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Ensuring sensitive data remains confidential, protected from unauthorized access, and compliant with data privacy regulations is paramount. Data breaches result in financial and reputational damage but also lead to legal consequences. Therefore, robust data access security measures are essential to safeguard an organization's assets, maintain customer trust, and meet regulatory requirements.  A comprehensive  Data Security Platform  is essential for full visibility and control of sensitive data. One example is Satori's Universal Data Permissions Scanner (UDPS), an open-source authorization analysis tool.   UDPS , available on GitHub, enables universal visibility into data access permissions across various data stores. With this tool, it's easier to identify who has the potential to access sensitive data, which can help organizations take a proactive approach to enhancing their security posture, streamline compliance, and ensure well-governed data access. Understanding the Need for U

Data security is in the headlines often, and it's almost never for a positive reason. Major breaches, new ways to hack into an organization's supposedly secure data, and other threats make the news because well, it's scary — and expensive.  Data breaches, ransomware and malware attacks, and other cybercrime might be pricey to prevent, but they are even more costly when they occur, with the  average cost  of a data breach reaching $4.35 million and counting.  Accordingly, companies are investing in solutions that combat these problems and focusing on their Data security and protection more than ever, based on the results of the  WinZip Enterprise survey  of leading industry professionals responsible for implementing and maintaining security at their organizations.  Confidence is Up Among Data Security Pros While the media is reporting on a wide range of security threats, many of those surveyed reported a certain level of confidence in their organization's data security. For instan

Data Security Posture Management is an approach to securing cloud data by ensuring that sensitive data always has the correct security posture - regardless of where it's been duplicated or moved to. So, what is DSPM? Here's a quick example: Let's say you've built an excellent  security posture  for your cloud data. For the sake of this example, your data is in production, it's protected behind a firewall, it's not publicly accessible, and your IAM controls have limited access properly. Now along comes a developer and replicates that data into a lower environment. What happens to that fine security posture you've built?  Well, it's gone - and now the data is only protected by the security posture in that lower environment. So if that environment is exposed or improperly secured - so is all that sensitive data you've been trying to protect. Security postures just don't travel with their data . Data Security Posture Management ( DSPM ) was crea

Apple has announced plans to require developers to submit reasons to use certain APIs in their apps starting later this year with the release of iOS 17, iPadOS 17, macOS Sonoma, tvOS 17, and watchOS 10 to prevent their abuse for data collection. "This will help ensure that apps only use these APIs for their intended purpose," the company  said  in a statement. "As part of this process, you'll need to select one or more approved reasons that accurately reflect how your app uses the API, and your app can only use the API for the reasons you've selected." The APIs that  require  reasons for use relate to the following - File timestamp APIs System boot time APIs Disk space APIs Active keyboard APIs, and User defaults APIs The iPhone maker said it's making the move to ensure that such APIs are not abused by app developers to collect device signals to carry out  fingerprinting , which could be employed to  uniquely identify users  across different a

Secrets are meant to be hidden or, at the very least, only known to a specific and limited set of individuals (or systems). Otherwise, they aren't really secrets. In personal life, a secret revealed can damage relationships, lead to social stigma, or, at the very least, be embarrassing. In a developer's or application security engineer's professional life, the consequences of exposing secrets can lead to breaches of security, data leaks, and, well, also be embarrassing. And while there are tools available for detecting source code and code repositories, there are few options for identifying secrets in plain text, documents, emails, chat logs, content management systems, and more. What Are Secrets? In the context of applications, secrets are sensitive information such as passwords, API keys, cryptographic keys, and other confidential data that an application needs to function but should not be exposed to unauthorized users. Secrets are typically stored securely and access

Data security is reinventing itself. As new data security posture management solutions come to market, organizations are increasingly recognizing the opportunity to provide evidence-based security that proves how their data is being protected. But what exactly is data security posture, and how do you manage it?  Data security posture management  (DSPM) became mainstream following the publication of Gartner® Cool Vendors™ in Data Security—Secure and Accelerate Advanced Use Cases. In that  report , Gartner1 seems to have kicked off the popular use of the data security posture management term and massive investment in this space by every VC. Since that report, Gartner has identified at least 16 DSPM vendors, including Symmetry Systems. What is Data Security Posture? There certainly is a lot being marketed and published about data security posture management solutions themselves, but we first wanted to dig into what is data security posture?  Symmetry Systems defines data security pos

