Let’s Salute Women in Technology and Grow the Workforce of the Future

This past Friday, I had the opportunity to attend and deliver a plenary speech at the Cyber Trainsitions Conference hosted by the University of Central Florida at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. My topic was “Integrating Women and Underrepresented Communities into the Cyber Workforce.” After discussing the contributions women and underrepresented groups have made to computer programming, we transitioned to a robust discussion over various initiatives to improve the number of women and minorities pursuing STEM education and careers.  Here are a few highlights: Primary and Secondary STEM […]

by Patricia Frost
Contributing Editor

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The Cyber Skim: Top Monthly Articles for November 2019

Security pros explain Black Friday best practices for consumers and businesses – TechRepublic Consumers have to make sure not to fall prey to fraudulent coupons or deceptively spoofed retailer websites. Strong Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales crush fears of retail apocalypse but not cyber security concerns. The holiday shopping season is off to a record breaking start but analysts are reminding consumers to play it safe online.  Editor’s note: Practicing good cyber hygiene year-round is a must, but an interesting tidbit to note from this article is that credit […]

by Dawn Dunkerley
Contributing Editor

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Keeping up or getting ahead?

Improving an organization’s cyber posture – i.e. continuously generating increased security at the lowest possible cost – requires that effective continuous improvement disciplines be ‘wired’ into the operating cadence of the business.  Building a cybersecurity program that continuously improves and keeps up with the changing threat landscape shares many of the core features of continuous improvement applied to other aspects of the business.  See what is possible – this is more relevant in today’s digital world where new vulnerabilities are being created and new threats are emerging every day. To determine […]

by Joseph Socolof
Contributing Editor

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The Cyber Skim: Top Monthly Articles for October 2019, Part 2

Is AWS Liable in Capital One Breach? – Threatpost Senators penned a letter to the FTC urging it to investigate whether Amazon is to blame for the massive Capital One data breach disclosed earlier this year. Amazon is at least partly to blame for the massive 2019 Capital One breach that impacted more than 100 million customers, senators are alleging.   Editor’s note: This particular quote should bring pause to anyone who hands over their cyber security responsibility and visibility to a cloud provider – “Amazon knew, or should have known, that AWS was vulnerable to […]

by Dawn Dunkerley
Contributing Editor

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“Wire” Cyber in from the Start

Manufacturing Engineer: “You want me to patch what? How often? Yeah, right…I can’t take these systems offline for even a minute, those patches are going to have to wait until our next planned shut in the spring…” Cybersecurity Manager: “Was that system that was breached compliant with our internal cyber specification?” Process Engineer: “What specification?” Plant GM: “Did the new remote sensing ecosystem project get approved for my plant?” VP of Ops: “Yes! Install starts tomorrow.” CISO: “Who signed off on it from Cybersecurity?” ALL: Silence…. Just about every one […]

by Bret Bergman
Contributing Editor

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Cybersecurity Awareness Month – Top 10 Personal Cyber Hygiene Tips

It is cybersecurity awareness month and although we highlight cybersecurity this time of year, the top 10 tips for your individual security should be a daily cyber hygiene must for every one of us. Thought I would take the time to share with you what I tell my clients when asked:  1. Keep Your Software Up to Date & Use your Device Securely One of the most important cybersecurity tips to mitigate ransomware or other cyber intrusions is patching outdated software, both operating system and applications. This helps remove critical […]

by Patricia Frost
Contributing Editor

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Did you just digitize yourself into astronomical risk?

Recently I was walking through a major US Airport and saw an advertisement for a multi-billion-dollar Management Consulting firm. It simply said: “Get digital or get left behind”. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the fear-selling clearly targeted at division managers and road warriors and think of all the urgency surrounding the need to revolutionize one’s business or be eviscerated in the marketplace. Let me get this out front before I’m accused of a luddite who is only interested in human behavior: digitization is a great thing on balance! Ok, […]

by Richard Berkley
Contributing Editor

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The Cyber Skim: Top Monthly Articles for October 2019

ANU cyber attack: How hackers got inside Australia’s top uni – Illawarra Mercury It’s been compared to Ocean’s Eleven – a cyber attack on Australia’s top university, methodically planned and then adapted on the fly by an “A team” of hackers who cracked into the personal records of 200,000 students and staff and walked away leaving virtually no trace.   Editors note: Cyber attacks are a global issue. This story indicates that universities – no matter where they reside – are at risk, and that an ounce of prevention is worth […]

by Dawn Dunkerley
Contributing Editor

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What does good even look like?

Building a cyber program starts with knowing what good looks like. It is not some vague description, but rather the hard targets to which we will manage day-to-day and aspire in the longer term. Yes, it is hard to measure risk. No, that does not mean you shouldn’t try. Defining cyber security metrics and targets is no different than defining operational metrics and targets. Everybody knows the ‘what’: Define what matters – often this is defined as ‘knowing your critical assets’. In our view, this is inadequate. What matters is […]

by Joseph Socolof
Contributing Editor

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The Cyber Skim: Monthly Top Cyber Articles for September 2019

