Generally, the chief information security officer (CISO) is thought of as the top executive responsible for information security within organizations. However, in today’s remote work environment, the need to expand security beyond one department or the responsibilities of CISOs is more important than ever. Due to the pandemic, the physical barriers of the office have been removed and the threat surface has exponentially expanded leaving more endpoints to be attacked. In this scenario, each employee’s home office has become a new potential risk, which is why building a strong security culture within organizations should be a priority.
As increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks continue to target healthcare’s essential systems - including networks, IoT medical instruments, and mobile devices - the need for advanced security protections continues to grow. Healthcare leaders are beginning to embrace the truth: cybersecurity is now an indispensable part of patient care.
Yet even as this move toward secure connected technologies expands, a favorite target of malicious actors continues to be the healthcare organization’s website - especially if the site is powered by WordPress.
Budget bandwidth is often a strong contention point for businesses. And even with the increase in cybercrime threats, some firms still struggle to allocate proper budget allowances to meet security and regulatory requirements. According to a recent report by Accenture, organizations face on average 22 legitimate security breaches each year and the average cost of a single cyberattack is $380,000.
As institutions of higher education reel from recent cyberattacks in the United Kingdom, IT departments work tirelessly to secure sensitive student data. Student records offer a wealth of personally identifiable information (PII) from birth dates and social security numbers to bank account numbers and home addresses. In parallel, a study released by EDUCAUSE in July 2020 notes that the CIO’s Commitment on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) reports that 83.1% of respondents strongly agree that “diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace environments foster more effective and creative teams of technology professionals.” Although at first glance, these two issues appear unrelated, bringing diverse voices to the cybersecurity table may provide a way through, rather than around, the current security struggles facing remote learning models in higher education.
The following outlines three steps the C-suite and other executive team members should take to prevent and survive a data breach. But first, it’s imperative all involved heed this initial piece of advice when planning cybersecurity; treat breaches not as a possibility, but as something that is going to happen.
The need for improved security for remote workers requires more resources; however, the ongoing economic conditions often require lowering costs. A Microsoft survey found most leaders increased budgets for security and compliance (58 and 65% noting an increase), while 81% of respondents also reported pressure to lower security costs overall. IT is therefore tasked with protecting their company’s networks from the remote work-related threats while operating with leaner budgets. Doing this effectively will require multiple strategies to make sure your network is secure with the shift to remote work. Here are three examples on how broader security can be achieved.
Building security and privacy into product development is more critical today than ever before. First introduced through the Microsoft Trustworthy Computing initiative in the early 2000s, the well-known security development lifecycle (SDL) is a framework designed to do just that. It was originally devised to enhance software security, but an SDL process can and should be applied to all types of products to help root out security and privacy vulnerabilities, while establishing long-term resilience in the rapidly evolving threat landscape.
Social engineering is a term that refers to efforts by hackers and cybercriminals to use people — rather than technology — to gain access to sensitive systems and information. It’s a problem that information security experts have been wrestling with for years and one that, in the midst of COVID-19, has become both more prevalent and more challenging.
Meet Stephanie Benoit-Kurtz, lead of cybersecurity faculty at the University of Phoenix – Las Vegas. She is also director of cybersecurity for Station Casinos in Las Vegas. She has spent three decades in the IT industry, working for a variety of large and small organizations and as a consultant. In the early days of her career, despite being part of the team responsible for implementing decisions at the IT company where she was employed, she “was routinely left out of the decision-making process. Here, we talk to Benoit-Kurtz about how the cybersecurity space has changed over time, and how the industry can embrace more individuals to meet demand and close the cybersecurity gap.
Building a cyber-resilient enterprise informed by threat intelligence is not an easy task. Risks and requirements are often as unique and diverse as organizations themselves. Determining factors like industry, size, and market contribute to one simple truth: a one-size-fits-all approach to incorporating threat intelligence does not exist. Some invariants, however, do remain; successful threat intelligence programs must staff the right people in the right positions. Below, I’ll introduce four core threat intelligence focuses to consider as businesses plan and allocate budgets for 2021:
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