An ominous flashing red light on a blacked-out computer screen means the promise of a threat. It was 21:26 on a Sunday night and an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) alert shot across one of our screens. A security analyst usually has just minutes to respond, carry out an investigation on behalf of the organisation under threat and make a critical decision.
Cyber security is a big deal these days. A very big deal. A deal worth £3.5billion to be precise. The threats are varied and numerous, with attackers constantly shifting their methods and approach to circumvent security. No matter how good cyber security gets and how thorough your processes are, the threat will always remain. What’s interesting here is that a large portion of this threat comes from within your own walls.
Last year we exhibited at a major information security trade show in London, during the preparation for this we received our exhibitor passes as “print yourself” PDF files. We immediately noticed that there are two forms of barcode here and, interestingly, the QR Code seems quite dense given that all it should be storing is a delegate ID number. Being the inquisitive sort of people that we are, we started up a QR scanner and had a look at its contents.
