Based on the prevalence of the scam, some security experts have called 2016 “the year of ransomware,” yet a new survey shows most businesses don’t budget extra funds to regain access after a ransomeware attack. The survey, conducted by data security firm IDT911, found that 65 percent of respondents currently do not, nor plan to, budget extra funds to regain access and 52 percent do not have cyber insurance. Despite a lack of resources dedicated to mitigating these attacks, 30 percent of business owners said they couldn’t go without access to critical business systems for any period of time. The ...

Is your company exposed to significant cyber risk? If not, you're in the minority, according to a new report from RSA. For the second year in a row, RSA, The Security Division of EMC, found that 75 percent of 878 survey respondents across 81 countries have significant cybersecurity risk exposure. There was, however, at least one significant positive change from the 2015 survey to 2016 edition: a dramatic increase in the number of organizations that have mature cyber security programs. According to RSA, the percentage of organizations reporting advantaged capabilities – the highest category – increased by more than half ...

Based on news reports, ransomware attacks appear to be growing in popularity, and a new study seems to confirm that they have become the scam of choice among hackers. In the first quarter of 2016, 93 percent of phishing emails contained ransomware, according to a recent report from PhishMe, a phishing-defense solutions provider. The company says its analysis of phishing email campaigns from the first three months of 2016 shows a 6.3 million increase in raw numbers, due primarily to a ransomware upsurge against the last quarter of 2015. Ransomware scams prevent a user on an electronic device from accessing ...

Ransomware has overtaken advanced persistent threat network attacks as the most frequent cyber threat, according to security firm Kaspersky Lab, and it doesn’t appear to be slowing down as authorities have had a hard time combating the viruses. A recent Kaspersky report revealed that there were 2,900 new ransomware modifications detected between January and March of 2016, a 14 percent increase over the previous quarter. New products, of course, mean new users; in this case whether they wanted to be or not. Along with the rise in ransomware variations have been a rise in attacks as well, which were up 30 percent ...

Almost half of all American companies find themselves without cyber security insurance, according to a recently released study measuring the cyber preparedness of global companies. The study was done by security consultant NTT Com Security. Forty-nine percent of U.S. based companies admit to being without specific insurance dedicated to protecting their information against a cyber-attack. Despite less than half of all U.S. companies being covered, the survey found American corporations to be among the world’s leaders, as only the number dipped to only 35 percent of companies worldwide that have comprehensive cyber-insurance. The researchers surveyed 1,000 non-IT professionals in the U.K., ...

It was a three-peat for the University of Central Florida, as the school was once again crowned champion of the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition. More than 180 institutions from across the U.S. participated in the competition, with the top 10 battling again in the finals, held April 22-24 in San Antonio. There, each school was responsible for trying to protect a simulated network against an onslaught of consistent and increasingly challenging cyber attacks. Finishing just behind UCF was Brigham Young University, while DePaul University rounded out the top three. Also competing at the finals were teams from the University of Alaska ...

Almost all the top American computer science programs fail to prepare their students for a cyber security attack, according to a recent study released by Cloud Passage. The study measured the computer science and engineering programs at 121 American institutions, including all 50 of the top ranked computer science schools in the 2015 edition of The U.S. News and World Report. The results found a lack of student options for training that the authors argue is playing a significant role in the continually increasing cyber security risks nationwide. The analysis found that not a single one of the top 10 ...

A cyber security “accountability gap” is appearing in corporations around the world as executives are becoming more vulnerable to cyber security attacks than other company employees, according to a recently released report titled Accountability Gap: Cybersecurity and Building a Culture of Responsibility. The report was produced by the Institute of Management Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London; Tanium; and Nasdaq. The report's authors surveyed 1,530 non-executive directors (NEDs), C-level executives, Chief Information Officers and Chief Information Security Officers from around the world and found that found that 90 percent of respondents have medium-to-high cyber security vulnerability. Researchers analyzed two variables they say best ...

Ninety percent of IT professionals in the federal government feel their organizations are vulnerable to a cyber security attack, according to a recent report by Vormetric. The numbers are disconcertingly high considering they come from professionals tasked with protecting the confidential information of millions of Americans as well as the classified information from certain federal programs and policies. Despite those high numbers, nearly 60 percent of responding government IT professionals believe their network defenses are "very" effective at safeguarding data, a number the report notes is notably more optimistic than their private-sector counter parts; the U.S. average is 53 percent. Such ...