 
                    
                With years of experience in the technology industry, headlines about cyber attacks and data breaches stand out to me. Here’s your monthly roundup of the latest hacks and data breaches around the world. In this monthly series, I’ll share information and updates on the most recent hacks that I saw in the news, including causes, resolutions, and what you can do to protect your data.
Over the last several weeks, we saw what has now become the usual list of successful cyber attacks and data breaches across all industries, with government entities, healthcare and retail dominating the list.    
Ransomware attacks can happen to any company. This brewery in Scotland was attacked after receiving an influx of applications to a popular job posting on the internet. Hackers were able to take advantage of the flood of emails and sent an infected email with the ransomware payload in the PDF that looked like a resume. The brewery opted to not pay the ransom but rather brought in an expert to identify the problem whom was able to restore the lost data.  Read More
Imagine looking for your flight information in an airport and only seeing “OUT OF SERVICE.” This past weekend the Bristol Airport in the UK experienced a ransomware attack that they refused to pay in order to get their systems working again. The airport went old school in the time being, and posted flight statuses on whiteboards and made extra announcements as part of an “established contingency plan.” As one of the largest airports in the UK, this attack does not come as a surprise. For those that were in the airport traveling that day, flights were unaffected.  Read More.
This popular online fashion retailer announced they have been targeted by a “concerted criminal cyber-attack” in which 6.42 million customers’ data was stolen. The hackers were able to access the email addresses and account passwords of customers who registered on the website. Luckily, SHEIN does not store any credit card information in their systems and has no evidence that any credit card information was taken. For customers who think their credit card information may have been stolen, they have been told to contact their bank directly. Read More.
Millions of credit card numbers were stolen as people made purchases on newegg.com, an electronics retail website. By inserting 8 lines of malicious code, hackers were able to copy customers’ credit card information to a fraudulent website domain in real time. Data was stolen from people purchasing on both desktops and mobile devices. This same version of code was also recently used to steal information from British Airlines and Freedify. Newegg has not determined exactly how many customers credit card numbers were stolen. They recommend checking recent bank transactions and requesting a new credit card if there is any unusual activity.  Read More
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If the inline security tool goes off-line, the TAP will bypass the tool and automatically keep the link flowing. The Bypass TAP does this by sending heartbeat packets to the inline security tool. As long as the inline security tool is on-line, the heartbeat packets will be returned to the TAP, and the link traffic will continue to flow through the inline security tool. 
If the heartbeat packets are not returned to the TAP (indicating that the inline security tool has gone off-line), the TAP will automatically 'bypass' the inline security tool and keep the link traffic flowing. The TAP also removes the heartbeat packets before sending the network traffic back onto the critical link. 
While the TAP is in bypass mode, it continues to send heartbeat packets out to the inline security tool so that once the tool is back on-line, it will begin returning the heartbeat packets back to the TAP indicating that the tool is ready to go back to work. The TAP will then direct the network traffic back through the inline security tool along with the heartbeat packets placing the tool back inline. 
Some of you may have noticed a flaw in the logic behind this solution!  You say, “What if the TAP should fail because it is also in-line? Then the link will also fail!” The TAP would now be considered a point of failure. That is a good catch – but in our blog on Bypass vs. Failsafe, I explained that if a TAP were to fail or lose power, it must provide failsafe protection to the link it is attached to. So our network TAP will go into Failsafe mode keeping the link flowing.
Single point of failure: a risk to an IT network if one part of the system brings down a larger part of the entire system.
Heartbeat packet: a soft detection technology that monitors the health of inline appliances. Read the heartbeat packet blog here.
Critical link: the connection between two or more network devices or appliances that if the connection fails then the network is disrupted.