It’s all too common to see “fear appeals” used to motivate users to keep their guards up against the vast amount of cybercriminal activity that occurs online daily. The term FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) was originally coined in the 1970s in reference to IBM’s marketing technique of spreading scary rumors about a competitor’s new product. Ever since, it’s been a mainstay used by security practitioners to try to win budget and to scare employees into following the rules laid down by IT. As cybersecurity research Karen Renaud put it in a recent Wall Street Journal piece, “Companies often turn to a powerful emotion to get employees to be vigilant about cybersecurity. They scare them.”
The education space has become a major target for cybercriminals. In fact, CISA and the FBI recently issued a joint statement warning K-12 schools of worsening dangers in 2021 after a recent 57% spike ransomware attacks in the sector. So, how can teachers and students stay safe? Here, we speak with Kelvin Coleman, Executive Director, National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) about how educators and K-12 cybersecurity leaders can better protect students’ privacy during distance learning sessions.
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center has released its annual report. The 2020 Internet Crime Report includes information from 791,790 complaints of suspected internet crime—an increase of more than 300,000 complaints from 2019—and reported losses exceeding $4.2 billion. State-specific statistics have also been released and can be found within the 2020 Internet Crime Report and in the accompanying 2020 State Reports.
Security teams need an ally that can help them make meaningful progress, no matter where they are in their maturity. In other words, you need vendors who support your mission—an Alfred Pennyworth to your Batman, if you will. While your organization is out serving society, you need to have someone watching your back, making sure operations run like clockwork.
Meet Kevin Bocek, who is responsible for security strategy and threat intelligence at Venafi. He brings more than 16 years of experience in IT security with leading security and privacy leaders, including RSA Security, Thales, PGP Corporation, IronKey, CipherCloud, NCipher, and Xcert. Most recently, Bocek led the investigation that identified Secretary Hillary Clinton’s email server did not use digital certificates and encryption for the first three months of term. Here, we talk to Bocek about a topic he is passionate about: machine identity management.
Videoconferencing has been around for a surprisingly long time. In fact, the first call involving both audio and video links has been traced all the way back to 1927 in a call that took place between officials in Washington, DC and the president of AT&T in New York. Although it was laughably primitive by current standards, electronic conferencing technology has never stopped growing in either refinement or use.
It comes as no surprise that the number of deaths attributed to gun violence in 2020 far surpassed years prior and the trend is now continuing into 2021. Gun violence has been weighing heavily on law enforcement officials, especially after the recent riots and presidential inauguration threats. Organizations, institutions, government agencies, and public venues have the responsibility to take a more proactive approach in protecting their people. Now is the time for serious conversations around upgrading and modernizing security technologies.
Video conferencing platforms have become an essential communication tool over the past year. In addition to increasing team collaboration, video conferencing can help prevent miscommunication among teams, increase engagement, and allow for face-to-face communication to help build relationships among teams, particularly for remote teams. Though the benefits are many, there are growing concerns about the security shortcomings of video conferencing, according to George Waller, EVP and Co-Founder of StrikeForce Technologies. To get more insight on this topic, we spoke to Waller about key challenges with securing video conferencing platforms, as well as why these services are so susceptible to hacking.
You can’t effectively create a risk program if you don’t have a full picture of just how large the risks are for your organization. “You can’t secure what you can’t see” so to speak. Risks don’t necessarily arise from lack of technology – oftentimes they are hidden in faulty business practices. We are well beyond the days of IT and security being segmented off in their own little world away from the business.
Although small businesses may not have the financial resources of larger enterprises, they do possess a trove of business and customer information that can net attackers a tidy profit either via ransomware or sale on the dark web. Understanding today’s threats—and how to defend against them—has grown increasingly critical for small businesses. Here are a few of the most common attack vectors that they should be prepared to face.
RSS
