Microsoft has recently launched another bug bounty program, this time with the goal of making its Microsoft Defender-branded products and services more resilient to attack.  The Microsoft Defender Bounty Program will offer ethical hackers between $500 and $20,000 for significant vulnerabilities that have a direct and demonstrable impact on the security of their customers.  Microsoft noted that the largest sum for a novel vulnerability will go to researchers able to find critical remote code execution bugs and deliver a high-quality report.

According to security researchers at Kaspersky, a substantial 26% of cyber incidents in businesses over the last two years are the result of intentional security protocol violations by employees.  This figure closely rivals the 20% attributed to external hacking attempts.  The researchers discovered that intentional policy violations by employees, spanning both IT and non-IT staff, played a significant role in cyber incidents.

Cybersecurity is data-rich, making it an ideal setting for Machine Learning (ML), but many challenges impede ML deployment in cybersecurity systems and organizations. According to researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute (SEI), one significant challenge is that the human-machine relationship is rooted in a lack of explainability. Cybersecurity data science has two directions of explainability: model-to-human and human-to-model.

A project led by the University of Wollongong (UOW) to improve security measures for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), such as drones, against adversarial Machine Learning (ML) attacks has been funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Projects Scheme. The project is in alignment with the Australian Government's strategy to promote and protect critical and emerging technologies.

Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) is a cryptographic tool that enables the verification of validity between mutually untrusted parties without disclosing additional information. Non-Interactive Zero-Knowledge Proof (NIZKP) is a ZKP variant that does not require multiple information exchanges. Therefore, NIZKP is used in the digital signature, blockchain, and identity authentication fields. Since a true random number generator is challenging to implement, deterministic pseudorandom number algorithms are often used as a substitute, but this method has potential security vulnerabilities.

A cyberattack recently targeted an organization that manages wastewater for nine million people in and around Paris. Water authorities have long been a target for ransomware gangs looking to hit critical services that hold sensitive customer information. For example, in May, an Italian company that provides drinking water to almost half a million people experienced some technical disruptions as a result of a ransomware attack, and a water utility in Porto, Portugal's second-largest city, faced its own ransomware attack in February.

Cybersecurity experts with Lancaster University's Cyber Works program have created a dynamic and informative cybersecurity animation designed to provide farmers with free knowledge about securing their farms in a digital world. Farmers increasingly rely on digital equipment connected to the Internet, whether it is for milking livestock, automated crop irrigation systems, or the storage of commercially sensitive data about production yields.

According to the cybersecurity analyst Adlumin, the Russian-affiliated Play ransomware gang is now offering its services for sale. The group, which is believed to have launched multiple attacks on targets since last year, has joined the growing Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) trend. Cybercriminals are increasingly finding it just as profitable to hire out their toolkits to other threat actors.

The Canadian government recently announced that information pertaining to its employees, military, and police personnel was exposed in a data breach at third-party service providers.  The incident involved Brookfield Global Relocation Services (BGRS) and Sirva Canada, two moving and relocation services firms contracted by the Canadian government to provide relocation support to employees.  The government learned of the data breach on October 19.

The chief operating officer (COO) of a US network security firm has recently pleaded guilty to compromising the IT systems of two hospitals in order to generate business for his company.  Securolytics executive Vikas Singla admitted hacking Gwinnett Medical Center (GMC) hospitals in Duluth and Lawrenceville, Georgia.  The incidents, which took place in September 2018, began when Singla modified the configuration files of GMC Duluth hospital’s ASCOM phone system, rendering over 200 handsets inoperable.