Improperly deactivated and abandoned Salesforce  Sites  and  Communities  (aka Experience Cloud) could pose severe risks to organizations, leading to unauthorized access to sensitive data. Data security firm Varonis dubbed the abandoned, unprotected, and unmonitored resources " ghost sites ." "When these Communities are no longer needed, though, they are often set aside but not deactivated," Varonis Threat Labs researchers  said  in a new report shared with The Hacker News. "Because these unused sites are not maintained, they aren't tested against vulnerabilities, and Admins fail to update the site's security measures according to newer guidelines." Varonis said it found many of these deactivated (but still active) sites still fetching new data, thereby allowing threat actors to extract data by manipulating the  host header  in the HTTP request. Identifying the complete internal URLs associated with the sites is challenging but not impossible, as an adversary could leverage too

Facebook's parent company Meta has been fined a record $1.3 billion by European Union data protection regulators for transferring the personal data of users in the region to the U.S. In a binding decision taken by the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), the social media giant has been ordered to bring its data transfers into compliance with the GDPR and delete unlawfully stored and processed data within six months. Additionally, Meta has been given five months to suspend any future transfer of Facebook users' data to the U.S. Instagram and WhatsApp, which are also owned by the company, are not subject to the order. "The EDPB found that Meta IE's infringement is very serious since it concerns transfers that are systematic, repetitive, and continuous," Andrea Jelinek, EDPB Chair,  said  in a statement. "Facebook has millions of users in Europe, so the volume of personal data transferred is massive. The unprecedented fine is a strong signal to organizati

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has officially made a return to Italy after the company met the  data protection authority's demands  ahead of April 30, 2023, deadline. The development was  first reported  by the Associated Press. OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman,  tweeted , "we're excited ChatGPT is available in [Italy] again!" The reinstatement comes following Garante's decision to  temporarily block  access to the popular AI chatbot service in Italy on March 31, 2023, over concerns that its practices are in violation of data protection laws in the region. Generative AI systems like ChatGPT and Google Bard primarily rely on huge amounts of information freely available on the internet as well as the data its users provide over the course of their interactions. OpenAI, which published a  new FAQ , said it filters and removes information such as hate speech, adult content, sites that primarily aggregate personal information, and spam. It also emphasized that

A significant number of victims in the consumer and enterprise sectors located across Australia, Japan, the U.S., and India have been affected by an evasive information-stealing malware called  ViperSoftX . ViperSoftX was first documented by Fortinet in 2020, with cybersecurity company Avast detailing a campaign in November 2022 that  leveraged  the malware to distribute a malicious Google Chrome extension capable of siphoning cryptocurrencies from wallet applications. Now a  new analysis  from Trend Micro has revealed the malware's adoption of "more sophisticated encryption and basic anti-analysis techniques, such as byte remapping and web browser communication blocking." The arrival vector of ViperSoftX is typically a software crack or a key generator (keygen), while also employing actual non-malicious software like multimedia editors and system cleaner apps as "carriers." One of the key steps performed by the malware before downloading a first-stage Po

Every year hundreds of millions of malware attacks occur worldwide, and every year businesses deal with the impact of viruses, worms, keyloggers, and ransomware. Malware is a pernicious threat and the biggest driver for businesses to look for cybersecurity solutions.  Naturally, businesses want to find products that will stop malware in its tracks, and so they search for solutions to do that. But  malware protection  alone is not enough, instead what's needed is a more holistic approach. Businesses need to defend against malware entering the network, and then on top of that have systems and processes in place to restrict the damage that malware can do if it infects a user device.  This approach will not only help stop and mitigate the damage from malware, but defend against other types of threats too, such as credential theft as a result of phishing, insider threats, and supply-chain attacks.  Element 1: Malware Protection and Web Filtering The first and most sensible place to

Collaboration sits at the essence of SaaS applications. The word, or some form of it, appears in the top two headlines on Google Workspace's homepage. It can be found six times on Microsoft 365's homepage, three times on Box, and once on Workday. Visit nearly any SaaS site, and odds are 'collaboration' will appear as part of the app's key selling point.  By sitting on the cloud, content within the applications is immediately shareable, making it easier than ever to work with others.  However, that shareability is a two-sided coin. On the flip side are often sensitive links sitting on public-facing websites that can be easily accessed. The exposure caused by leaked documents can cause tremendous harm, from competitors trying to gather corporate secrets to whistleblowers sharing internal information with reporters or legislators. As integral as collaboration is to SaaS, sharing links creates a high-risk situation, and real-life breaches, that can be mitigated through the right process