Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago recently started to inform hundreds of thousands of individuals that their personal and health information has been compromised due to a ransomware attack.  The children’s hospital took many of its systems offline in late January in response to a cyberattack.  The incident resulted in limited access to medical records, disruptions to a patient portal, and hampered communications.

According to Skybox Security, in 2023, over 30,000 new vulnerabilities were published, with one emerging about every 17 minutes (around 600 per week). The average time to patch was found to be over 100 days, and 75 percent of new vulnerabilities were exploited in 19 days or less. These findings emphasize the need for continuous exposure management and modern vulnerability mitigation to combat cyberattacks. This article continues to discuss key findings from Skybox Security regarding vulnerability and threat trends.

According to a study by the Network Detection and Response (NDR) specialist Corelight, European Information Technology (IT) leaders disagree on the value of generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in cybersecurity. For the report "Generative AI in Security: Empowering or Divisive?," Corelight surveyed 300 IT decision-makers in the UK, France, and Germany, finding that technology inspires optimism and worry almost equally. About 46 percent of respondents are actively exploring how to use the technology in cybersecurity.

A new Bugcrowd report titled "Inside the Mind of a CISO 2024" highlights findings from a survey of 209 security leaders to understand modern Chief Information Security Officers' (CISO) thinking, operations, and motivations. The latest Bugcrowd report shows that only 18 percent of security leaders prioritize "avoiding breaches at all costs," while over 30 percent aim to build a security brand for competitive advantage.

Certain versions of GitLab Community and Enterprise Edition products have a critical vulnerability that enables attackers to run pipelines as any user. GitLab pipelines are a feature of the Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) system that allows users to automatically run processes and tasks in parallel or sequence to build, test, or deploy code changes. The last update addressed the security issue that an attacker could use to trigger a pipeline as another user under certain conditions. This article continues to discuss findings regarding the critical GitLab bug.

A team of cybersecurity researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology's (RIT) ESL Global Cybersecurity Institute is developing protocols for post-quantum cryptography to improve Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications. V2V technology can reduce road tragedies, but cybercriminals could use it to cause traffic jams and crashes. V2V communications are currently secured with cryptography. However, the RIT team is showing how existing cryptographic methods are vulnerable to attacks from emerging quantum computers.

A new analysis by the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and government agency partners from Australia and Canada found that 52 percent of critical open source projects use memory-unsafe code. The "Exploring Memory Safety in Critical Open Source Projects" joint report delves into memory safety risk in open source software. It looked at 172 projects from the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) Securing Critical Projects Working Group's List of Critical Projects.

Apple has released a firmware update for AirPods to fix a flaw that could let a malicious actor access the headphones. The authentication flaw affects AirPods (2nd generation and later), AirPods Pro (all models), AirPods Max, Powerbeats Pro, and Beats Fit Pro. According to an Apple advisory, when a user's headphones seek a connection request to one of their previously paired devices, an attacker in Bluetooth range could spoof the intended source device and gain access to their headphones. Therefore, a nearby attacker could eavesdrop on private conversations.

A China-linked Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group, SentinelOne tracks as "ChamelGang," has been using ransomware to hide its cyber espionage operations. The threat actor recently targeted critical infrastructure organizations in East Asia and India. The group previously targeted government and private sector organizations in the US, Russia, Taiwan, and Japan. ChamelGang uses "CatB," a ransomware tool, to disguise its cyber espionage activities. This article continues to discuss findings regarding the ChamelGang APT group.

Police forces from 61 countries have joined together to dismantle online scam networks through Operation First Light 2024. The operation, which was coordinated by Interpol, resulted in the arrest of 3950 suspects and the identification of 14,643 more.   Interpol noted that authorities managed to freeze 6745 bank accounts and seized assets worth $257m, significantly disrupting transnational organized crime networks involved in phishing, investment fraud, fake online shopping sites, and romance and impersonation scams.