Tag: cyber budget
Elon Musk Blames ‘Massive Cyberattack’ for Widespread X Outage – March 10th
Social media platform X suffered a major outage on March 10, with tens of thousands of users unable to access the site. Owner Elon Musk blamed the disruption on a "massive cyberattack," suggesting that a well-funded group or nation-state may have been involved. The outage, which peaked around 10 a.m. EST, affected both the X app and website, with intermittent service disruptions continuing throughout the day. As frustrated users flocked to alternative platforms like Threads and Bluesky, concerns grew over the security of X’s infrastructure.
60% of Cybersecurity Professionals Considering Job Change – March 5th
Cybersecurity professionals are restless, with over 60% planning to switch jobs in the next year. A new study by IANS Research and Artico Search highlights career stagnation as a major reason, while salaries remain high across the industry. The report finds senior professionals are the most eager to leave, frustrated by limited growth opportunities. Specialists in cloud security, application security, and threat intelligence, however, continue to command the highest salaries.
SMEs in urgent need of cybersecurity overhaul
In an exclusive interview with Cyber Intelligence, Brian Buiwe, Technology Specialist at Sage, explains how SMEs and other smaller organizations urgently need to re-address their approach to cybersecurity. There is a huge knowledge gap among C-suite executives of small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as among other professionals such as senior doctors and lawyers, where cybersecurity is concerned. Many do not yet grasp the urgent need for cybersecurity. The mainstream media has actually done a very poor job of keeping them informed of the growing threat facing all sectors.
Cybercrime gets physical
Cyber-physical systems (CPS), such as operational technology (OT), the Internet of Things (IoT), building management systems (BMS) and connected media devices have now become a prime target for ransomware attacks. According to security firm, Claroty, cyber-physical attacks are now placing significant financial strain across organizations in several key sectors. Almost half of the respondents, 45 percent, to an independent survey commissioned by Claroty report financial losses of $500,000 or more over the last 12 months from cyber-attacks affecting CPS. Over a quarter, 27 percent, report losses of $1 million or more. “The most financially impacted sectors are chemical manufacturing, power and energy, and mining and materials, with 54-55 percent of respondents in each sector reporting more than $500,000 in losses from incidents in the last 12 months,” says the report, The Global State of CPS Security 2024.
Cost of AI could rise tenfold – warns Gartner
Gartner issued a stern warning this week to organizations across all sectors that the cost of introducing artificial intelligence (AI) to the workplace could easily balloon by 500 -1,000 percent. Speaking at Gartner's flagship Symposium event in Australia, VP analyst Mary Mesaglio said: “Factors contributing to these inflated costs include vendor price increases and neglecting the expense of utilizing cloud-based resources.”
Adobe Applies Patches to Critical Flaws – June 12th
Yesterday, June 11th, Adobe announced that they rolled out security patches for 6 critical vulnerabilities affecting Adobe After Effects, Photoshop, and Illustrator. According to Adobe, the vulnerabilities could have led to successful arbitrary code execution and/or memory leaks in the current user's context.
ID security acquisition to spark M&A growth
Identity security company CyberArk has announced that it is acquiring machine identity management specialist Venafi for US $1.54 billion from software-focused investor Thoma Bravo, which already manages US$138 billion in assets. The acquisition is being seen by some market sources as the start of more highly-focused acquisition-driven growth in the increasingly sharply defined and specialized cybersecurity sector. The logic behind the Venafi acquisition is clear. According to CyberArk, the number of machines is rapidly outpacing the growth of their human counterparts, with more than 40 machine identities for every human identity. By adding Venafi’s machine identity management to its dominant identity security position, CyberArk expects to expand its total addressable market by almost US$10 billion to around US$60 billion.
Mid-Market Companies Invest 285% More in Cybersecurity – April 3rd
Corsica Technologies released a study that revealed mid-market companies invest 285% more in cybersecurity-managed services and sales growth. The study also revealed that 74% identified legacy software, and 52% found data integration to be a couple of the main challenges faced by midmarket companies.
Budget shortfalls power cybercrime surge
Over half of all companies worldwide quote inadequate cybersecurity budgets as a key factor underpinning a dramatic rise in global cybercrime in the first three quarters of 2023. According to a survey of almost 2,000 cybersecurity practitioners worldwide undertaken by the Ponemon Institute and commissioned by cybersecurity firm Barracuda: “There are a number of common factors that contribute to organizations’ exposable security postures. These include significant IT security budget shortfalls, a general lack of consistent enterprise-wide security policies and programs, ineffective (or no) incident response plans, and an inability to protect against automated security attacks criminals create using generative AI technology.” Fifty-five percent of respondents quoted inadequate IT security budgets as the chief cause of their growing vulnerability to cyber-attacks. A further 42 percent highlighted inadequate enterprise-wide security policies and programs. A lack of inventory of third parties with access to sensitive and confidential data adversely impacted 38 percent. Another key factor is a lack of support from senior leadership, with 25 percent of respondents saying that management teams fail to regard cyberattacks as a significant risk.