National Cybersecurity Awareness Month might be behind us, but the National Cyber Security Alliance isn’t resting on its laurels waiting for next October to roll around. The non-profit organization hosted a series of online workshops for SMBs in Indianapolis as part of its CyberSecure My BusinessTM program. Meanwhile, Avast and the UK’s Neighbourhood Watch have teamed up to create the UK Cyberhood Watch. In fact, there’re lots of other national efforts going on to enhance cyber defenses.
The Washington Post’s Cybersecurity 202 reported that federal agents and police departments are engaging in war-gaming exercises to better understand the myriad ways an election could be hacked.
Additionally, legislators introduced a bill to expand the cybersecurity workforce by enhancing existing programs and incentivizing educators in the field. The first US National Guard cyber battalion will be based in Indiana and provide soldiers with “live environments for cyber and electronic warfare testing and training.”
And that’s not all the training that’s going on. Tag-Cyber.com reported that mid-career students are increasingly earning degrees in cybersecurity. All of this is good news for the industry, given the recently published 2019 (ISC)2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study, which found that in order to close the skills-gap, the cybersecurity workforce must increase by 145%.
Here’s a look at what else has been going on in cybersecurity this week:
Nov. 8: Cisco released fixes for vulnerabilities in a variety of its products, including several Small Business RV Series Routers.
Nov. 7: In collaboration with ESET, Lookout and Zimperium, Google announced a new App Defense Alliance that will analyze apps in order to improve the safety of the Google Play Store.
Nov. 6: Protecting victims against the malicious use of surveillance and tracking technology continues to be a challenge, as was the case in Tasmania. In the case, “which resulted in the 38-year-old man pleading guilty to stalking charges in the Hobart Magistrates Court, he tracked the woman’s phone location using spyware, for which he paid a monthly fee, ABC reported.”
Nov. 6: New research from Flashpoint evidenced, “The interest in ATM malware and attacks is persistent and should be on the radar of financial institutions and ATM manufacturers alike.”
Nov. 6: The two former Twitter employees charged with acting as illegal agents of Saudi Arabia are alleged to have spied on Twitter users and shared information about those users with officials of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, according to the US Department of Justice.
Nov. 5: A survey of more than 800 global CISOs revealed that more than half (51%) of organizations do not feel equipped to deal with a cyberattack or breach, according to FireEye’s Cyber Trendscape Report.
Nov. 4: Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) published a new report, Spear Phishing: A Law Enforcement and Cross-Industry Perspective. According to the press release, “The report highlights the role of spear phishing as the main attack vector for cybercriminals and contains the definition of the main modi operandi that criminals use to deceive the target (among others, emails coming from trusted accounts, malicious attachments or links to fraudulent websites).”
Nov. 4: The government of Nunavut, a Canadian territory, shut down part of its network after it was hit with a ransomware attack that encrypted all Word documents and PDF files.
Nov. 3: As threats from malicious insiders grow more concerning, US-based Proofpoint announced that it will acquire Israeli-founded ObserveIT for a whopping $225 million in cash.