BotNet News

Cyberthreat News

The digital footprints of schools and universities continue to expand. From classrooms in the cloud to student and faculty research, these institutions are prime targets for attackers who want to steal sensitive data. Keeping up with the latest developments helps security professionals safeguard their organizations’ digital assets and protect their users.

New vulnerabilities and threats emerge daily. Cyberattacks can wreak havoc on business operations and cost enterprises millions of dollars in lost revenue, fines, and litigation. The Petya and NotPetya attacks in 2016 caused an estimated USD $10 billion in damages, while the FriendFinder attack compromised the personal information of 412 million users.

Many cyberattacks are fueled by a desire for disruption or revenge. Attackers may attempt to embarrass the attacked entity or damage their reputation by leaking sensitive information. Others may launch attacks to collect financial gains. Ransomware attacks can demand payment amounts in the millions, while business email compromise (BEC) scams can steal tens of thousands of dollars.

Some attacks can be difficult for security teams to detect. Zero-day exploits are newly discovered vulnerabilities that hackers use to gain access to IT infrastructure. The discovery of a series of critical vulnerabilities in open-source software used by millions of federal information systems in December 2021 sent security teams scrambling to address the issues. Other common attacks include phishing, social engineering, SQL injections, and drive-by downloads. A recent attack that abused Amazon’s whoAMI feature was a case in point.