementations. Continue reading this post…
October saw another fake antivirus alert make the rounds, only this time masquerading Microsoft Security Essentials. This trend, along with more information about the Stuxnet worm, are making security experts wonder if these are signs of things to come. So, with cyber threats up and growing in severity, why then are security budgets down? According to McAfee, this is the paradox facing the IT security industry. Here are some of the top endpoint security stories of October 2010. Continue reading this post…