On February 15th, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), published the latest update to “ISO/IEC 27002 Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection — Information security controls”. This latest standard is available for personal use from their site on ISO.org for CHF 198 (Swiss Francs) or, if you prefer, US dollars, $200, at the ANSI.org webstore. I’ll also simply refer to it as ISO 27002 as most people do.

ISO 27001 (or ISO/IEC 27001) is the leading international standard on information security management. As part of a wider set of related ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) standards - the ISO 27000 series – it provides a well-defined framework to help any business create, implement, and maintain an effective information security management system (ISMS).

In November 2018, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) released the Prudential Standard CPS 234 in direct response to the escalating attack landscape in the financial sector. APRA has understood these threats to be the direct result of banking services moving to more complex and heavily used digital platforms. The new Standard emerged as an offshoot to the Notifiable Data Breach Scheme, which came into effect in early 2018.

Here in the United States, we often focus on the cybersecurity readiness of the federal government. The reality is that state and local government departments are just as, if not more vulnerable to cyber attacks. Nearly one quarter of their employees use personal devices for work, where security teams have little visibility, enabling threat actors to execute phishing and other malicious activities. These risks will only continue to grow as in-person services continue remotely.

It’s that time of the year again. The annual and dreaded IT and security audit is ramping up. You just received the documentation list and need to pull everything together. You have too much real work to do, but you need to prove your compliance posture to this outsider. Using log management for compliance monitoring and documentation can make audits less stressful and time-consuming.

The dreaded data ditch. You might not even know your organization is stuck in it – the company might still be acting on gut feel as opposed to relying on data, the data you have might be ungoverned and inaccurate, or you’re waiting weeks, even months, for your teams to glean useful insights. You’re not alone. Data leaders like yourself keep falling into the data ditch.

The PCI certification process is quite comprehensive and relates to infrastructure, software and employee access to systems, in particular to datasets and the way that they are accessed. These checks are critical not only to the wider payments industry but also to create a level of trust with users knowing their data is protected. The PCI compliance process is a number of checks, usually by an accredited third party, to ensure that secure data handling processes are in place.

Governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) management presents some unique challenges for organizations that deploy a myriad of cloud resources, services, and accounts. Simple misconfigurations in any of these assets can lead to a serious data breach, and compliance issues become even more prevalent as organizations try to inventory and manage assets across multiple cloud platforms and security and auditing tools.

On February 9, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued proposed rules regarding cybersecurity risk management for investment advisers, registered investment companies, and business development companies. It's no surprise that the SEC is taking a more active role in this, given their continued interest in cybersecurity issues and high-profile ransomware attacks.

Now, there’s a loaded question. With so many preceding it: What do we mean by AI? Which aspects of what data are we referring to When it comes to AI? Are ethical practices universal? So, here are a few things to consider.