Scary Cyber Stories: The Call's Coming from Inside the House.

Now is the time of year when it doesn't seem so weird that your neighbors put up fake tombstones in their front yards. That's right, it's Halloween. It's time for vampires and werewolves and ghosts and other scary things. But what could be more truly terrifying than when the call is coming...from inside the house?! That's right, we're talking about the malicious insider attack on your IT infrastructure.

What makes it even scarier is that these are true stories that have actually happened in IT organizations. For instance, that time at the start of the COVID pandemic when someone (no spoilers!) disrupted a medical supply company's shipments of personal protective equipment. How did they get in? How were they caught?

Or what about the time when employees of a massive telecommunication network were bribed to install malware onto their company's computer systems? Terrifying, right? Imagine the time and effort it took to clean up after this mess. But it could have been worse. What if the attackers had used this access to install ransomware?

Read the full collection of nine terrifying insider attack stories, where we name names and reveal the truths that may just end up protecting your enterprise -- like garlic to vampires.

Halloween also marks the end of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, as Inseego Corp 's Ritesh Mukherjee recently pointed out in a guest opinion for InformationWeek . In this piece, Mukherjee compares some common Halloween activities to best practices in Cybersecurity. For instance, phishing scams have a lot in common with the concept of accepting candy from strangers. Who can you really trust? Mukherjee offers more wisdom around the Halloween theme of attending masquerade balls, not wearing a costume, spreading rotten apples and losing your stash. Here is the full list of important lessons to keep in mind.

Finally, if you are focused on the harvest aspects of this autumn holiday time, check out how technology is also transforming agriculture. Sure you may have a horn of plenty for decorative gourd season, but did you know that sensors, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are contributing to the sustainability of growing that harvest of winter squash?

Indeed, More than half of the world’s farms have adopted sustainable practices, according to?research?conducted by McKinsey & Company. Connected digital sensors monitor crop growth patterns, cattle movement, microclimate data and the pH level of soil. As this data is fed into systems, farmers can adjust and adapt as needed. Analytics software and machine learning systems automatically adapt watering and the application of chemicals. Some farms and ranches have also turned to drones that use?multi-spectral imagery?to monitor plant health, weeds, animals and soil conditions. Check out the full story here, including information about how CRISPR is being used in agriculture, too.

Looking for more? Don't forget to subscribe to our regular email newsletters that cover topics including Data & Analytics, Cloud, Leadership, and Careers, as well as the daily news impacting IT enterprise leaders. Subscribe here.