A CEO will last 8.4 years in the position, while a CFO clocks in at 6.2 years in average length of tenure. But a look around the boardroom will tell you that longevity isn’t in the cards for overworked, overwhelmed CISOs, with most only spending an average of two years in the role before calling it quits. This trend is no coincidence - CISOs are at the top of the list for burnt out, especially this year, as organizations accelerated digital transformation nearly overnight and employees continue to work remotely.
As we head into the final day before the 2020 election, disinformation on social media continues to make headlines as a means to sway public opinion and to discourage people from voting. For example, swing states have been targeted with evolving disinformation tactics in an attempt to influence what happens in the voting booth, while Black and Latino voters have been flooded with messages aimed to depress turnout by fueling cynicism and distrust in the political process.
Consumers flocked to Amazon to indulge in Prime Day deals and start their holiday shopping early this year – specifically, home office gadgets and home connected devices like smart assistants, tablets, doorbells and more. And overall, retail sales continue to grow to near pre-pandemic levels with electronics a big part of it as consumers stock their home office and arm their kids with devices now needed for virtual school.
But are consumers thinking about their “home cybersecurity?”
Google has announced it will be releasing a new Virtual Private Network (VPN), which will be directly embedded in Google One services. Cybersecurity experts, however, think the service leaves much to be desired.
Risk Based Security released their 2020 Q3 Data Breach QuickView Report, revealing that the number of records exposed has increased to a staggering 36 billion. There were 2,935 publicly reported breaches in the first three quarters of 2020, with the three months of Q3 adding an additional 8.3 billion records to what was already the “worst year on record.”
Cybercriminals are taking notice of the seemingly endless vulnerabilities schools face. Take the explosive ransomware attack on the University of Utah from earlier this summer, or the malware attack on the Rialto school district in California, for example. Even with a rapidly increasing attack surface, schools aren’t exactly able to drain their already-limited funding on transforming their IT infrastructure in the midst of a global pandemic. However, it is possible for schools to reduce risk by understanding where they are most vulnerable, taking the time to educate teachers, parents and students, and adopting certain tools and strategies to prevent targeted attacks on remote learning networks.
The Government Blockchain Association (GBA) announced that the European Commission’s TITANIUM former Project Lead, Dr. Ross King, will be speaking at the Legal, Law Enforcement and Cybersecurity Forum during Government Blockchain Week in May 2021. This weeklong blockchain event will bring together policy makers in government, finance, and law enforcement from around the world to the US Capitol in Washington DC.
The University of West Florida will lead a coalition of 10 institutions designated as National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity in establishing a program to address the critical national shortage of qualified cybersecurity professionals in the U.S. The National Security Agency selected UWF to oversee the program, which will launch in the spring and be funded by a two-year, $6 million grant.
It’s the season of ghouls, ghosts and outrageous costumes. But for CISOs and cybersecurity professionals, a bump in the night on Halloween is more likely to be a notification warning them of data breach than a spooky ghostly visitation. In the COVID-19 era, spookiness-as-a-service providers who rent out costumes or sell party products are likely to have a difficult time as lockdowns and home-working play havoc with businesses focused on in-person interaction. Yet for hackers, the dawn of a socially-distanced new normal has opened up vast numbers of attack vectors and given them new opportunities to target businesses or individuals. So what should you be worried about this Halloween? To help you work out the answer to that question, here are some of the scariest cybersecurity stories and trends of 2020:
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