Michelle Drolet
10. A hedge against a breach A virtual chief information security officer can serve as security consul or as an interim CISO to fill the gaps during a planned information-technology security policy review. Better to be safe than sorry. 9. High talent at low costs As a temp hire, a vCISO offers flexibility and cost
1 Minute 49 Second Read
Michelle Drolet
Encrypting data on your own might be the smartest move. For those of you old enough to remember the TV comedy series “Get Smart” featuring a spy that used his shoe for a phone, the good guys belonged to an agency called “Control,” and the bad guys were affiliated with “Chaos.” This month “Get Smart”
3 Minute 14 Second Read
Michelle Drolet
Non-compliance is a risk, and the Attorney General’s office carries a big stick for those who don’t follow the rules. If you don’t have a written information security program (WISP) in place for your business, then you could be risking data theft, legal action, and punitive fines. The law in many states now dictates that
3 Minute 55 Second Read
Michelle Drolet
The “Stagefright” hole in Android – what you need to know Provided by Paul Ducklin at Sophos, Inc. The conference circuit can be a competitive arena, especially when there are multiple parallel streams. For example, back in 2010, I was at Black Hat in Las Vegas, and I attended the talk next door to the late Barnaby Jack’s now legendary
5 Minute 22 Second Read
Michelle Drolet
Are you patching quickly enough? How safe is the software you use? Do you have a system in place to identify vulnerabilities and patch them when they are discovered? How quickly do you react to vulnerability reports? There’s evidence that software vulnerabilities are on the rise, and few companies are taking the necessary action to
3 Minute 10 Second Read
Michelle Drolet
Cybersecurity is only as strong as the weakest link. If your organization is using third-party vendors, policing their activity is critical to cybersecurity. Few can forget the theft of 110 million customer credit cards from Target in December 2013. But not as many know how hackers gained access to such a vast amount of sensitive
3 Minute 45 Second Read
Michelle Drolet
Falling victim to a ransomware attack is most definitely inconvenient, but it could also serve as a wake-up call to the importance of backing up important data. You’re minding your own business, sitting at your office computer. Suddenly, a pop-up appears – with the logo of the FBI – warning that you’re under investigation for
4 Minute 26 Second Read
Michelle Drolet
The enterprise is facing a dangerous combination of mounting cybersecurity threats of increasing subtlety, and a widening gap in the skills required to identify and combat them. Having someone that knows how to lead the charge in identifying and analyzing threats, creating strategic security plans and ensuring compliance, requires the right level of expertise. Many
3 Minute 43 Second Read
Michelle Drolet
Cyber risk report cites server misconfigurations as the No. 1 vulnerability. It’s often said, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” And that appears to be the case in the world of cybersecurity where hackers most often exploit known vulnerabilities to gain access to private computer files, according to HP’s 2015 Cyber Risk Report. Maintaining strong computer security,
2 Minute 26 Second Read
Michelle Drolet
The funkily-named bug of the week is GHOST. Its official moniker is the less catchy CVE-2015-0235, and it’s a vulnerability caused by a buffer overflow in a system library that is used in many, if not most, Linux distributions. A buffer overflow is where you assume, for example, that when you handle a four-byte network number written out as
3 Minute 41 Second Read
