Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

There are Red Sox, White Sox, and Fox in Socks. At the turn of the century, a new SOX entered our lexicon: The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. This financial regulation was a response to large corporate misdeeds at the time, most notably Enron misleading its board through poor accounting practices and insufficient financial oversight. The regulation seeks to ensure accurate and reliable financial reporting for public companies in the United States.

“It’s okay that you don’t understand.” This comment came after I was frustrated with myself for not being born a genius at math. Usually, when you don’t know a subject or you don’t understand it enough, subject matter experts (i.e. your teachers/professors/mentors/etc) put you down for it. But this time was different because I had a real subject matter expert who cared about the end goal: students educated in math.

Vulnerability management (VM) is an essential process through which organizations can reduce risk in their environments. But myths and misconceptions surrounding VM abound. For instance, organizations commonly approach vulnerability management in the same way as they do patch management. Others are guilty of believing that all attacks rely on vulnerabilities, while others still are under the false impression that all software patches will work without a hitch.

European police have arrested six people as part of an investigation into a theft which saw €24 million (US $27 million) stolen from users of cryptocurrency exchange. In a press release, Europol described how five men and one woman were simultaneously arrested on Tuesday morning at the homes of the suspects in Charlcombe, Lower Weston and Staverton (UK) and Amsterdam and Rotterdam (the Netherlands).

Cybercriminals have learnt something very valuable in the last couple of weeks: in order to regain access to their data, cities in Florida are prepared to pay out huge Bitcoin ransoms to hackers. Less than a week after the city of Riviera Beach, 80 miles from Miami, unanimously voted to pay US $600,000 worth of Bitcoins to an extortionist who had locked their IT systems with ransomware, a second city has come to the same decision.

Defining a data breach can be tough for a lot of organizations. However, since the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, organizations that operate in the EU need to follow regulatory guidelines that can have real business implications if ignored. But when a cyber incident hits your organization, do you know if it needs to be disclosed to the public? How prepared are you to let your customers and authorities know?

In the attacker’s world, all vulnerabilities and potential exploits work toward the hacker’s advantage — not yours, not mine. This includes WordPress hacks. While living back east (over a decade ago), I was friends with several small business owners. One weekend morning, the owner of the local photography studio called me at 7 am and said: “I think I’ve been hacked.” I could hear the soft clicking of a keyboard in the background.

We’ve previously discussed best practices for securing Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, but this time we are going to turn our attention to Google Cloud Platform. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is growing at an impressive 83 percent year over year, but generally receives less focus than AWS and Azure. We can use some of our best practice cloud security knowledge to outline some fundamental steps for keeping Google Cloud Platform secure.

According to CIS, “Organizations that do not scan for vulnerabilities and proactively address discovered flaws face a significant likelihood of having their computer systems compromised.” While vulnerability management (VM) isn’t new, I’ve seen it evolve a lot over my 22 years in the industry. Here are some big trends: The idea of an asset has changed and grown over the years. Back in the ‘90s, it was a PC or a server.

Normally, when you hear about stocks dropping, it’s due to some scandal or crisis. Market watchers will tell you that a range of elements can affect the value of a publicly traded company and cause stock prices to rise or fall. Consumer confidence is a major factor that influences a company’s reputation and perceived value. What does that have to do with data breaches? A lot more than you might think.