In the wake of Schrems II, the EDPB’s much-anticipated recommendations provide extensive guidance on supplementary measures parties can use to legally transfer data out of the EEA in the absence of an adequacy decision.
In a flurry of activity last week, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and the European Commission made major announcements affecting cross-border data transfers out of the EEA. First, the EDPB announced the adoption of draft recommendations on measures that supplement cross-border data transfer tools as well as recommendations on the European Essential Guarantees for surveillance measures. The below post will examine the EDPB’s draft recommendations on supplementary measures. The draft new standard contractual clauses will be discussed in a separate post.
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.
Today's cyber environment is one of rapid and constant change. Stepping up in technological savvy, threat actors are using an arsenal of new and sophisticated techniques that make recognizing their attacks harder than ever. There are several thousand products and thousand different threats and risks. Cybersecurity seems as elusive and probably as impossible as the “happiness problem.”
Government can no longer afford to pursue monolithic, exquisite technology solutions. Given rising citizen expectations and the fast-changing technology landscape, state and local governments need to work closely with key stakeholders, including both citizens and IT vendors. This vision – call it “Connected Government” – will drive IT modernization. It’s a relationship-based approach to technology that will help state and local governments meet the immediate challenges of remote work and virtual citizen service, while also helping government IT leaders keep pace with innovation. Given the potential power of a Connected Government approach to IT services, it’s worth taking a deeper dive into how this mode of operation works.
SOAR’s place in the fast-moving security arena has changed, and it is being swallowed up by advanced SIEMs. A new Gartner report sheds light on how the market has shifted and lays bare the paradox of smaller SOC teams, who need automated triage the most but aren’t able to maintain a SOAR.
Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) solutions came on the market around six years ago. The two main objectives of these tools were to orchestrate 3rd party tools for filtering false positive alerts out of the network, and to automatically block attacks. SOAR came on the scene with bold statements to fill in some of the gaps that existed in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms, which have been making security analysts miserable for twenty years now.
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.