Absolute Purchases Syxsense to Tackle Cyber Vulnerabilities

Michael Novinson • September 6, 2024

Absolute Security has strengthened its platform with the acquisition of Syxsense, adding powerful automated vulnerability management tools to its existing endpoint security capabilities. The move aims to improve security compliance and simplify complex remediation tasks for organizations.

►

Cybercrime

Brazil Suspends Access to Elon Musk's X, Including via VPNs

Latest

Healthcare

Texas AG Hopes to Upend HIPAA Rules to Investigate Abortions

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee • September 6, 2024

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the Biden administration, alleging that "unlawful" HIPAA Privacy Rule regulations are hindering the state's law enforcement investigations into abortion cases and other reproductive health care cases.

Cybercrime

Feds Warn Health Sector to Patch Apache Tomcat Flaws

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee • September 6, 2024

Federal authorities are alerting healthcare entities of vulnerabilities - including older flaws - that put Apache Tomcat at risk for attacks if left unmitigated. The open-source web server is heavily used in healthcare for hosting electronic health record and other systems and applications.

Cybercrime

Critical GeoServer Flaw Enabling Global Hack Campaigns

Prajeet Nair • September 6, 2024

Cybercriminals are using a critical remote code execution vulnerability in an open-source geospatial data platform to spread malware globally across several industries. GeoServer Project maintainers released a patch on July 1. The vulnerability has a CVSS score of 9.8 out of 10.

Government

White House Launches Cyber, Tech and AI Hiring Sprint

Chris Riotta • September 6, 2024

The White House announced a hiring sprint to fill cyber, technology and artificial intelligence jobs across federal agencies, dubbed Service for America, which aims to attract diverse candidates for critical open positions in the public sector - along with new incentives.

Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

Underground Demand for Malicious LLMs Is Robust

Rashmi Ramesh • September 6, 2024

The underground market for illicit large language models is a lucrative one, said academic researchers who called for better safeguards against artificial intelligence misuse. "This laissez-faire approach essentially provides a fertile ground for miscreants to misuse the LLMs."

Cyber Insurance

Moody's Ratings: Cyber Insurance Competition Up, Prices Down

Mathew J. Schwartz • September 6, 2024

Competition has been increasing in the cyber insurance market, leading to a "moderate" decrease in insurance premiums after several years of rate increases. So reports Moody's Ratings, which said that the changes were driven by an influx of new players that is likely to continue.

Business Continuity Management / Disaster Recovery

Rethinking Vendor Dependence Before the Next IT Outage

Suparna Goswami • September 6, 2024

IT concentration risk could pose major problems for financial institutions that rely heavily on one vendor for critical services. United Overseas Bank's Gaurav Gupta recommends CIOs hold vendors accountable for resilience and look for ways to diversify to ensure business continuity.

Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR)

After CrowdStrike Outage: Time to Rebuild Microsoft Windows?

Mathew J. Schwartz • September 6, 2024

The global disruption caused by a faulty CrowdStrike software triggering a kernel panic and computer meltdowns has led government agencies, experts and vendors to call for rethinking Windows operating system resiliency, including the deep-level OS access security tools now require.

Fraud Management & Cybercrime

RansomHub Claims Theft of Montana Planned Parenthood Data

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee • September 5, 2024

Planned Parenthood of Montana, which provides patients with reproductive healthcare services including birth control and abortion, is responding to a hack and a threat by cybercriminal group RansomHub to leak 93 gigabytes of data allegedly stolen from the organization.

Critical Infrastructure Security

FEMA Has Begun Deploying Cyber Advisers to Disaster Zones

Chris Riotta • September 5, 2024

Charles Armstrong, chief information officer of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told the Billington Cybersecurity Summit his agency has begun deploying cyber advisors to disaster recovery zones to "rapidly and securely" build information technology and operational technology infrastructure.

Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

Former OpenAI Scientist's Startup Raises $1B Seed Funding

Rashmi Ramesh • September 5, 2024

A three-month-old startup promising safe artificial intelligence raised $1 billion in an all-cash deal in a seed funding round. Co-founded by former OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, Safe Superintelligence will reportedly use the funds to acquire computing power.

Cyberwarfare / Nation-State Attacks

US Broadens Indictments Against Russian Intelligence Hackers

Chris Riotta • September 5, 2024

The United States announced a superseding indictment Thursday that adds five Russian military intelligence officers as defendants while warning that Kremlin cyberthreat actors continue to target U.S. and global critical infrastructure.