THE SOCIAL MEDIA SIDE OF INCIDENT RESPONSE... (2014 Edition)

I first wrote on this subject in May 2012 (The social media side of incident response).
Today, it is still my most popular entry on this blog with 5,430 unique views as I write. This means that in any given day since I published it, 6 people somewhere in the world have read that post... I am at once flattered and amazed that some musings derived from the good, bad and ugly of how businesses have tackled crisis communications in the past few years still very much resonate with a lot of you. So here’s the 2014 version...

YOUR PROVIDER IS HACKED, YOU'RE ASSURED OF NO FINANCIAL LOSS. BUT ARE YOU SAFE?...

[UPDATED 20th FEBRUARY 2014] In the aftermath of the Santander and Barclays KVM hacks, @GrahamCluley kindly invited me to post my comments on his blog.
A few weeks on, I have some updates which you may find interesting…

I AM WHO I AM... OR AM I?

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I have spent the last 18 months pondering on the whole sphere of identity and authentication and a number of things have happened:
The analysts continue to tell us that lax password management and policies continue to put individuals and organisations at risk (according to the Trustwave Global Security Report 2013, Welcome1 is the most commonly used password by count - followed closely by STORE123 and Password1 - whereas Password1 is still most widely used when looking at % of unique active directory samples, followed closely by password1 and Welcome1)

A CONSOLIDATED VIEW ON DATA BREACHES IN 2012 - PART 2...

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It seems that many of you found my previous post of interest, so as promised, here’s the second part. But first, let’s all have a look at this 2min 48s video: Security Threats by the Numbers from the Cisco 2013 Annual Security Report. Unsurprisingly, the Trustwave GSR highlights that e-commerce sites were the most targeted asset, accounting for 48% of all investigations...

WILFUL BLINDNESS AND WISHFUL THINKING...

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Yesterday, an article on CBS Money Watch caught my eye: Businesses deluded about threat of cyber attack. The article was a short introduction to a recent survey conducted by Deloitte. And isn’t it spooky that the same old things keep cropping up everywhere?...
Unsurprisingly, the Deloitte report highlights that 88% of the businesses surveyed believe that they are not really at risk. As you would expect, they also identify lack of employee awareness and third party risks as top security vulnerabilities (46% of organisations don’t evaluate the security and privacy practices of vendors before sharing sensitive or confidential information, according to a recent Experian/Ponemon survey. If you’re not already fed up with trend predictions, see earlier blog post for my 2013 predictions.
But for me, these were not the most interesting points of the study...

GAZING AT 2013: THE RIGHT FOCUS AND THE RIGHT LANGUAGE...

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Well, it’s the New Year, and I wish you all the best for a fantastic 2013! I can’t believe my last post was in November! And it’s already the end of January! So I thought I’d get in quickly with my two pennies worth of crystal ball gazing before it becomes unfashionable... What did we learn from 2012? Are there any interesting market trends? How does it affect security? What is the current state of information security and how is it shaping up? Are we getting any better? If any of these questions spark your interest of if you’d just like to see if my Nostradamus impression has something in it, read on...

DON'T ACCEPT SWEETIES FROM STRANGERS...

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[Updated 17th March 2013] Hello everyone! It’s been a long time since I wrote on this blog and I have to say, there have been so many interesting things happening that I haven’t really been able to make my mind up on what to talk about... What spurred me into action was a combination of various industry discussions and security conferences, the fact that lots of us are busily preparing for the festive season (or wishing they were!) and that all the children in my life are SO technically savvy...

THE UNBEARABLE RISKINESS OF BEING... SOCIAL

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[Updated 4th August 2012]
The inevitability of social media in both our private and professional lives is undeniable. With social networks transforming the rules of business engagement, many businesses think the biggest risk of social media is the brand and reputational damage that could result from negative interactions or the potential disclosure of proprietary or sensitive information...

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD (PARTY) KIND...

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Phew... The last month was absolutely hectic, with all those conferences falling within the same short period of time! With all that, I was privileged enough to have been asked to speak at both Internet World and Infosecurity Europe. Two very different experiences... Whilst it is expected to be talking about security at an infosec conference, it is always welcome to be asked to present about security matters at an event with a different focus - in this instance, everything digital... (see my previous post on the subject). It was nevertheless surprising, walking the show floor at Internet World, talking to vendors and poring over the agendas in the various theatres, how little security featured. With everything about the show related to "cyber", not many had made the obvious leap to "cybercrime"... So, on the way to our Devil's Tower, our quest is still to find our curwen hand signs to communicate with the third (party) kind...

UNDERSTANDING CLOUD SECURITY: PART TWO...

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I thank you for your attention on the previous post where we had a look at security considerations for the three main cloud service models commonly referred to as SPI (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS). As promised here’s part two looking at other cloud implementation considerations, namely:

• Cloud deployment model: public vs. private vs community vs hybrid deployments,
• Cloud location: internal vs. external hosting or combined,

UNDERSTANDING CLOUD SECURITY: FINDING THE BOUNDARIES...

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It seems that my previous post on compliance and third parties struck a chord with a few of you... So I guess it’s about time I dedicated some time to “The Cloud” specifically! Over the past couple of years, we have seen a lot of hype and confusion as to what The Cloud really means and what it can do for you. I think we have now reached the stage where there is perhaps a bit of disappointment that The Cloud, due to inflated expectations, is perhaps not a miracle...

EU DATA PROTECTION LAWS – WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?...

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After yesterday’s post on data protection, I thought it would be logical to follow with some info on the EU proposal for new data protection laws...

17 years ago, the EU’s 1995 Data Protection Directive set a milestone in the history of personal data protection, and whilst its principles are still valid, the differences in the way that each EU country implements the law have led to an uneven level of protection for personal data. In addition, the rules were introduced when the Internet was still in its infancy and the digital age has brought with it increasing and sometimes unexpected challenges for data protection. With social networking sites, cloud computing, location-based services and smart cards, we leave digital traces with every move we make. Evidently, we now need a new set of rules that is future-proof and fit for the digital age.