All news with #security awareness tag

🔒 A MetaCompliance report (July 9) based on responses from over 200 European CISOs finds 78% believe C-level executives do not fully grasp cybersecurity risks tied to employee behaviour. The survey highlights fading leadership support for security awareness, with 79% saying backing wanes over time and 40% worried employees share sensitive data with generative AI tools. AI-driven social engineering is cited as a key factor eroding confidence in organisational cyber resilience.

🔍 Foote Partners' 2Q 2026 report ranks the most valuable IT security certifications by average pay premium and recent market value increase. The article lists the top 13 credentials employers value now, describing each certification’s focus, prerequisites, exam length, and typical training and exam costs. It highlights portfolio certifications like GIAC’s GSE and GSP, vendor offerings from Microsoft and Check Point, and vendor-neutral options such as CCSK, ISACA’s CRISC and CISA, and ISC2’s CISSP and CSSLP. Practical, hands-on credentials like GX-CS and OffSec’s PEN-200/OSCP+ are also covered.

🔍 CAPTCHAs began as distorted text and audio tests but have evolved into image challenges and now experimental gesture videos as AI improves. Google’s new hand-gesture approach records brief camera footage to verify 21 hand key points, raising privacy concerns despite reassurances about data handling. Alternative defenses include behavioral analysis, Cloudflare Turnstile, and hCaptcha, while passkeys offer a passwordless path that can reduce the need for human checks.

🔍 The article argues that cybersecurity faces a validation gap rather than a simple skills shortage, stressing that theoretical training and certifications can’t replicate real-world experience. It highlights risks from rapid AI deployment without governance, and notes many organizations lack visibility into AI breaches. The author advocates building continuous, hands-on cyber ranges with AI Proving Grounds, realistic environments, and post-exercise analysis to nurture and validate talent.

🔒 AI is reshaping attacker toolkits, but familiar failures—phishing, unpatched vulnerabilities, poor monitoring and weak passwords—remain the primary causes of incidents for SMBs. ESET telemetry and research show AI mainly amplifies these risks rather than replacing them with pervasive, real-time AI malware. Practical mitigations like patch management, identity protection, MFA, password managers and MDR services remain the most effective ways to improve readiness and resilience.

🔍 The 2026 Bitdefender Cybersecurity Assessment surveyed 1,200 IT and security professionals across six countries and found striking contradictions between awareness and operational resilience. Leaders often overestimate visibility into AI use, while frontline staff report gaps. Organizations agree reducing the attack surface is critical but face policy, resource, and disruption concerns. Many report pressure to conceal breaches despite acknowledging the importance of transparency.

🔍 Social engineering exploits human emotions and urgency to trick people into sharing data or taking harmful actions. This article explains common psychological tactics scammers use, such as panic, authority impersonation, guilt, and manufactured urgency, and highlights practical red flags to watch for. It also advises verifying contacts via official channels, pausing before reacting, and seeking a second opinion to avoid manipulation.

🔍 Security awareness training that taught employees to spot obvious phishing cues is no longer sufficient. AI-generated attacks and legitimate-looking infrastructure have erased the surface signals users were trained to rely on, making sustained human vigilance unrealistic. The article argues for applying Daniel Kahneman’s fast/slow thinking at the organizational level to map and re-tier processes, keeping fast lanes where justified and revoking them where risk has changed.

🛡️ The SANS 2026 SOC Survey of 513 security professionals highlights staffing as the top operational challenge for SOCs, with a marked perception gap between practitioners and cyber leaders about hiring and retention. The report shows widespread AI/ML adoption (79%) but limited operational integration (36%), with most teams using vendor tools without customization. It also flags maturity issues in CTI use, OT/IoT coverage, and SOC measurement practices.

🔐 A new report from ISSA and Omdia, surveying 380 practitioners, finds 68% of cybersecurity professionals say their jobs have become harder in the past two years. The study highlights that >70% are excluded from key technology decisions, with rising involvement from IT operations and platform engineering (79%) and tech choices made without cyber input (72%). Work-related stress is significant: 69% report work-life balance challenges and 47% have considered leaving due to stress. Respondents point to leadership commitment, compensation, and career support as key factors for job satisfaction.

