Taimur Ijlal

There is a Cyber Security Skills Gap of 2.8 million people 🙄 I read another article last week spouting the same old narrative about the security skills gap. The article itself some really interesting statistics and graphics within the report about the state of the market - many of which I agree with. But when I got to the part around the Cyber Skills Shortage, I was hit with the same old statistic that is always thrown around. "The cyber skills gap continues to be a key challenge to organizations becoming more resilient. The cybersecurity sector is grappling with a significant workforce shortage, with estimates of the shortfall ranging from 2.8 million to 4.8 million cybersecurity professionals." How long can the same narrative go on for? Having worked in this space for 14 years and from the conversations I have with great people in this space daily, I can confidently say these figures are absolute nonsense. In some cases there may be a lack of investment into Security and a lack of hiring strategies that can attract candidates with transferable skills - but there definitely isn't a shortage of great people who already do or have the right skills to work in this industry.

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For SOCs, it’s not just the hackers that pose a threat - it’s the avalanche of data that buries real signals under noise. Security logs, once the fuel for detection, are now both an asset and a liability. The flood of redundant, misaligned, or uncurated telemetry drains not just budgets - but analysts. The challenge isn’t just collecting data - it’s collecting the right data, in the right shape, at the right time. Security tools generate logs by the terabyte. Yet most organizations lack a strategy to qualify, contextualize, or prioritize what enters their SIEMs. As a result: ▪ Real threats get buried in noise. ▪ False positives clutter dashboards, wasting attention. ▪ Costs balloon from excessive licensing and storage. To move from reactive firefighting to proactive defense, SOCs must elevate telemetry management as a core security function. Here's how leading teams do it: 1. Precision Filtering, Not Blanket Collection Start with a threat-informed view: what data truly supports detections? Eliminate noise - e.g., suppress successful login logs unless from unusual geographies or times. 2. Normalization and Enrichment as Multipliers Standardize formats and enrich with business context - asset criticality, user identity, threat intel, geolocation. This transforms raw logs into events that trigger rules more accurately and reduce triage ambiguity. 3. Retention That Reflects Risk Abandon “store everything” habits. Align retention with risk: real-time detection data stays hot; compliance data can go cold. 4. Use Case-Driven Collection Let strategy guide ingestion. Data should map to real correlation rules, MITRE ATT&CK coverage, or compliance needs. If it doesn’t, reconsider ingesting it. Log optimization isn’t just about saving money, it enables: ▪ Faster decision-making ▪ Reduced alert fatigue ▪ Stronger detection fidelity When telemetry pipelines are treated with the same rigor as detection logic or incident response, the SOC becomes sharper and more effective. Final thought…. Data isn't your greatest asset - useful data is. 👉Ask Yourself Are you collecting data to feel secure - or to be secure? #CyberSecurity #SOC #SecOps #ThreatDetection #Telemetry #DataStrategy #DataQuality #OptimizeLogs #LogReduction #SecurityEfficiency #SIEMOptimization #AlertFatigue #TelemetryPipeline

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NEW AI Vulnerability: Safety Reasoning Leakage First Self-betrayal attack on UAE’s new K2 Think Model Adversa AI identified a new type of attack Against AI particularly on its Reasoning capabilities and demonstrated how recently released UAE's AI Model known for its fastest Reasoning was hacked in just few minutes after its public release and exactly its Reasoning advantage became its Achilles Feet. Adversa AI achieved the first successful jailbreak of a UAE reasoning model using a fundamentally new attack approach letting the AI Thinking process teach them how to break it. Each failed attempt exposed the system's hidden defense rules through its Reasoning / Thinking logs, creating a step-by-step guide to bypass security in just 3 tries. 💪 The breakthrough: Unlike all previous atatcks that rely on clever prompting, this exploits the core architectural feature of explainable AI—its transparency becomes its weakness. The model literally explains which rules block the attack, allowing hackers to systematically disable each defense. 🤔 The dilemma: This forces an impossible choice—keep AI transparent for safety/regulation (but hackable) or make it opaque and secure (but untrustworthy). Every Fortune 500 company in regulated industries deploying "explainable AI" for compliance is potentially vulnerable right now. it's proof that explainability and security may be fundamentally incompatible. ➡️ Read More details in our latest research https://lnkd.in/ddfZXY-j #jailbreak #ReasoningLeakage #k2think #g42 #MBZUAI #UAE #AIRedTeaming

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Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a public warning that threat actors are spoofing the official Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) website in an effort to steal personal and financial information. These fraudulent sites often look convincing — using slight misspellings or alternate domains to trick unsuspecting users. The FBI advises the public to go directly to www.ic3.gov by typing it into your browser, verify the “.gov” domain, and avoid sponsored search results or suspicious links. Victims should report spoofed websites or related scams only through the official IC3 portal or their local FBI Field Office. 📣 At TRM Labs, we’ve seen similar impersonation attempts. Scammers have created false domains pretending to be TRM or even government agencies “working with” TRM. To be clear: these are not TRM domains, and the actors behind them are criminals. TRM does not provide fund recovery services and does not partner with government agencies for that purpose. The only official TRM domain is trmlabs.com. If you’re ever uncertain about whether you’re interacting with a legitimate TRM employee, please use our official inquiry form: https://lnkd.in/eVRFnfrr I may be used to impersonations these days ⬇️, but that doesn’t mean we should accept them. Stay vigilant. For more, read the full FBI warning — and report scams to Chainabuse: https://lnkd.in/e2jdg3vP

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Hackers have issued an ultimatum to Google, threatening to leak its data unless the company fires two of its key cybersecurity employees. The hacking group specifically demanded that #Google fire two members of its Threat Intelligence Group (TIG), the internal team responsible for tracking and investigating #cybercriminal networks. While the hackers claim to have access to Google's databases, they have provided no evidence to support this claim. Source: Newsweek : https://lnkd.in/gK3iwgH2

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EU kicks off landmark AI law enforcement as first batch of restrictions enter into force - The EU AI Act, a first-of-its-kind regulatory framework for the technology, formally entered into force in August 2024. - On Sunday, the deadline for prohibitions on certain AI systems and staff technology literacy requirements officially lapsed. - Companies face fines of as much as 35 million euros ($35.8 million) or 7% of their global annual revenues — whichever amount is higher — for breaches of the EU AI Act. #EU #AI #EUAI #laws #policy #EUAIAct https://lnkd.in/e8QSWPKf

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