No Quick Fix for Security-Worker Shortfall – Dark Reading Security professionals see acquiring skills as the way forward, but only half of companies are training their workers, with more continuing to search for highly-skilled employees. Editor’s note: Recruiting is only part of the battle; it’s still critical that you train and look for incentives to retain your cyber security professionals. Often the incentive can be quality training itself, conferences, even just simple appreciation for the work they’re doing. Invest in your high-performing personnel, and your program will flourish. READ MORE […]

by Dawn Dunkerley
Contributing Editor

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The Sky is Falling…

“The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!” goes the famous line by Chicken Little (or Henny Penny for you Europeans reading this).  People in the cyber community have been accused of being “Chicken Littles” for predicting that cyber adversaries are going to bring down economies, if not our very way of life itself.  As a member of that community, I will readily admit the message can be overblown at times and even used as a classic FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) sales technique in others. This does a great disservice to the real risk […]

by Bret Bergman
Contributing Editor

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Blind Spots: The Consequences of Ignoring Industrial Assets When Developing a Cyber Strategy

We all have blind spots… I recently had the opportunity to spend an evening talking to a reporter about the cybersecurity vulnerabilities in operational technologies found in heavy industries. We started our discussion with the general questions about “how safe are we” which quickly moved into the quality discussion that everyone should be having on “how prepared are we”. We had a lively talk about “when” not “if” a breach happens and how quickly a heavy industrial company can respond and continue to function.  Operational impacts for a specific period of […]

by Patricia Frost
Contributing Editor

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The Cyber Skim: Monthly Top Cyber Articles for August 2019

We Asked Def Con Attendees Why People Are Still Getting HackedThis year’s Def Con—the world’s biggest hacking conference—was more sprawling than ever. Held annually in Las Vegas, the conference has grown over the last 27 years from a small gathering of hackers huddled into the Alexis Park hotel to a nearly 30,000-person swarm spread across multiple hotels on the Strip.  Editor’s note: Interesting insight from leading security experts; overwhelmingly they point to human failures as the root cause of vulnerability.  READ MORE Breached Passwords Still in Use By Hundreds of […]

by Dawn Dunkerley
Contributing Editor

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How connected am I?

I have a daughter who is four years old and super into anatomy. We often sing that old tune; “the knee bone’s connected to the femur, the femur’s connected to the hip bone…” sorry for planting that tune in your head for the rest of the day but it serves a point, I swear… For those who have read even the shortest snippets of cyber news blurbs, you have come across the term: “moving laterally”. For those American Football fans out there, it doesn’t mean what you think it means. […]

by Richard Berkley
Contributing Editor

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Examining the Human: What’s in Your Organization?

The recent Capital One breach has highlighted a painful fact that many within the cybersecurity community continue to ignore: the human factor must not only be considered, but also actively accounted for in order to attempt to get ahead of human threats, both inadvertent and malevolent. As we understand it currently, a trusted insider within Capital One’s hosting service leaked millions of pieces of customer data to the larger public. Technical misconfigurations are currently believed to be in play, but the larger motives for why the insider would have released […]

by Dawn Dunkerley
Contributing Editor

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Crossing the Great Divide

Cybersecurity highlights one of the biggest corporate communication challenges of our time – bridging the gap between business and technical leaders.  I call this the great divide.  As OT/IIoT becomes pervasive, cybersecurity (“cyber”) is increasingly being recognized as the business risk it truly represents, especially for industrial companies who are just now fully arriving at the cyber party.  With the proliferation of IIoT, predictive analytics and autonomous vehicles, the divide is becoming more acute and can materially impact the bottom line. As someone who has spent more than 30 years in business and […]

by Bret Bergman
Contributing Editor

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Old Habits Die Hard – Time to Clean up Your Cyber Hygiene

I am writing this blog from where I find myself spending the majority of my daily quiet reflection time which, unfortunately is not sipping a margarita (for those who know me well) and watching the sunset, but rather is from a cramped airline seat of the friendly skies. For every trip through the airport and flight I have taken, I am amazed and horrified at the lack of privacy protection and cybersecurity that is exhibited by the majority of travelers.  The lack of cyber hygiene grows exponentially during the summer months […]

by Patricia Frost
Contributing Editor

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The Cyber Skim: Monthly Top Cyber Articles for July 2019

We’re only halfway through July, and it’s already been an expensive month!  UK privacy watchdog threatens British Airways with 747-sized fine for massive personal data blurt by John Oates The fine is roughly the cost of a 747 in the BA fleet, according to The Register, which also noted that BA was in the process of considering outsourcing their cybersecurity function at the time of the breach (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/07/ba_security_outsurcing_consultation_memo/), with this thought-provoking quote from “an infosec expert with experience in the aviation industry who told El Reg, ‘You don’t outsource something that is working […]

by Dawn Dunkerley
Contributing Editor

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Do You Trust Your Counterparty?

Do you trust your counterparty? What about ALL THE COUNTERPARTIES? Full disclosure, I bought my first car from a huckster used car salesman in the Bronx NY. His smile was perfect, his form straight out of central casting. The car? A “lightly used” Subaru Forrester. Really, what could I have to worry about? Subarus are known to be reliable. 12,000 miles from one owner hardly seemed used at all. It drove like a dream, and it looked great. As I pulled out of the lot, I was sure we made […]

by Richard Berkley
Contributing Editor

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Wired for Cyber Resilience

Not original, but true: ‘you are only as strong as your weakest link.’  For cyber security, that weak link usually manifests itself in the people within your organization.  Over 90% of cyber breaches are a result of some form of human error.  Malicious individuals prey on human weaknesses and gaps in corporate culture.  We have found that most of these flaws can be categorized as the result of gaps in policy compliance or routine adherence. Most organizations have policies, unfortunately, often these same organizations often fail to ensure these policies […]

by Joseph Socolof
Contributing Editor

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