The Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) industry has become a massive technological playground worldwide. Their extensive applications make UAS very popular for the public and the private sector. Armed forces, agricultural industry, law enforcement, meteorological agencies, medical services, environmental companies, and oil refineries are but a few out of the excessive list of UAS users.
A Canadian man has been handed a three year prison sentence after being found guilty of buying and selling over 1700 stolen identities on a dark web marketplace. 29-year-old Slava Dmitriev, who went by the online handle of “GoldenAce”, bought and sold individuals’ personal private information, including social security numbers, on the AlphaBay dark web marketplace in 2016 and 2017.
Industrial control systems (ICS) are specific kinds of assets and associated instrumentation that help to oversee industrial processes. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, there are three common types of ICS.
It looks likely that the UK will join a growing number of nations promoting cybersecurity’s importance for businesses including the introduction of new laws. Amongst the proposals being considered are adding new powers to the UK Cyber Security Council that could significantly change the reporting requirements associated with security incidents. From what has been shared to date, two points that stand out are as follows.
The number of U.S. data breaches reported in 2021 increased dramatically over the preceding year. As reported by the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), there were 1,291 data breaches between January 1, 2021 and September 30, 2021. The volume beat out the 1,108 breaches detected over the course of Full Year (FY) 2020. It’s therefore not surprising that data compromises year-to-date (YTD) was up 27% last year compared to FY 2020.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the most high-profile technology developments in recent history. It would appear that there is no end to what AI can do. Fom driverless cars, dictation tools, translator apps, predictive analytics and application tracking, as well as retail tools such as smart shelves and carts to apps that help people with disabilities, AI can be a powerful component of wonderful tech products and services.
It has been a long time coming! The upgrade to the international standard for information security management systems, ISO27001:2013, is here (almost). Hallelujah! If you’re reading this article, then there’s a reasonable assumption that you know what ISO27001 is and you’re not going to be too worried about the back story. But let’s all be clear on a couple of points. The current version of the Information Security Management Standard is ISO27001:2013.
Kubernetes is the popular container orchestration platform developed by Google to manage large-scale containerized applications. Kubernetes manages microservices applications over a distributed cluster of nodes. It is very resilient and supports scaling, rollback, zero downtime, and self-healing containers. The primary aim of Kubernetes is to mask the complexity of overseeing a large fleet of containers.
The modern digital environment is more risky than ever before, and the incidence of cyberattacks only increased throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. In this day and age, even the most robust security systems may still be penetrated or breached by a sophisticated cyber-attack. This means companies can no longer afford to be complacent about security.
When an unfortunate event occurs, people tend to be curious about who was responsible for the event. It can be interesting and helpful to know who your enemy is and what their motives might be. But in cybersecurity, the primary focus is ultimately on preventative and detective measures to avoid similar issues. Let’s use a recent example to illustrate this point below.
Earlier this year, I wrote about what’s new in Version 8 of the Center for Internet Security’s Critical Security Controls (CIS Controls). An international consortium of security professionals first created the CIS Controls back in 2008. Since then, the security community has continued to update the CIS Controls to keep pace with the evolution of technology ecosystems and emerging threat vectors—all the way to Version 8 and the 18 Controls contained therein.
As we begin a new year, many organizations will enter a “goal-setting and strategic planning” season. During this time, individuals are re-energized and motivated to record new accomplishments for their professional development. Traditional corporate goal setting aligns with fiscal calendars and forces companies and individuals to build goals in chunks of 365 days. But why set your deadline based on the Earth’s orbital period?
The supply chain is under a historic amount of pressure, but the strain on its cybersecurity and risk management may be in even worse condition. As 2021 draws to a close, the global supply chain is in a state comparable to rush-hour traffic in bad weather. Everything seems to be backed up whether due to supply and demand issues, wait times at shipping ports, or any number of other delays.
Data is among the most valuable assets that need to be safeguarded at all costs. But in the digitally-driven business world, cybercrimes are prevalent, making data protection and data privacy a main focal point. The increasing use of technology and the growing exposure to evolving cyber threats have dramatically changed the data security and privacy landscape. For these reasons, international regulatory bodies around the world have created stringent data privacy laws for businesses to meet.
