All news with #security awareness tag

🔒 Organizations should treat the Windows 11 migration as a strategic security opportunity rather than a routine OS update. While some users resist moving from Windows 10 or explore alternatives like Linux or legacy releases, those choices can introduce operational headaches and security gaps, especially as Microsoft phases out support. Use the transition to validate backups, recovery objectives, and patch posture to reduce exposure to unpatched vulnerabilities that increasingly target MSPs and their clients.

🔒 Surveys and first‑person accounts reveal persistent inclusion gaps for cyber professionals with disabilities and neurodivergence. UK research (Decrypting Diversity 2021) and Deloitte’s Disability Inclusion @ Work 2024 show many report barriers to progression and frequent denial of accommodations. Three practitioners — a security awareness leader, a former cyber risk analyst and a commercial sales manager — describe bias, resilience and concrete steps for leaders: ask rather than assume, build empathy, offer flexibility and provide structural supports.

🔒 Implementation and certification of ISO standards or an ISMS frequently falter due to avoidable organizational and technical mistakes. The article outlines nine recurring issues — from weak management sponsorship and treating certification as a one‑off task to poor employee engagement, inadequate skills development, dishonest assessments, and insufficient follow‑up. For each pitfall it recommends practical remedies such as executive commitment, clear planning, targeted training, honest risk analysis, automation where appropriate, and adequate resourcing to make the management system functional and sustainable.

🤝 Security policies often fail not because employees resist security in principle but because measures clash with everyday work pressures and lack practical support. CISOs should adopt empathic policy engineering, using stakeholder analysis, pilots and early adopters to align controls with real workflows. Communication should follow the RESPECT approach—tactical empathy, a “help me to help you” dialogue and immersive, scenario-based training—to increase acceptance and embed secure behavior.

🧠 Social engineering exploits human psychology to bypass technical and physical safeguards, using impersonation, deception and manipulation to gain access to systems, facilities or data. Attackers commonly use phishing, vishing, smishing, pretexting, baiting and tailgating after extensive reconnaissance to craft believable lures. High-value targets are often pursued via spear-phishing or BEC schemes, while opportunistic attackers rely on mass phishing. Practical defenses include ongoing security awareness training, verified procedures for urgent requests and realistic simulation tests; tools such as Social-Engineer Toolkit help organizations test their resilience.

🛡️ Fortinet partnered with BCIT, Cyber Catalyst, and Tech Vets Canada to deliver a one-week Industrial Control Systems cybersecurity microcredential intensive for Canadian veterans, providing hands-on labs and practical workshops. Through exercises in network segmentation, access control, and threat detection, participants translated military skills—leadership, discipline, resilience—into cybersecurity capabilities protecting critical infrastructure. The program paired technical training with mentorship, career transition support, and pathways to internships and certification, reflecting Fortinet’s commitment to building a more diverse, skilled cyber workforce.

📚 This CSO Online roundup gathers books recommended by practicing CISOs to refine judgment, influence leadership style, and navigate modern security complexity. Recommendations range from risk and AI-focused studies to cognitive science, social engineering narratives, and organizational behavior, showing how reading informs both tactical and strategic decisions. The list highlights practical guides for risk measurement, frameworks for improving focus and decision making, and titles that remind leaders to protect attention and sustain personal resilience.

🔍 techUK has published its Anti-Fraud Report 2025, warning that fraud now accounts for 40% of crime in the UK and that an estimated 67% is cyber-enabled. The report urges improved collaboration across law enforcement, banks, tech platforms, telecoms and regulators and recommends a connected anti-fraud ecosystem, wider use of AI and machine learning, and a national Tell Us Once victim-reporting model. It highlights the scale of harm—global losses of about $1 trillion in 2024—and cautions that government action is still being finalised.

🔔 Google’s Trust & Safety team published a November 2025 advisory describing rising online scam trends, attacker tactics, and recommended defenses. Analysts highlight key categories — online job scams, negative review extortion, AI product impersonation, malicious VPNs, fraud recovery scams, and seasonal holiday lures — and note increased misuse of AI to scale fraud. The advisory outlines impacts including financial theft, identity fraud, and device or network compromise, and recommends protections such as 2‑Step Verification, Gmail phishing defenses, Google Play Protect, and Safe Browsing Enhanced Protection.

