At Ascend, we write a lot about the technical aspects of cybersecurity. We focus on cutting-edge topics in malware, ransomware, even machine learning. But one of the most insidious and effective cybersecurity threats around doesn't involve a single line of code: social ...
Brazen cyber attacks by organized crime rings and political groups against high-profile retail giants, powerful government agencies, and energy facilities make news. But you may be surprised to know that one of the biggest risks to the cybersecurity of most businesses isn’t ...
Cyberattacks have become commonplace across a variety of verticals —from big box stores to toymakers and even the federal government. Security staffers are feeling the pressure to ensure their company isn’t the next one splashed across the headlines.
Healthcare providers have historically taken a perimeter-focused approach to cybersecurity which is the equivalent of building a strong fence around your property to keep the cattle safe. On the ranch, a fence may develop a small hole that allows a predator in or a stampede ...
Cisco just released their midyear cybersecurity report, exploring the reasons why potent attacks are spreading and providing insights into undermining attackers' impact. Their findings were rather disturbing, but they do illustrate the point that businesses can prevent ...
According to 2016 survey results from The Ponemon Institute, healthcare organizations average about one cyber attack per month. So why, then, do so many remain underinvested in cybersecurity? That’s a question we often ask ourselves and encourage healthcare executives to ...
Businesses in all sectors are increasingly relying on vendors and associates. This is especially true in healthcare, where functions such as billing are frequently performed by outside parties, and providers rely on various partners for services like imaging and diagnostics.
In response to increased compliance concerns and the need to protect against security breaches, more companies are implementing SIEM technology to more easily collect, correlate and analyze data and security alerts from a central location. But once a SIEM is in place, how ...
With the ever increasing number of financially oriented businesses, there are a lot more assets that are of value to criminals—in addition to money. This includes retail customers’ personal data as well as competitive information. It’s all valuable. And it’s a big reason ...
The days of dividing your firewall up into three primary zones—inside, outside, and DMZ—have come to an end. Security standards such as PCI-DSS, HIPAA, NIST, and a host of others, all suggest the use of segmentation in order to protect critical systems.
You've seen it in the news: cyberattacks on big, billion dollar companies expose millions of customers’ personal information, and that draws a lot of media attention. Attacks on smaller companies tend to fall under the radar, leading many to think they’re "too small" to ...
The SANS Institute is a cooperative research and education organization that reaches more than 165,000 security professionals around the world. Their programs undergo constant scrutiny and revision to ensure that the content is both on point and represents the state of the ...
Privileged accounts represent one of the largest vulnerabilities an organization faces today in network security. It doesn’t matter if the accounts are compromised by an external attacker or a malicious insider. If privileged accounts are in the hands of an adversary it is ...
IRS Breach Update In May 2015 the IRS announced that they had been breached and that only about 100,000 people had been affected. A couple of months later, they said “wait…wait…Maybe that number was higher…about 334,000.” Now, here we are several months later and the IRS is ...
Think about the last time you went to a restaurant and experienced truly terrible service. Whether you waited an hour for your food, they messed up your order, your server needed an attitude adjustment, or all of the above, how likely is it that you will return anytime in ...
