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Generative AI Disappointment

Businesses turn their back on GenAI

The reaction of businesses to the introduction of generative AI (GenAI) in the year since the launch of Microsoft-backed ChatGPT is one of increasing suspicion and disappointment. Over one in four organizations have banned the use of GenAI outright. The majority of companies are now also refusing to trust a technology that has already gained a reputation for making errors and even entirely fabricating information, a failing that is referred to as “hallucinating”. According to Cisco’s newly-released 2024 Data Privacy Benchmark Study, 68 percent of organizations mistrust GenAI because it gets results wrong and 69 percent also believe it could hurt their company’s legal rights. The study draws on responses from 2,600 privacy and security professionals across 12 geographies. 

Ransomware gangs

Ransomware gangs start to fight dirty

According to cybersecurity company SecureWorks’ annual State of the Threat Report, over the last 12 months, attackers have shortened the time between the initial penetration of the corporate network to the ransomware demand itself from 4.5 days to less than one day. This period, known in the cybersecurity industry as ‘dwell time’, offers well-equipped cybercriminals a leisurely opportunity to drain the company of funds and its most sensitive secrets. In 10 percent of cases, ransomware was even deployed within five hours of initial access.

Sextortion scams soar by 178%

Security researchers, ESTET reports a 178% increase in sextortion emails between the first half of 2022 and the first six months of 2023, marking the category out as a top email threat. The company ranks sextortion emails third among all email threats in H1 2023.

Companies slow to take the fight to cybercriminals

According to a study conducted in June, “Threat intelligence: Eyes on the enemy,” by threat intelligence firm Cyber Risk Analytics (CRA), vulnerability priority is the chief use of threat intelligence for 70 percent of the study’s respondents; 65 percent of those respondents also stated that they are starting to use threat intelligence to aid them with reactive incident response. By contrast, proactive measures still rank low on the list of primary uses for threat intelligence where most organizations are concerned, with 50 percent of respondents using threat intelligence for threat hunting and 46 percent, fewer than half, using actionable threat intelligence providing advanced warning against future attacks.

August vacations pose QR code nightmare

A new summer craze is hitting the world of cybercrime – weaponized Quick Response (QR) codes. According to cybersecurity firm Darktrace, last month saw a marked increase in “Quishing” attacks.

Summer Cyber-Crime to Soar

Travelling executives and techies are always a nightmare for security departments. Laptops stolen from unlocked cars or rooms, smartphones misplaced on a night out and other physically compromising events are only the tip of the cybersecurity iceberg.

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