A group of 87 independent lawyers in the UK called 4 New Square immediately obtained a court order after a ransomware attack, alleging that cybercriminals were "blackmailing" the group. The injunction demands that the operators not "use, publish or communicate or disclose to any other person" data stolen in the attack.
Netherlands-based ZyLab, known for its e-discovery and legal hold products and moves into software-as-a-service, is now part of Ipro and will remain a stand-alone brand in Europe. Ipro CEO Dean Brown says ZyLab employees will be staying on, with some changes at the executive level.
IBM is introducing a serverless framework, CodeFlare, that company officials say will make it easier to integrate and scale artificial intelligence and big data. CodeFlare is open source and runs on Red Hat OpenShift as well as IBM Cloud Code Engine.
Seven of 10 addiction treatment and recovery apps analyzed by ExpressVPN, the Opioid Policy Institute and the Defensive Lab Agency make unique Android advertising identifiers available to Google, seven requested location data, three used Facebook Analytics trackers, and two access the list of other apps installed on the device. The apps' privacy shortcomings might be an unintended result of software build or contractor choices, says Sean O'Brien, ExpressVPN's Digital Security Lab's principal researcher.
Conditional access policies are a good way to progress toward a zero-trust cybersecurity framework, writes Neil Riva, JumpCloud's principal product manager. "A good starting point is to look at the devices that your users will have," Riva notes, adding that just having credentials shouldn't automatically grant access to the system.
Creating an "electronic seed vault" for data and systems is an effective last-ditch effort to defend against a ransomware attack, writes John Pironti, president of IP Architects. Pironti outlines the steps and points out that the vault should be parked at a secondary provider or in a separate part of the main provider's infrastructure.
Maneuvers in cyberspace are "becoming the weapon system of the future," both for offense and defense, writes Walter Pincus. Pincus quotes authorities on such subjects as the increasing cyberattack surface and how artificial intelligence will give US agencies "a new defense."
Salesforce.com has raised its level of cybersecurity awareness by embedding trained specialists within teams of engineers, says Trey Ford, the company's vice president of strategy and trust. At Google, security is enhanced with individual authentication keys that cost up to $70 apiece but have helped control phishing attacks.
International insurance broker Howden says premiums rose 32% between June 2020 and June 2021, with more increases on the horizon. Businesses are being squeezed, Howden notes, because "cyber exclusions or sublimits are being imposed in their property or liability policies and they are encountering supply issues in the dedicated cyber market."
US Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., have introduced a bill that would put government technology purchasers through cybersecurity training. The Supply Chain Security Training Act would increase national security by telling employees how to identify possible threats, they say.