Cloud technology is a powerful tool with unmeasurable potential. Across the globe, companies are harnessing the cloud to propel their business solutions. However, there are always some companies that cannot entirely shift their solutions to the cloud. Thanks to the hybrid cloud model, companies house some of their solutions on their on-premises servers and store the rest of them in the cloud. Most companies have adopted the hybrid cloud model, as it suits both conventional and new-age operations.

Today, I will be going over CIS Control 2 from version 8 of the top 18 CIS Controls – Inventory and Control of Software Assets. Version 7 of CIS Controls had 10 requirements, but in version 8, it’s simplified down to seven safeguards. I will go over those safeguards and offer my thoughts on what I’ve found.

Organizations are under tremendous pressure to deliver innovative products and stick to tight release timelines. To keep up with the rapid release schedule, engineering teams are adopting the DevOps model for its increased efficiency and agility. It has changed the way that development teams think. As a result, continuously improving performance and delivering releases faster have become standard.

Cybercrime is one of the most significant threats facing companies today. With the average cost of a data breach reaching an all-time high of $4.24 million , the business case for cybersecurity has never been stronger. Still, some businesses seem to misunderstand the urgency of meeting current cybersecurity standards. It may help to consider the legal consequences of poor cybersecurity.

Since 2008, the CIS Controls have been through many iterations of refinement and improvement, leading up to what we are presented with today in CIS Controls version 8. CIS Controls reflect the combined knowledge of experts from every part of the ecosystem (companies, governments, and individuals). The controls reflect consideration by people in many different roles such as threat analysts, incident responders, solution providers, policy-makers, and more.

The FBI has published a warning about a ransomware gang called the OnePercent Group, which has been attacking U.S. companies since November 2020.

Information security is an exciting and rapidly growing field for individuals who are interested in protecting users and their data. In an effort to map out the industry as a possible career choice, we recently conducted research into the top 10 infosec jobs based on overall pay grade. We now continue with the second part of our two-part series.

Ransomware is having a bit of a moment. Check Point revealed that ransomware attacks increased 102% globally in H1 2021 compared to the start of the previous year, with the number of corporate ransomware victims having doubled over that same period. Average ransom payments also grew 171% from $115,123 in 2019 to $312,493 a year later. But those weren’t the amounts originally demanded by attackers. Indeed, ransomware actors wanted an average of $847,344 from their victims in 2020.

Threat modeling is increasing in importance as a way to plan security in advance. Instead of merely reacting to threats and incidents, an organization can identify and evaluate its security posture, relevant threats, and gaps in defenses that may allow attacks to succeed. Threat modeling has a two-way relationship with incident response.

IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021 analyzed 537 real breaches and conducted nearly 3,500 interviews to uncover the true cost of a data breach in 2020. The publication covers initial attack vectors, how long it took organizations to discover and contain braces, as well as the effects that incident response efforts and artificial intelligence have on mitigating breach costs.