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Week 10: Cybercrime dilemma

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  Cybercrime—ranging from ransomware to online fraud—is inflicting hundreds of billions of dollars in losses across the U.S., threatening individuals, schools, businesses, utilities, and governments . Ransomware attacks on K–12 schools have disrupted instruction and cost districts up to $ 1 million, while the U.S. Marshals Service itself fell victim, its systems compromised and sensitive data accessed . Although federal agencies such as the FBI, Secret Service, and DEA deploy various tools—from public complaint portals to investigative databases—the lack of a uniform definition of “cybercrime” , the absence of a centralized federal data repository , and reluctance by victims (especially businesses) to report incidents—makes it impossible to grasp the full extent of the problem . To address these gaps, Congress enacted the Better Cybercrime Metrics Act in 2022, mandating the DOJ to create standardized categories of cybercrime and integrate them into the FBI’s National Incident...
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Week 9: Vulnerability Management

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   Vulnerability management is a continuous process that identifies, evaluates, treats, and reports security vulnerabilities across systems and software. It helps reduce the attack surface and ensure compliance. The process includes asset discovery, vulnerability scanning, risk prioritization, remediation, and verification. Automation and risk-based tools enhance its efficiency, making it essential for modern cybersecurity strategies. Key Stages (Lifecycle) Asset Discovery Identify and catalog all IT assets—servers, endpoints, apps, networks—which forms the foundation for vulnerability scanning. Vulnerability Scanning Use automated tools to detect known flaws such as misconfigurations, open ports, and out-of-date software across the infrastructure . Prioritization & Risk Rating Assign risk levels (e.g., CVSS scores, severity ratings) based on likelihood, business impact, exploitability, and compliance requirements .. Remediation & Mitigation Apply patches,...
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Week 8: Identity-based Attacks Breaching Retail

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  Exploiting Third‑Party Trust (Adidas) Attackers gained access through a vendor’s SaaS integration using stale tokens/service accounts that lacked MFA or expiration. This supply-chain style breach exposed customer data without any malware—just unchecked trust in third parties   Credential Stuffing & Privilege Abuse (The North Face) Using leaked username/password combos, attackers accessed customer accounts via credential stuffing. With no MFA protection, they quietly extracted PII—demonstrating how weak identity hygiene opens doors.    SIM Swapping & Social Engineering (Marks & Spencer, Co‑op) Threat group Scattered Spider tricked help desk staff using SIM swap and impersonation, resetting MFA and password protections. This kind of human-layer trickery granted lateral access through overprivileged or dormant SaaS identities   Hijacked Unmonitored SaaS Admins (Victoria’s Secret) Although details are sparse, attackers likely targeted high-pr...
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Week 7: Data Privacy

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    What Is Data Privacy? 1. Defining Privacy & Data Privacy Privacy is the fundamental right to keep your personal life and information to yourself. Data privacy specifically focuses on protecting your digital personal data—like your name, birthdate, online activity, medical info, and financial details—from unwanted access or sharing 2. Why It Matters in the Digital Age Vast volumes of data are generated whenever you go online—your web behavior, purchases, and even the time spent on a page. Companies analyze this data to personalize ads, predict behavior, and make decisions—but it also means your every action becomes part of a digital footprint   3. Data Privacy vs. Cybersecurity Cybersecurity is about protecting data from unauthorized intrusions, like hacks or malware. Data privacy is about your rights and choices—deciding who gets access to your information and what they can do with it .  Data privacy is all about making informed choices and ...
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Week 6: CyberSecurity Risks in Remote Work

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      The key cybersecurity risks Cyber Magazine highlights for remote workers: remote environments expose businesses to unsecured connections (especially public or weak home networks), phishing scams , and general cyber-awareness deficiencies ; they also struggle with device management when personal equipment is used, delayed system updates , and local sensitive data storage that may be unencrypted—all of which expand the attack surface. Additional threats include lapses in offboarding and monitoring , compliance violations , and improper cloud configurations that clash with internal security standards. To mitigate these dangers, organizations should enforce VPN usage , device control and encryption , automatic patching , access revocation , stringent cloud settings , and robust training and oversight.   Resources: https://cybermagazine.com/articles/the-top-10-risks-of-remote-working? 
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Week 5: Biometrics

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Biometrics:                    Why Traditional Methods Fall Short Passwords and PINs are vulnerable to phishing, brute force attacks, reuse, and social engineering. The NCSC reported over 23 million accounts breached using the password “123456”             What Biometrics Bring to the Table Physiological traits : fingerprints, facial recognition, iris scans, DNA. Behavioral traits : voice patterns, typing rhythms, gait, and more. Offer greater security (unique to individuals and hard to replicate) and enhanced user convenience , eliminating the need to remember complex credentials Sectors like banking (e.g., Barclays’ finger-vein scan) and healthcare are already benefiting from reduced fraud and streamlined access Major Challenges to Address Privacy & Regulatory Compliance : Biometric data is “special category” under GDPR—requiring explicit consent, DPIAs, and strict handling ...
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Week 4: Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management

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      Something I believe we will all will run into at some point Digital supply Chain. What is Digital supply chain? Digital supply chain protects the entire digital ecosystem involved in the movement of goods and information like raw materials leading to finished products. The aspect of supply chain security for digital systems are increasingly used to manage various aspects of the supply chain like order processing, payments and shipping. Cyber supply chain risk management is to identify what cyber risk exist within a chain and manage risks that occur since organizations no longer have control or visibility into the digital supply systems they are connected to. There are three main types of attack, Network, Software, and Hardware supply chain attacks. I won't go over all types of attack but I will talk about one that is the most common and that is Software supply chain attacks. Usually what happens is a vendor's network can be invaded by an attacker who can compromise ...
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