🔒 A global ISC2 study of nearly 1,000 enterprise security leaders finds training budgets have risen but staff lack time to complete upskilling. AI is the top emerging skill organizations are addressing, yet practical barriers—competing workloads, outdated content, and trainer shortages—limit participation. Leaders urge protected, scheduled learning time and managerial support to make training effective.

🛡️ This article outlines how enterprises can detect and block unauthorized AI tools—ranging from public chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude to meeting recorders and local model runners. It recommends monitoring NGFW/web-filter logs, EDR/EPP and MDM tools, browser policies, DNS reroutes, and application allowlists. The guidance covers detection indicators (domains, executables, SNI, calendar invites) and concrete lockdown steps (category blocks, policy toggles, OAuth restrictions). Emphasis is placed on offering approved alternatives and using layered controls rather than outright bans.

🔍 A new Checkmarx report found that 95% of CISOs have been pressured to deprioritize or delay reporting security issues, and 75% acknowledged their organizations knowingly deployed vulnerable code to production. Respondents cited compensating controls, deadlines, late detection, and difficulty of fixes as reasons. The survey of 2,350 security professionals also flagged limited remediation rates and rising risks from AI-generated code.

🔍 Normalcy bias leads organisations to assume “no news is good news” about security, delaying detection and response. This complacency lets cybercriminals effectively perform their own audits, exposing gaps between perceived and actual security. The article urges proactive testing, continuous monitoring, and investment in MDR/MXDR and awareness to prevent costly breaches.

🛡️ This article provides practical, step-by-step tactics for detecting and disabling built-in AI features in popular enterprise platforms including Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Chrome, and Apple Intelligence. It covers detection via logs and admin consoles, recommended policy settings in Microsoft 365, Group Policy, Chrome Enterprise, Google Workspace, and MDM profiles for Apple, plus network-level blocks and caveats about potential feature breakage. The guidance emphasizes granular controls, SKU management, and layered protections such as NGFW/web-filter rules and application control.

🛡️ A forum tutorial by an actor named "Hercules" outlines a simple, practical workflow for scanning, validating, exploiting, and monetizing vulnerabilities, blending «legal» disclosure steps with clear illegal options. Flare researchers tracked the post and responses across multiple forums, noting demand for mentorship and the tutorial’s repeat reposting. The write-up highlights use of public tools like Nuclei, emphasizes accessibility for beginners, and explains monetization paths including direct extortion, underground sales, and asset resale. The analysis warns defenders that readable, motivational guides scale criminal capability and underscores the importance of effective vulnerability disclosure programs.

🛡️ Senior cybersecurity leaders at Infosecurity Europe 2026 urged organisations to prepare concise, practical crisis playbooks that focus on defining the type of incident, roles and decision authority, and responsibilities. They emphasised that playbooks must be adaptable to unfolding realities, and that human factors — fatigue management, clear communication and staff welfare — are as vital as technical response steps.

🧭 At Infosecurity Europe 2026, Bayer CISO Kevin Jones outlined a shift from checklist-based guidance to psychology-first security awareness to counter AI-enabled social engineering. The firm mandates behavior-focused training, ties AI access to role-based modules, and gates agent development behind completion. Bayer is moving SOCs toward supervised automation and updating supplier contracts and governance to enforce AI transparency and controls.

📰 Chilling effects—the self-censorship and restraint people adopt under threat—are spreading across U.S. campuses and institutions in response to the Trump administration’s punitive tactics. Students, professors, journalists, researchers and cultural organizations report altering speech, research and programming to avoid legal, immigration, and institutional reprisals. The authors argue these effects are intentional, part of a broader strategy that leverages surveillance, uncertainty, and abuse of power to produce conformity and weaken democratic checks.

🛡️ The Cybersecurity Communities of Support (CyCOS) pilot, launched by academics from UK universities, is expanding from two to seven small peer-led communities to help SMEs improve cyber resilience. The program combines webinars, AMAs, an online support platform and shared resources, and will transition operational leadership to the Chartered Institute of Information Security (CIISec). New communities are being founded by volunteer SME facilitators and supported by a Community Toolkit to ensure replicability.