As we enter 2022, it’s important that organizations invest in cybersecurity for their operational technology (OT) systems. Why? One of the reasons is that Industry 4.0 can sometimes introduce more risk for OT. This is evident in several Industry 4.0 market trends. For example, there’s digital twin infrastructure. That’s where you make a digital copy of your production facility or your machine.
A notorious cybercrime gang, involved in a series of high profile ransomware attacks, has in recent months been sending out poisoned USB devices to US organisations. As The Record reports, the FBI has warned that FIN7 – the well-organised cybercrime group believed to behind the Darkside and BlackMatter ransomware operations – has been mailing out malicious USB sticks in the hope that workers will plug them into their computers.
Many of us are fond of collecting things, but not everyone is excited about Collections #1-5. In 2019, these Collections, composed of ca. 932 GB of data containing billions of email addresses and their passwords, made their way around the Internet. These collections weren’t breaches but compilations of emails and passwords that had been gathered. Even after repeat entries were whittled down, the collection still contained billions of distinct address and password combinations.
Change is prolific in organizations’ IT environments. Hardware assets change. Software programs change. Configuration states change. Some of these modifications are authorized insofar as they occur during an organization’s regular patching cycle, while others cause concern by popping up unexpectedly. Organizations commonly respond to this dynamism by investing in asset discovery and secure configuration management (SCM).
Companies today face increasing pressure to implement strong cybersecurity controls. While the U.S. has no comprehensive cybersecurity law, many organizations still fall under state, international, or industry regulations. Two of the most prominent controlling publications are the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the ISO 27701 standard. One has the force of law, and the other is a guiding framework, respectively. Both of these documents apply to an increasing number of businesses.
One of the biggest problems with the IT / OT convergence in critical infrastructure is that much of the legacy hardware cannot simply be patched to an acceptable compliance level. Recently, Sean Tufts, the practice director for Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Internet of Things (IoT) security at Optiv, offered his perspectives on where the industry has been, where it is going, and some of the progress being made to secure critical infrastructure.
Security researchers say they have seen a “massive wave” of malicious hackers exploiting the comment feature in Google Docs to spread malicious content into the inboxes of unsuspecting targeted users. According to a blog post published by Avanan, the comments functionality of Google Docs, as well as its fellow Google Workplace web-based applications Google Sheets and Google Slides, is being exploited to send out malicious links.
This won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s spoken to me for more than five minutes, but I am a Doctor Who fan. In fact, “fan” is being kind. I’m hopelessly obsessed with the show to the point that more than one ‘Who’ actor has a restraining order out on me.
On December 16, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released mandate letters tasking his ministers of national defense, foreign affairs, public safety, and industry to develop a new “National Cyber Security Strategy.” He specifically highlighted the need for the strategy to “articulate Canada’s long-term strategy to protect our national security and economy, deter cyber threat actors, and promote norms-based international behavior in cyberspace,” as quoted by Global News.
On May 12, The White House published its Executive Order (EO) on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity. The directive outlined a set of focus areas intended to improve cybersecurity for the federal government and critical infrastructure sectors including information sharing, supply chain security, endpoint detection and response, and cloud security.
A CISO’s job can be one of the most stressful in cybersecurity. It can sometimes feel like an avalanche of responsibilities, all in the pursuit of keeping an organization safe. The problem more often than not comes down to the issue of obtaining funding for new technology that can make the job easier. In reality, CISOs can’t always obtain the executive buy-in necessary for receiving that funding. Their organization’s security posture then suffers as a result.
IT environments have always been considered the forefront when it comes to cybersecurity, and OT environments have been the forefront when it comes to physical security. As more and more cyber threats are taking place, and with an increasing number recently focused on OT environments, everyone seems to be concerned with how to upscale and secure their OT estates in terms of cybersecurity.
Due to urbanization, which involves a complex set of economic, demographic, social, cultural, technological, and environmental processes, governments are developing smart cities to address some of the challenges unique to urban areas. This development occurs through the transmission of data using wireless technology and the cloud.
