UK Stalkerware Usage Soars During Lockdown Anti-malware company Avast saw a sharp spike in the use of stalkerware during the UK’s pandemic lockdown, it revealed this week. Installations of online spying and stalking apps across the country rose 83% on average from March onward, compared to January and February. Stalkerware apps are unauthorized software applications introduced onto…

Researchers Find New Calendar-Based Phishing Campaign Researchers have once again spotted crooks using calendar invitations to mount phishing attacks. The Cofense Phishing Defense Center found the attack in enterprise email environments protected by Proofpoint and Microsoft, it announced last week. The phishing scam uses iCalendar, which is a media type that lets users store and exchange calendaring and scheduling…

Unauthorized Data Sharing Puts Companies at Risk Inappropriate data sharing continues to be a problem for companies, according to a survey from data discovery and auditing software vendor Netwrix. Although most companies have designated secure storage areas for their data, many find it leaking into insecure areas, its research found. A quarter of companies have discovered data stored…

Criminals Exploit Pandemic with Brute-Force RDP Attacks ESET is the latest security company to notice a sharp spike in RDP-based hacks over the last few months. The anti-malware company spotted a rise in the number of brute-force attacks using the remote access protocol, and said that cyber-criminals have been using it to distribute ransomware. The Remote Desktop Protocol…

Businesses Lack a Workable Ransomware Recovery Strategy More than a third of businesses do not have a ransomware emergency plan in place, or are not aware if one exists within their company. According to research from Ontrack of 484 organizations, 39% either did not have or were not unaware of a ransomware strategy, while 26% admitted they couldn’t…