Internet of Things (IoT) devices have become an integral part of the lives of many over the last decade, but securing them has been a challenge. But that might be changing. A new report from cybersecurity company Nozomi Networks has found that defenses are improving. On the flip side, security threats are on the rise. Operational Technology (OT) environments, a computing category for industrial environments, face similar struggles.

The European Commission recently approved a newly proposed EU-US data privacy framework concerning how EU data transferred to US companies is handled. Any US company handling EU data will not need to implement additional data protection safeguards if they are operating under the approved framework.

For many, messaging apps take up most of the time spent online. They’re a convenient tool for keeping up with friends and family. But recent history has taught us you can’t rely on things you say in these chats remaining private. However benign the content of your discussion might be, it’s uncomfortable to think that someone else might read them. 

A few weeks ago, Microsoft’s OneDrive and 365 services, such as Microsoft Teams and Sharepoint, experienced outages due to a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. According to Cybersecurity Dive, a hacktivist group called Anonymous Sudan claimed they were behind the attack and made even more threats against the tech giant. 

Telecommunications corporation Nokia recently released its 2023 Threat Intelligence Report. Covering everything from 4G and 5G security attacks to malware attacks, the report reveals a startling rise in botnet-driven distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) utilizing IoT devices. 

Researchers have discovered a botnet known as Dark Frost, which has been launching distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against the online gaming sector. This new botnet was found by Akamai’s Security Intelligence Response Team (SIRT), which recently published its findings. By publicizing this, SIRT wants to highlight that it’s not just notorious hacker groups that can cause significant damage but also low-skilled threat actors. 

The longtime best practice for anyone using apps on their devices is to only download them from official stores like Google Play or the iOS App Store. Official stores have means to generally prevent malicious apps from being listed. Though, that doesn’t mean bad apps never slip through the cracks. It also doesn’t mean that a once legitimate app can’t subsequently have malicious code added to it down the line.