As organizations and individuals rely more and more on technology for many aspects of their lives, the security of digital assets is of increasing concern. From personal data to critical infrastructure, the digital landscape is rife with potential vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious actors. Cybersecurity has become a mainstream imperative as breaches and cyber threats continue to escalate.

The cybersecurity landscape in 2023 was increasingly complex, marked by sophisticated cyber threats such as ransomware and cyber espionage. Over half of the high-risk vulnerabilities were exploited by threat actors, with ransomware payouts averaging a significant $1,542,333, up from $812,380 in 2022. Phishing attacks dominated, accounting for over 80% of incidents, and 57% of organizations experienced frequent phishing attempts. Additionally, 4,000 ransomware attacks occurred daily since 2016.

At Cycle, we understand the paramount importance of security and the challenges that come with maintaining it. That's why we're proud to share how our proactive approach has not only addressed the recent “Leaky Vessels” container exploit, but has done so in a manner entirely transparent to our customers, and in under 4 hours of the vulnerability being made public.

CitrixBleed, or CVE-2023-4966, is now an infamous security vulnerability affecting Citrix NetScaler that allows attackers to hijack user sessions by stealing session authentication tokens. Unfortunately, it has affected many NetScaler customers including Xfinity, which lost data for 36 million customers as a result of CitrixBleed. There is no way to protect against CitrixBleed by configuring the NetScaler WAF to detect and block it.

As the year comes to an end, we are taking a look back on the major data breaches and vulnerabilities that disrupted the security of both small, and large and very important organizations around the world and across all industries. According to a recently published report: As this trend is on the rise, governmental organizations and companies of every size put more emphasis on the security of their systems and networks.