{"id":2716,"date":"2020-11-10T19:12:45","date_gmt":"2020-11-10T19:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fbijohn.com\/index.php\/2020\/11\/10\/the-cyber-threat-landscape-will-get-worse-before-and-if-it-gets-better\/"},"modified":"2024-01-15T13:15:29","modified_gmt":"2024-01-15T13:15:29","slug":"the-cyber-threat-landscape-will-get-worse-before-and-if-it-gets-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fbijohn.com\/the-cyber-threat-landscape-will-get-worse-before-and-if-it-gets-better\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cyber Threat Landscape Will Get Worse Before (and IF) It Gets Better"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With October Cybersecurity Awareness Month at the halfway point, it is important to note that cyber-thieves and ID theft criminals never rest and continue to stay ahead of law enforcement, businesses, and consumers. <\/p>\n\n\n

Cybersecurity Awareness Month<\/a>\u00a0was launched by the National Cyber Security Alliance & the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in October 2004 \u2013 with a mission to educate consumers, small and medium-sized businesses, corporations, and colleges.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

Based on the above, now is a great time for consumers and businesses to evaluate their cybersecurity posture<\/a> \u2013 especially during the COVID-19 environment \u2013 with a focus on response and recovery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why response and recovery? Because consumers and employees continue to click on phishing emails, organizations continue to experience data breach events such as ransomware<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

Two recent examples include Blackbaud (Blackbaud Ransomware Attack Gets Worse<\/a>) and Twitter (Twitter Hackers Posed as Company IT Officials Making a Support Call<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n

Blackbaud \u2013 a cloud technology company, confirmed in early October that \u201cstolen data also included bank account data and Social Security numbers, far more personally identifiable information than the company first thought.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specific to Twitter, the New York State Department of Financial Services released its findings and concluded: “The hack was relatively unsophisticated, caused by scammers who posed as members of Twitter’s IT help desk and directed employees to a phishing website designed to look like a company site.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blackbaud is your typical data breach example where their first statement on July 16, 2020, said while they were hacked, \u201cthat credit card information,<\/em> bank account information, or Social Security numbers were not stolen.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward 60 days later, Blackbaud now admits that their data breach \u201chad access to more unencrypted data than previously disclosed, including bank account information, Social Security numbers, usernames and\/or passwords.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, the final story for most data breaches rarely reflects the initial news report and speaks of what’s known at the moment, but never discusses the long-term \u2013 which is exactly what happened to Blackbaud and Twitter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact is that the threat of a data breach<\/a> or an ID Theft event can be a lifelong problem that may affect you (and me) long into the future and in ways you (and I) likely haven’t even thought about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Blackbaud\u2019s case, their data breach event has affected 6 million people so far, including my alma mater, The University of Dayton. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With all the education and resources \u2013 including October Cybersecurity Awareness Month \u2013 consumers and businesses continue to fail phishing tests<\/a> (after cyber-awareness training) and still click on actual phishing emails. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My advice to consumers and small businesses is to have a heightened awareness of phishing emails, unfamiliar links, and attachments, and to reconsider the information that is being shared on social media. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all, cybercriminals are not stable, and cybersecurity is unpredictable \u2013 especially during Cybersecurity Awareness Month. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With October Cybersecurity Awareness Month at the halfway point, it is important to note that cyber-thieves and ID theft criminals never rest and continue to stay ahead of law enforcement, businesses, and consumers.  Cybersecurity Awareness Month\u00a0was launched by the National Cyber Security Alliance & the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in October 2004 \u2013 with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"woocommerce_thumbnail":false,"woocommerce_single":false,"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Mark Pribish","author_link":"https:\/\/fbijohn.com\/author\/mpribish\/"},"uagb_comment_info":4,"uagb_excerpt":"With October Cybersecurity Awareness Month at the halfway point, it is important to note that cyber-thieves and ID theft criminals never rest and continue to stay ahead of law enforcement, businesses, and consumers.  Cybersecurity Awareness Month\u00a0was launched by the National Cyber Security Alliance & the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in October 2004 \u2013 with…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fbijohn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2716"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fbijohn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fbijohn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fbijohn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fbijohn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2716"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/fbijohn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4511,"href":"https:\/\/fbijohn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2716\/revisions\/4511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fbijohn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fbijohn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fbijohn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}