Defined as critical infrastructure, the oil & gas industry increasingly faces cybersecurity risks as nation-state cybercriminals attempt to undermine other countries. The integration of information technology (IT) systems into operational technologies (OT) creates a unique threat to the oil and gas industry that places both the companies and the public at risk.

Most companies sit in the middle of a supply chain. You provide a service or product to your customers, but you also use third-parties who enable your business operations. To secure data, you need to engage in increasingly stringent due diligence to mitigate supply chain risk.

Compliance with the Health Insurance and Portability Act (HIPAA) initially appears to apply only to the healthcare industry. However, HIPAA also requires healthcare provider business associates to maintain security and privacy controls over protected health information (PHI) and electronic PHI (ePHI). For payer organizations, this requirement means aligning data security protections to HIPAA.

With more colleges and universities incorporating Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms to enable registrars, admissions, and financial aid offices, they are collecting more electronic student information. Couple that with weak networks and systems, and the state of cybersecurity in higher education earns an F. To remain solvent in an era of continued student recidivism, higher education needs to focus more efforts on protecting this information from cybercriminals.

Insurance companies know how to insure their clients’ homes, cars, and businesses, but they may find it difficult to ensure that the information they collect remains secure. While the insurance industry focuses on risk-based analyses for premiums, it needs to focus internally and use those same risk management processes for securing customer information.

Supervisory Control Data Acquisition Systems (SCADA) communicate with industrial control systems (ICS) to provide manufacturers monitoring and analysis in real-time. However, the SCADA systems, established initially in the 1960s, cannot keep pace with the speed at which cybercriminals evolve their threat methodologies. Understanding risk assessment in the manufacturing industry means recognizing the concerns specific to these technologies.

Developing software while maintaining its embedded security can feel like the “Impossible Dream.” As you update your product, you’re potentially adding new vulnerabilities. As part of the risk management process in software engineering, you need to work with cybersecurity professionals throughout the software development life cycle (SDLC) to create a mature security profile.

If you ever purchased a “one-size-fits-all” item of clothing, you know that it’s never really going to fit everyone. Some people are too shirt and others too tall. Most cybersecurity standards and regulatory requirements recognize the same limitations apply to cybersecurity. Multinational corporations have different needs when compared to small and mid-sized organizations.