On August 24th, CNN reported a story about a data leak, which publicly released the personal information of millions of people, as well as data from major government organizations and large businesses. "The data leak, which affected American Airlines, Maryland's health department and New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, among others, led to the exposure of at least 38 million records, including employee information as well as data related to Covid-19 vaccinations, contact tracing and testing appointments, according to UpGuard, the cybersecurity firm that uncovered the issue.

Quick announcement: Facebook is currently running a trial of integrating voice and video chat into its main application, meaning that users could soon start conferencing over Facebook directly without using the Messenger app. If you'd like to read more of our coverage on how technology has recently affected workplace communication, click here.

On July 2nd of this year, a Russia-based, professional hacking group called REvil hit the managed IT service provider Kaseya with a massive ransomware attack, affecting roughly sixty managed service providers and nearly 1500 businesses worldwide. REvil asked for $70 million in ransom to decrypt the files at first, then later dropped their demand to $50 million.

The BBC reported this week that several schools on the Isle of Wight in the British Isles were hit with a string of ransomware attacks. Ransomware is a form of cybersecurity breach in which a cyber criminal either threatens to release private information to the public or block access to their data altogether until they pay some kind of ransom.

There are numerous cybersecurity risks that any enterprise leader needs to consider when planning out their organization's IT infrastructure. Security breaches can come from something as simple as a bad password, or--even worse--a bad password that's repeatedly used for multiple accounts within the firm.

There have always been security risks for businesses, now it's just migrated across the physical realm to cyberspace. And today's global world revolves around "information," which relates directly to both companies and customers. Because business operations have become sharper with innovation, so have cyber attacks.

Imagine this: You've worked endlessly over the past month to make a video collage of your parents' treasured memories together for their golden anniversary. You've included the correct pictures, overlaid it with music to make nostalgic recollections of their favorite songs and imparted flawlessness.

The holiday shopping season is one of the most high-risk times for cyber attacks -- not only on consumers but on retailers and associated businesses as well. Since many businesses put their products and services on sale to entice consumers -- who are already in the mood to shop -- threat actors are also shopping for easy and lucrative targets.

To be forewarned is to be forearmed. The more that you know about the potential cybersecurity threats that every internet user faces, the better prepared you will be to combat them. In the area of web application security, nobody does it better than the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP). The OWASP Foundation may be best known for its OWASP Top Ten list, a collection of web application vulnerabilities that it updates every few years.

It's almost difficult to believe the end of the 2010s will be upon us in just a few short  months. Seems like a good time to review what we've seen and learned over the past decade. Certainly, much has changed over the years. The cybercrime world has continued to breach our systems with even more voracity and sophistication than previously experienced.