Lack of Ransomware Reporting a Major Issue in Cybercrime Defense
For a country that boasts economic and technical progression, the United States falls short on ransomware proficiency. Malware groups and the mitigation of cyber attacks run rampant. Many organizations, as well as individuals, do not report these attacks because they [...]
SHI International Cyberattack
Over the Fourth of July weekend, prominent IT services provider SHI International, was a victim of a major malware attack. Based in Somerset, New Jersey, SHI is a private provider of tech services and a supplier of tech products to [...]
AstraLocker 2.0 Ransomware is a Smash & Grab Variant
A version of AstraLocker, AstraLocker 2.0 ransomware, has just been released. This updated version is what some threat analysts call a rapid attack, or smash-and-grab style of ransomware. The AstraLocker 2.0 developers use Microsoft Word attachments in emails to distribute [...]
What is Enterprise Patch Management?
What is Enterprise Patch Management (a.k.a. the application of software security updates according to NIST SP 800-40r4)? The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) just released Report 800-40r4: Guide to Enterprise Patch Management Planning: Preventive Maintenance for Technology. [...]
LAPSUS$: The New Extortion Group Causing a Scene
A new threat actor group is behind an infamous wave of attacks impacting companies like Microsoft, Nvidia, Okta, and most recently Globant, among others. LAPSUS$, tracked as DEV-0537 by Microsoft, is relatively less sophisticated than other hacking and extortion groups [...]
Cybersecurity Transformations Since the Russia/Ukraine Conflict
In the past few days since the Russia/Ukraine conflict, there have been some changes in the cybersecurity landscape. Below are some of my personal observations from our Ransomware Recovery business unit. I am curious if other incident response professionals, ransomware [...]
Smoke testing is a term used to describe the testing process for servers after patches are applied. 
Estimating an average time for patching servers and PCs can be a bit tricky. It can vary from one month to the next, depending upon the number and complexity of the patches released by your software vendors. You must consider all versions of operating systems and have a complete inventory of all your application software to do this job correctly. Our experience has shown that manual patching of systems takes on average of about 1.5 hours each.
This is a basic cost calculator for you to compute your typical monthly cost for patching your servers, PCs, laptops, tablets and associated application software. It also forms the basis for you to begin calculating your Return on Investment for software patching, or for comparison with alternatives to the manual process of patching operating systems and application software—such as Patch Management as a Service, also known as Vulnerability Management as a Service.
