As we enter the new decade, we stand reminded that technological innovation and cybersecurity threats continue to develop and evolve at an incredible pace. Firms must therefore continue to build the proper defenses to protect consumer confidential data and financial market integrity. Cyber threats have become one of the top threats to the financial services sector and the ability of firms to be resilient in the face of these threats is paramount. 

More companies are doing more business online to survive the pandemic, and that’ll create even more data privacy concerns going forward. At the same time, new privacy regulations have taken hold, most notably the California Consumer Privacy Act. What are 5 steps to achieve compliance?

COVID-19 has impacted every facet of life and business. Millions of people around the world have been working from home to collectively slow the spread of the coronavirus. However, as the global workforce migrates from physical corporate locations to less-secure home offices, this new reality creates increased cyber threats, as employees exchange what can be sensitive data in order to prevent business operations from coming to a standstill.

The old curse has come true: we are “living in interesting times.” None of us could have possibly foreseen the way that 2020 has evolved, least of all, conference professionals. Gartner says it’s taking a $158 million hit in its Q2 revenues; O’Reilly went one huge step further, permanently shuttering its in-person events business. Aside from those gatherings, an entire slew of security meetings has moved into the virtual realm. In-person conferences during the pandemic are seen as being too hazardous and unsafe. It's now better to meet online than to risk spreading the virus.

The best way to prevent scripting attacks, such as those that implement Python back doors or compromise PowerShell, is to implement identity-based zero trust. In a zero trust environment, IT treats the internal network as if it were the public internet, a place where nothing can be trusted, and anything can be a threat.

Companies, sites and venues must re-budget and re-equip their premises that will host human traffic with the reopening of the economies. The vulnerability landscape has changed dramatically where a company or site cannot afford to have an infected person in their location.

On April 30, 2020, a group of four Republican Senators announced their plan to introduce federal privacy legislation that would regulate the collection and use of personal information relating to the fight against the Coronavirus pandemic. How would the proposed bill, COVID-19 Consumer Data Protection Act, attempt to solve privacy concerns? 

The four individuals who were identified and indicted by the Trump Administration in relation to the Equifax breach from 2017 is yet another example of the overt collection efforts by the Chinese government to steal Americans’ sensitive personal information. The openness of the U.S. government to share these examples should help bring the reality of cyber threats to the forefront in corporate board rooms and research universities. I would like to highlight that these particular attacks were conducted for a different goal – espionage.

In the video surveillance world, data is growing rapidly due to the proliferation of surveillance cameras in both public and private spaces, the increased use of police body cameras and dash cams, and ever higher-resolution on all of these. In the U.S. alone, the surveillance marketplace is expected to grow to $68 billion by 2023.