With targeted malware attacks posing greater threats to health care institutions, the director of CDPH, Dr. Mark Horton, said ensuring the privacy of patient data is a critical component to the medical industry.
“Medical privacy is a fundamental right and a critical component of quality medical care in California. We are very concerned with violations of patient confidentiality and their potential harm to the residents of California.”
While Federal regulations such as HIPAA have prompted health care organizations to take measures to better protect digital patient records, stopping highly targeted cyber attacks continue to be one of the industry’s top challenges. Continue reading this post…
Laser focus attacks, new exploits, and ongoing security woes continue to leave many organizations in disarray about how to defend their networks against highly targeted cyber-attacks. Even the government, which has taken a hard stance on protecting our digital infrastructure, has been slow to move. Here were some of the top security stories from May 2010. Continue reading this post…
An interesting study released this week shows that about 1.3 million malicious ads are being viewed online everyday. Most of these malvertisements are pushing drive-by downloads and fake security software. Some of the key findings in the report include:
Users are twice as likely to get infected by a malware ad on a weekend
The average lifetime of a malvertisement is 7.3 days
97% of Fortune 500 websites are at a high risk due to their external partners (JavaScript widget providers, packaged software providers etc.)
69% of Fortune 500 companies use external JavaScript to render portions of their sites
64% of Fortune 500 companies are running outdated web applications
This study drives home the point that everybody is exposed. Whether it’s a consumer hitting an ad on a website that’s got malware or an attack targeting the person running the grid, the fact is as long as there’s a human being in the loop malware is going to get deposited.
What I find interesting is that malvertisments targeting consumers take the same payload-type approaches as APTs that are specifically designed to go after the top government or corporate information, but just not in the same highly targeted, sniper-type fashion. But whatever approach is taken, the cornerstone to every one of these types of attacks that deposit some type of targeted malware is the payload.
This brings me to a poll question I’d like to ask you: What’s the most important step to stopping malware payloads? Said differently, if you could only do ONE thing to stop these attacks, which approach would you take? I’d love to get your feedback on it.
Earlier this week, I wrote how modern day targeted attacks don’t lend themselves to today’s security solutions. I’d like to follow up those thoughts by exploring strategies for combating these types of highly calculated threats.
While organizations focus on their business growth, they are also forced to contend with cyber criminals targeting their corporate networks to steal valuable information that can make them lots of money. As a result, evolving fraud professionals are truly changing how businesses protect their private data and fight cyber crime. Continue reading this post…
Cyber crime has evolved from mass attacks intended to wreck havoc and steal as much data as possible to highly targeted attacks looking for specific information from an organization. Custom malware, designed to bypass legacy endpoint security, forms the foundation of these attacks. As a result, these calculated attacks are becoming more dangerous for the businesses and government entities hackers are targeting. Continue reading this post…
Questions? Leads on topics? Ideas for improvement? Or just want to open up a dialog and chat with us about — whatever? We want to hear what you have to say!