Last week, we focused on cyber defense of government networks; today, we're looking at what is going on in the private sector, and how business owners and managers can deal with new and emerging threats.

This is a major issue, because the number and severity of cyber attacks and data breaches continues to rise. In fact, they have become so common; many people don't even pay attention to news about them when they occur. Another day, another hack. Wash, rinse, repeat.

But, as you'll hear today from our featured guest, Tyler Hudak, who is with Fairlawn, Ohio-based Information Security provider, TrustedSec; something new really is going on. Cyber criminals have upped their game, and as a result; cyber defenders have to step up as well.

Ransomware, which locks up a targeted victim's computer system until they pay a fee, he says, is no longer the biggest threat that companies face. Instead, hackers are going after third party suppliers that have trusted access to the victim's network, and using that access to steal data, money, plant malware, and hamper the company's ability to keep providing services to its customers.

Some well-known examples include the SolarWinds attack in 2020, which affected hundreds of businesses worldwide and even US government networks in 2020, and the Colonial Pipeline attack in 2021, which resulted in the company shutting down systems which supplied fuel to airports and gas stations along the East Coast.

But now, there is an even more recent example. It happened just a couple of months ago, when a hacker group called cl0p, stole data from the file transfer software company, MOVEit.

That, Hudak tells us, was a really, really big deal.

Find out why, and what, if anything, we can do about it.

Listen now.

Tyler Hudak, Practice lead, Incident Response, TrustedSec