Cybersecurity

In January, law enforcement agencies from seven nations combined to take down DarkMarket, one of the world’s largest dark web marketplaces. Authorities say the site facilitated about $160 million in sales of stolen logins, passwords, social media credentials and other personal information.

Many organizations have some sort of “shopping cart” feature on their websites that allows them to collect online payments from customers. In most cases, the shopping cart functionality is purchased from a third party, and simply plugged into the website. Why reinvent the wheel if the software is readily available?

On May 7, 2021, the Colonial Pipeline was shut down due to a ransomware attack. It was the largest cyberattack on oil infrastructure in U.S. history, prompting an emergency declaration by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for 17 states and Washington, D.C.

Microsoft issued emergency security patches for multiple versions of Exchange Server on March 2, 2021. The updates addressed a series of zero-day exploits that compromised hundreds of thousands of on-premises Exchange Servers worldwide. Known collectively as ProxyLogon, the advanced persistent threats (APTs) allow an attacker to open a “backdoor” in Exchange Server that can be accessed from the Internet.