Access to email accounts is on sale at a price range of $100 to $1500, depending on the company and the role of the executive.

Recent reports revealed that a hacker is selling email credentials for Microsoft and Office 365 on a closed-access underground forum for Russian hackers named Exploit.in. on a darknet. These are not some ordinary email accounts but are the email accounts of high-level executives like CEO, COO, CFO, CMO, CTO, President, Vice president, Executive Assistant, and others.

The price for the email credentials ranges from $100 to $1500, depending on the company size and the role of the user. A source in the cybersecurity community said that they had contacted the seller to get the samples. They have confirmed the validity of the data and managed to obtain two samples of valid ID and password for two accounts from the hacker. The obtained accounts belong to the CEO of a US medium-size software company and the CFO of an EU-based retail store. …

In a recent cyber incident, Manchester United has been hit by a cyber attack as confirmed by the club. As per the report released by the club on 20th November 2020, there was a breach in the club’s IT defense system which they have brought under control later on.

Manchester United took swift action following the detection of the attack to fend it off. The club is now working with cyber security experts to investigate the incident and to reduce the impact of ongoing IT disruption.

The club said that fortunately they have extensive protocols and procedures in place to prevent such sophisticated cyber attacks and they had already rehearsed for this risk. They also said that after the cyber incident they had shut down the affected systems to restrain the damage and protect data. …

With coronavirus defining the worldwide health crisis, this year has posed the greatest challenge we have faced ever since world war II. But for cybercriminals, it was nothing short of an unequalled business opportunity as they fully utilized the situation to their advantage.

8.4 million Distributed Denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks took place in 2019, indicating more than 23,000 attacks per day. Despite the technological advances and the widespread acknowledgment of the significance of cybersecurity, 2020 has witnessed a considerable increase in DDoS attacks.

In the first half of 2020, there was a 151% increase in the number of DDoS attacks as compared to the first half of 2019. This figure represents the growing volume and intensity of network-type cyber attacks as organizations adapted to the work from home culture and employees’ dependence on the internet increased. …

Brand impersonation has become a new favourite attack vector for cybercriminals these days. In a brand phishing attack, cybercriminals imitate the official website of a reputable brand by using a similar URL or domain name and copying the genuine web-page’s design. In most cases, the fake website is created to steal payment details, users’ credentials, or other personal data.

Reportedly, hackers imitated Microsoft the most to trick users into sharing their payment credentials or personal information in the third quarter of 2020. …

The industry of cybersecurity has been dominated by men for a long time. One has a predefined perception that when we refer to a CISO, CSO, CIO, or equivalent, we would be referring to a man. The cybersecurity industry branched off from law enforcement, which might be the reason why most of the high-ranking security officials have usually been men.

However, with the onset of modernization, this perception is fading away with each passing day. …

Did you know that every year, on the first Thursday of May, the World Password Day is celebrated with a motive to encourage good password habits? Well, just like every other important day in cybersecurity, World Password Day is equally encouraged to spread awareness among every internet user on the importance of password security. And why not? In this digitally advanced world, almost everything is available and operated online.

From online shopping to banking and private work, we are madly dependent on the internet! And with passwords, we are just a security shield away from the reach of hackers and threat actors. But as our dependency on the internet is increasing, these opportunistic cybercriminals have advanced in launching cyberattacks too. …

Cybercriminals are exceeding in number as well as coming up with new ways to trick users into giving up their credentials. With advancements made in new-age technology, Artificial Intelligence is aiding companies lacking viable resources for adequate cybersecurity management. Organizing and systematizing cyber threat management from various information sources and research papers, AI provides efficient cybersecurity management and coordination solutions to organizations for tackling daily threat alerts. It responds to cyber-attack incidents spontaneously, which decreases the necessity of manual management. AI helps cybersecurity at the workplace in the following ways:

• Artificial Intelligence is programmed to implement self-learning. It makes use of several data, research papers, blogs, features, articles, news stories, etc. related to cybersecurity and cyberattacks, to derive information. To do this effectively, AI implements machine learning and deep-learning techniques. This subsequently helps AI gain detailed insight into the methods that would help ensure cybersecurity at the workplace. …

The Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) in an organization is responsible for implementing cybersecurity solutions so as to safeguard confidential company assets. CISOs are responsible for establishing and maintaining the enterprise vision, strategy, and program to ensure information assets and technologies are adequately protected, with disaster recovery and business continuity management as a part of his regime.

They can transform employees from the weakest to the strongest link in the industry. Cybercriminals utilize the ignorance of employees to exploit their naivety in order to extract valuable data. …