Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), the leader in cloud security, today released its annual mid-year roundup report, which reveals COVID-19 related threats as the single largest type of threat in the first half of the year. In just six months, Trend Micro blocked 8.8 million COVID-19 related threats, nearly 92% of which were email-based.
Cybercriminals shifted their focus from January through June to take advantage of global interest in the pandemic. The risk to businesses was compounded by security gaps created by a completely remote workforce.
In total, Trend Micro blocked 27.8 billion cyber threats in the first half of 2020, 93% of which were email-borne.
Business Email Compromise (BEC) detections increased by 19% from the second half of 2019, in part due to scammers trying to capitalize on home workers being more exposed to social engineering.
Among all the threats in the first half of the year, ransomware was a constant factor. Although the number of detected ransomware threats decreased, Trend Micro saw a 45% increase in new ransomware families compared to the same time last year.
Global organizations have also been burdened by a significant spike in newly disclosed vulnerabilities. Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) published a total of 786 advisories, representing a 74% increase from the second half of 2019. Some of these came as part of Microsoft Patch Tuesday updates, which have fixed an average of 103 CVEs per month so far in 2020 — including the largest number of patches ever issued in a single month (129) in June.
Trend Micro also observed a 16% increase in vulnerabilities disclosed in industrial control systems (ICS), compared to the first half of 2019, which could create major challenges for smart factory owners and other organizations running IIoT environments.
To effectively protect dispersed corporate networks, Gartner recommends businesses “refine security monitoring capabilities to reflect an operating environment where network traffic patterns, data and system access vectors have changed due to increased remote and mobile operations.[1]” Trend Micro XDR helps customers do exactly that by correlating security events across the entire IT environment, which is critical for holistic protection in the second half of 2020.
To learn more about the threat landscape in the first half of 2020 and how businesses can stay secure moving forward, read the full report here: https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/security/research-and-analysis/threat-reports/roundup/securing-the-pandemic-disrupted-workplace-trend-micro-2020-midyear-cybersecurity-report.
Epic Games Gives The Middle Finger To Apple By Refusing To Make Any Changes To Fortnite
Posted in Commentary with tags Epic Games on August 26, 2020 by itnerdFresh off of losing in court to Apple earlier this week, Epic Games was given the choice by the judge overseeing the case to fix this situation by pulling out the ability to bypass Apple’s in app payment system. But it now looks like that’s not going to happen and Epic Games is giving the middle finger to the Apple ecosystem.
In an update to a “Fortnite” FAQ today, Epic Games said that the season update would not be available on iPhone, iPad or Mac on the Aug. 27 date. Oddly, they aren’t doing the same thing to Google which Epic is also suing. So in short, it seems that Apple users of all sorts are being abandoned by Epic Games. In effect, they are giving Apple and their user base the middle finger.
Up until this point, I have tried not to take sides in this as neither side is blameless here. But Epic Games has really screwed this up. They really tried to do a power play here from all the available evidence. And because they didn’t get their way, they’re picking up their marbles and going home. Thus I for one would say that Epic shouldn’t let the door hit them on the way out. You’re not going to be missed on the Apple platform.
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