Information security experts at security services firm Coronet have released their annual report on cities with businesses most exposed to hackers; for the second year in a row, Las Vegas has won the disgraceful top of this list.
According to the report, the root causes are the limited (and sometimes inexistent) cybersecurity budget of the state of Nevada, US, in combination with limited measures to protect public WiFi networks in restaurants, hotels, casinos and other establishments.
More than 1 million devices were analyzed during the elaboration of this report, in addition to 24 million public and private networks in the 50 largest cities in the US. Information security experts relied on searching for vulnerabilities to deploy attacks such as phishing, malware injection, use of malicious WiFi networks and fake mobile phone networks. Among the main risks are data loss/theft, login credentials compromise and ransomware attacks.
The report states that the main goal of these threat actors is to compromise and leak relevant personal information about users in order to carry out multiple types of digital fraud, in addition, the more information hackers find, more damage can cause to victims.
It is estimated that about 30% of the systems analyzed in Las Vegas do not have updated antivirus protection, while it is at least three times more likely to find a database or cloud application exposed in Las Vegas than in any other city subjected to the analysis. Below is the top 10 of the most prone to information security incidents US cities according to this work:
- Las Vegas
- Houston
- New York
- Miami-Fort Lauderdale
- Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York
- West Palm Beach-Ft Pierce
- Hartford-New Haven
- Birmingham
- Indianapolis
- Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto
It is a fact that these kinds of incidents can occur in any context and no matter how advanced the cybersecurity program of a city or company, however, specialists from the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) believe it is important for local governments to start investing in improvements to their IT infrastructure to avoid such incidents and their consequences.
He is a well-known expert in mobile security and malware analysis. He studied Computer Science at NYU and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2003. He is actively working as an anti-malware expert. He also worked for security companies like Kaspersky Lab. His everyday job includes researching about new malware and cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in mobile security and mobile vulnerabilities.
