Meet Ian Thornton-Trump. He is the Chief Information Security Officer at Cyjax, and an ITIL certified IT professional with 25 years of experience in IT security and information technology. As CISO Cyjax, Ian has deep experience with the threats facing small, medium and enterprise businesses. His research and experience have made him a sought-after cybersecurity consultant specializing in cyber threat intelligence programs for small, medium and enterprise organizations. In his spare time, he teaches cybersecurity and IT business courses for CompTIA as part of their global faculty and is the lead architect for Cyber Titan, Canada's efforts to encourage the next generation of cyber professionals.
Content-centric solutions that evaluate each message based on how likely it is to be bad create a gap through which identity-based email attacks can slip. A zero-trust email security model is vital to closing that gap. Zero-trust may also be characterized as zero-assumption.
For organizations experiencing data breaches, the consequences are considerable, especially for security operations. IBM reports that over 25,000 data records are stolen with the average data breach, and costing the targeted company as much as $8.64M per breach in the United States. And it takes on average a staggering 280 days between identifying and containing a data breach (known as the breach cycle). So why is it so hard to fight this digital war, and why is the breach cycle so long?
Open-source intelligence (OSINT) is having a moment. Just a few years ago, presentations on OSINT began with a quote from one of a few different senior intelligence community officials who reportedly said that somewhere between 80-90% of valuable information comes from public sources. Many presentations today start similarly, but OSINT no longer needs the validation of government greats. Films like Searching and Don’t f**ck with Cats have introduced the discipline to a wider audience, organizations such as Trace Labs host popular OSINT competitions for the common good, and the investigators associated with the website Bellingcat are now media fixtures.
For most of their existence, the focus of elevator improvements has been on cost and efficiency. While those are still important, new technologies are closing the gap in current building security processes by putting the focus on vertical transportation.
In today's ever changing environment, no organization and enterprise is immune from violence. Whether it is a church, movie theater, mall, or healthcare setting the need to plan for an act of violence, including active shooter events, is of paramount importance. And while public safety situational awareness and vigilance is an absolute must in our modern world, much thought has been given to how to develop plans, procedures, training and technology to stop these acts of violence. Here, we talk to Tim Sulzer, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of ZeroEyes, about how physical security technology has evolved over the years to help make a difference in situations involving an active shooter or to reduce workplace and gun violence in various settings.
Machines are better at speed and scale than humans. But humans have the edge over machines at thinking outside of the box, using their curiosity and creativity to come up with solutions, and reasoning that machines cannot define or replicate. When it comes to security operations, humans and automation are the duo that’s stronger and more effective in partnership than when they’re apart. Using extended detection and response (XDR) can bring these skills to the forefront of the Security Operations Center (SOC), leaving the repeatable, boring tasks to the machines and allowing for these human traits to shine.
No matter how much you spend on your security infrastructure, it won’t do a bit of good if the people you employ aren’t using it correctly. For example, you could install the best antivirus in the world, but if an employee falls for a spear-phishing scam and inadvertently gives their password to a hacker, it’s all for nothing. That’s why it’s more critical than ever to have a culture of security.
Basketball can teach us a lot about managing the cybersecurity of an enterprise: it takes teamwork. This is perhaps most evident as organizations seek to adopt zero trust principles. The zero trust concept is not new, but I hear more organizations discussing it than ever before — driven by a desire for greater security, more flexible access, and accelerated by the shift to remote work due to COVID-19. At its core, zero trust focuses on providing least-privilege access to only those users who need it. Put it this way: don't trust anyone and even when you do, only give them what they need right now. This security philosophy would make Jordan proud, but in that vein, zero trust would not work without another player: identity management (perhaps it’s the Pippen factor!).
With cyber resilience, it is the same kind of philosophy: reducing your cyber incident risk and not just relying on one line of defense or one capability you think will be the one that finally stops the bad actors. Looking at the standards for cyber resilience in federal agencies will help businesses understand both the essentials and the additional steps they need to take to fully safeguard their assets.
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