The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is a Department of Defense (DoD) service provider that supplies a global information-sharing architecture for all DoD members "from the President on down." Their cybersecurity measures are among the best in the world.

Each day, it seems that we hear of another healthcare organization being compromised by a cyber attack. It is clear that the healthcare industry is the new favorite target amongst cybercriminals. Fortunately, vigorous efforts are available to combat these threats. We recently spoke to Errol Weiss, Chief Security Officer at Health-ISAC. Errol spearheads the information sharing and analysis center, helping to make the healthcare sector better informed and more resilient.

The IT and OT systems that support not only federal governmental agencies but also national critical infrastructure must be protected, but developing a security strategy effective against threats is no easy feat. It can be difficult to cover all of the necessary areas, given that these systems are “complex and dynamic, technologically diverse, and often geographically dispersed,” according to a report from the United States Government Accountability Agency (GAO).

Security researchers have warned that a new ransomware group has taken an unusual twist on the traditional method of extorting money from its corporate victims.

In Part 1, the existing global regulations around IoT were introduced. In this part, the challenge of complying with these rules is examined.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), enacted by the United States Congress in 2002, is a landmark piece of legislation that aims to improve transparency, accountability, and integrity in financial reporting and corporate governance. The act was a response to high-profile corporate scandals, such as those involving Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco International, which shook investor confidence and underscored the need for regulatory reforms to prevent corporate fraud and protect investor interests.

Contrary to what one might expect, creating a File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) system is pretty easy. Practically anyone with a modicum of Python, Perl, or development skills can write an app or script to gather a file's checksum, compare it to a list or baseline, and tell you whether or not said file has changed. But creating a good FIM solution is hard. Many inadequate checkbox File Integrity Monitoring solutions are on the market because while detecting change is easy, reconciling it is not.

Cybersecurity frameworks are blueprints for security programs. Typically developed by governmental organizations, industry groups, or international bodies, they take the guesswork out of developing defense strategies, providing organizations with standards, guidelines, and best practices to help them manage and reduce their cybersecurity risks.

Containerization has revolutionized application development, deployment, and management – and for good reason. The ability to automatically wrap an application and its dependencies into a single, easily deployable package helps developers focus on what they do best: writing code.

There's some possibly good news on the ransomware front. Companies are becoming more resilient to attacks, and the ransom payments extorted from businesses by hackers are on a downward trend. That's one of the findings of insurance broker Marsh, which conducted an analysis of the more than 1800 cyber claims it received during 2023 from its clients in the United States and Canada. According to Marsh, ransomware attacks were linked to less than 20% of all claims made to the firm during the last year.