🔒 Google’s November 2025 scams advisory outlines rising, increasingly AI-driven fraud tactics and provides concrete protections. Analysts detail six prioritized threats — including online job scams, review-extortion, AI service impersonation, malicious VPNs, fraud-recovery cons, and seasonal holiday schemes — and describe associated malware and credential risks. The post highlights Gmail, Google Messages, Safe Browsing, Play Protect, and account security features like 2‑Step Verification, and gives practical guidance for individuals and merchants.

⚠️ A majority of German employees already use AI at work, with 62% reporting daily use of generative tools such as ChatGPT. Adoption has been largely grassroots—31% began using AI independently and nearly half learned via videos or informal study. Although 85% deem training on AI and data protection essential, 25% report no security training and 47% received only informal guidance, leaving clear operational and data risks.

🛡️ Many ISO and ISMS certification efforts falter not because the standards are unclear but because organisations treat certification as a one-off checkbox activity rather than embedding controls into daily operations. Common failures include weak senior leadership commitment, insufficient employee involvement and training, wishful thinking about risks, and underinvestment in proper implementation. Practical remedies include clear planning, honest risk assessment, executive sponsorship, targeted competency building, and treating the ISMS as a continuous process rather than a closed project.

🔍 In this episode of Unlocked 403, host Becks speaks with Alena Košinárová, a software engineer at ESET, to unpack the psychological tactics behind social engineering and why people fall for scams even when they know better. They discuss how public information and social media amplify attackers' effectiveness and outline practical measures to reduce exposure. The segment balances behavioral insight with clear, actionable defenses.

🤝 Security leaders must move beyond a risk-only mindset to actively support business goals, as Jungheinrich CISO Tim Sattler demonstrates by joining his company’s AI center of excellence to advise on both risks and opportunities. Industry research shows significant gaps—only 13% of CISOs are consulted early on major strategic decisions and many struggle to articulate value beyond mitigation. Practical alignment means embedding security into initiatives, using business metrics to measure effectiveness, and prioritizing controls that enable growth rather than impede operations.

🔒 The Hacker News guide helps MSPs evaluate readiness to expand into advanced cybersecurity and compliance services. It highlights two essential dimensions — mindset and operational readiness — and provides a practical checklist covering service definition, staffing, tools, processes, sales capability, and financial planning. The guide reframes security as a business enabler rather than a technical checkbox.

🛡️ Small and medium-sized businesses often find enterprise-grade MXDR solutions overwhelming; instead, they need a partnered approach that builds internal expertise while delivering managed detection and response. The ideal MXDR for SMBs is adaptive to maturity, reduces false positives through tailored rules, offers transparent incident reporting and dashboards, and provides threat intelligence and targeted employee training. Kaspersky's Next MXDR Optimum exemplifies this model by combining expert-led support, accessible XDR tools, and role-specific training to foster a security culture.

🔒Elder fraud is rising sharply: in 2024 Americans aged 60+ reported nearly $4.9 billion lost to online scams, with an average loss of about $83,000 per victim. Effective protection pairs ongoing, shame-free family communication with practical technical measures and a clear remediation plan. Teach relatives to use a password manager, enable two-factor authentication, block popups and robocalls, keep devices updated, and verify any urgent financial request before acting.

🔒 Artificial intelligence is reshaping cybersecurity, creating both enhanced defensive capabilities and new risks that require broad AI literacy. The White House's America’s AI Action Plan and Fortinet’s 2025 Cybersecurity Global Skills Gap Report show strong adoption—97% of organizations use or plan AI in security—yet 48% cite lack of staff expertise as a major barrier. Fortinet recommends targeted training, policies for generative AI use, and its Security Awareness modules to help close the gap and reduce threat exposure.

🔒 Small security teams can harden Google Workspace by enforcing MFA, restricting admin roles, and tightening sharing and OAuth app permissions. The article stresses stronger email defenses — advanced phishing controls, DMARC/DKIM/SPF — and proactive monitoring for account takeovers through alerts and behavioral signals. It argues native controls form a solid foundation but leave gaps, and recommends augmenting them with Material Security for unified visibility and automated remediation.

🔒 A recent PPI survey of 50 banks and 53 insurers in Germany reports a sixfold rise in cyberattacks compared with 2021. Sixty-four percent of respondents now view cyberattacks as the sector's top challenge, ahead of digitization, credit quality and regulation. Firms cite low employee awareness and difficulty with real-time detection; malware installation and IT disruption are the most frequent attack types.