Sean Michael Kerner

Kaspersky Lab Report Confirms Ransomware Spiked in Q1 2017 Security reports from multiple vendors in the last few months have detailed the rise of ransomware in 2016. A new report from Kaspersky Lab released on May 22, now shows that the ransomware trend accelerated significantly in the first quarter of 2017. In the first quarter […]

Security firm Check Point Software Technologies publicly disclosed a new threat vector today in media player subtitles that could have potentially exposed millions of users to security risks. Simply by running a media file that downloads embedded malicious subtitles, Check Point alleges that end-user systems could have been taken over by attackers. Check Point responsibly […]

The WannaCry ransomware worm has raised the level of awareness about ransomware among the general public and it is also a major event for the cyber-security insurance industry that aims to help indemnify organizations against financial losses. The cyber-security insurance industry is a growing market, with forecasts predicting up to $5 billion in insurance premiums […]

Skyport Systems is extending its platform with a new Hybrid Cloud Edge offering, providing organizations with secure cloud application policy management capabilities.  Skyport Systems is a security vendor that first emerged from stealth three years ago in May 2015 and has raised $67 million in venture funding to date. The core promise behind Skyport is […]

Security Pros Reveal How They Cope With Rising Tide of Cyber-Attacks With new software vulnerability exploits in the news on a regular basis, the daily challenges of cyber-security professionals are as high as ever before. A report released on May 17, from security risk vendor Bay Dynamics, based on a survey of 400 cyber-security professionals […]

The past week has been particularly busy in the cyber-security world and not just because of the WannaCry ransomware worm outbreak. A pair of other, non-ransomware related breaches impacting electronic signature vendor DocuSign and restaurant rating app Zomato highlight ongoing security risks. On May 15, DocuSign publicly confirmed that its’ systems had been breached, helping […]

The internet is not a static entity as traffic and connectivity demands constantly impact performance. In a bid to help improve performance and internet connectivity, Cloudflare is launching its new Argo service to help accelerate and secure internet traffic. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince refers to the new Argo service as ‘Waze for the internet’, a […]

DDoS Attacks Are in Decline in Number and Size, Akamai Report Finds In the security world, there tends to be a constant stream of news about how the number of attacks is increasing, which is what makes Akamai’s “First Quarter, 2017 State of the Internet/Security Report” interesting. According to the report, there was a 30 […]

The WannaCry ransomware worm that first struck organizations around the world on May 12 continues to be a threat to IT systems as new variants emerge and the underlying exploit is now freely available in the open-source Metasploit penetration testing framework. Security firm Symantec reported that as of May 15, it had blocked approximately 22 […]

Security vendor CrowdStrike announced a $100 million Series D round of funding on May 17, bringing total funding to date for the company to $256 million. The new funding round follows high-profile security incidents including the hack on the Demoncratic National Committee (DNC) in which CrowdStrike was called in to help remediate. The Series D […]

The need to secure the growing number of internet of things (IoT) connected devices has become obviously apparent in the last few years, which is a good thing for embedded security vendor Mocana.  On May 16, Mocana announced that it raised a new $11 million round of funding to help further advance its mission of […]

Apple released a major set of security updates on May 15, fixing 37 security vulnerabilities in the desktop macOS operating system and 41 vulnerabilities in the IOS mobile operating system. Apple is also updating its tvOS and watchOS operating systems, which are derived from an IOS base. Among the major sources of vulnerability disclosures that […]