This Week's Top 5 Stories in Cyber
Is Social Engineering the Next Cybersecurity Battleground?
However smart technology is or how transformative organisations make their cybersecurity initiatives, one factor remains the same when it comes to security: us.
Human vulnerability is a cornerstone of successful cyber attacks, whether as a result of simple errors such as clicking on malicious links, people causing intentional harm or our ability to be easily manipulated.
Our susceptibility to being exploited by lies, curiosity or fear is behind a rapid increase in ‘social engineering’ cybercrime.
Social engineering is a tactic through which hackers create a false narrative to exploit victims.
It relies on deception and taking advantage of vulnerabilities to drive people to willingly hand over sensitive information.
According to Trend Micro, social engineering attacks are increasing in their volume and complexity.
āSocial engineering, the practice of manipulating people into divulging sensitive information, remains one of the most effective cybercrime strategies,ā says Robert McArdle, Director of Trend Micro's Forward Looking Threat Research.
Why Tech Fragmentation is UK firmsā Biggest Cyber Challenge
The pace of technological transformation does incredible things for businesses.
Increased efficiency and productivity, enhanced customer experiences, data-driven decision making and greater innovation all come from the rapid adoption of innovative technologies.
However, that same pace leads to some inevitable challenges.
Complexity from the number of technologies being brought into the enterprise environment, coupled with a lack of interoperability between digital solutions is increasing the prospect of technology fragmentation.
- 64% of UK organisations cite technology fragmentation as a key security hurdle
- 50% of UK firms say fragmentation limits their ability to deal with cyber threats
- 48% of UK organisations says fragmentation increases security team workloads
- 92% of UK companies cite simplification and integration of tech stacks as a priority
The term, which refers to the development and proliferation of incompatible technologies, platforms and standards decreases system efficiency, impacts companies’ wallets and hinders growth.
According to new research from Palo Alto Networks, it’s also emerging as a major security issue, with 64% of UK organisations citing it as a key hurdle in developing a strong security posture.
Nvidia and Crowdstrike Push Agentic AI in Cybersecurity
CrowdStrike has announced it is collaborating with Nvidia to drive agentic AI innovation in its cybersecurity solutions for businesses.
The pair will also test and pioneer Nvidia’s LLama Nemotron reasoning models, a family of AI models designed to provide developers and enterprises a business-read foundation for creating advanced AI agents capable of handling complex tasks.
Under the collaboration, the pair have integrated Nvidia’s NIM microservices, which are built for the rapid deployment of AI models, with CrowdStrike’s Charlotte Detection Triage AI.
This is an AI-powered cybersecurity tool that automates detection triage within CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform.
Discussing this threat landscape on the report’s release, Adam Meyers, Senior Vice President of Counter Adversary Operations at CrowdStrike, said:
“Stopping breaches requires a unified platform powered by real-time intelligence and threat hunting, correlating identity, cloud and endpoint activity to eliminate the blind spots where adversaries hide.”
Why UK Healthcare & Pharma Firms Face Growing Cyber Risks
The UK healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors face increasing cyber threats due to the high value of intellectual property and the complex supply chains they operate within.
With research and development investments worth hundreds of billions annually, these critical industries present attractive targets for cybercriminals.
In addition, their reliance on numerous third-party organisations spanning multiple jurisdictions, expands the potential attack surface. This makes healthcare and pharma organisations particularly vulnerable to data breaches and operational disruptions.
According to research from BlueVoyant, 44% of the UK’s healthcare and pharma companies report lacking the visibility to detect cyber issues occurring within their third parties.
Leigh Glasper, Director, Cyber Advisory at BlueVoyant explored this research in more detail in a recent article, suggesting how healthcare companies should refine their strategic focus in supply chain cybersecurity.
What Google's Acquisition of Wiz Means for Cybersecurity
Google has signed a definitive agreement to acquire cloud security startup Wiz for US$32bn, subject to closing adjustments.
Once closed, Wiz will join Google Cloud under the shared ambition of accelerating two key trends in the AI era: improving cloud security and providing the ability to use multiple clouds.
The latter, known as multicloud, involves distributing cloud assets and applications across multiple cloud environments, using different cloud computing platforms to support either a single application or an ecosystem of applications.
“Google Cloud and Wiz share a joint vision to make cybersecurity more accessible and simpler to use for organisations of any size and industry,” says Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.
“Enabling more companies to prevent cyber attacks, including in very complex business software environments, will help organisations minimise the cost, disruption and hassle caused by cybersecurity incidents.”
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