Cyber Development

Terry Mayer, Senior Research Specialist and Geo-Political Analyst at Cyjax Ltd, discusses how SMEs can alleviate the threat of cybercrime.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are at ever-increasing risk of being targeted by cyber criminals. In this short article, we offer a few pointers aimed at minimising the threats faced by your organisation.

Phishing
Cyber criminals are never short of new ideas for profiting from real-life events, tailoring their campaigns accordingly – and yet using the same basic techniques which we have seen being leveraged for years. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a multitude of opportunities for these threat actors to develop their methods further: phishing attacks have risen dramatically worldwide as a range of adversaries – including well-known state-sponsored groups such as North Korea’s Lazarus – have sought to tempt people into parting with personal information or, in the case of health authorities, pharmaceutical companies or research institutes, data relating to vaccines or drugs.

Phishing scams involve launching targeted attacks against an organisation or an individual. They are likely to begin with a threat actor gathering intelligence on the target by scanning open-source intelligence (OSINT); this might include running searches on media or genealogy websites and collecting information from Companies House or the electoral roll, and of course social media sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn. Publicly accessible information can offer a wealth of data – in many cases enough to provide a threat actor with everything they need to profile an individual or an organisation. From there the attackers will hope to establish contacts in their preparations for a targeted attack.

CERN Quantum Technology Initiative has reached a significant milestone, launching a roadmap of its medium- and long-term quantum research programme.
The CERN Quantum Technology Initiative (CERN QTI) has achieved an important milestone with the announcement of a roadmap defining its quantum research programme.

Roadmap for quantum research
The roadmap outlines CERN QTI objectives and strategy, identifying the governing structure and composition of its international advisory board, on top of the activities to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and innovation with the particle physics community and beyond in the extensive field of quantum technologies.

Through the CERN Quantum Technology Initiative, CERN is distributing its enabling technologies – such as quantum state sensors, time synchronisation protocols, and many more from the cryogenics, electronics, quantum theory and computing domains – to enhance the development of quantum technologies.