L et’s start with this: Global research shows over half of organisations have had a data breach, and 62% suffer from unplanned downtime on a monthly basis. The recent research figures are a stark reminder of the prevalence and current nature of security threats. It may not come as a surprise to those who follow the constant stream of media reports detailing mistakes and malicious attacks.

Imparting your data to an organization, whether you are a private individual or another organization yourself, requires an incredible amount of trust. How can you be sure that they will handle your sensitive information properly? For specific industries, stringent standards and regulations are in place to ensure cybersecurity. For example, HIPAA for healthcare and PCI DSS for payment card processing companies reassure customers and companies that data is protected.

Today, we are happy to announce that version 2.2 of the OT Security Add-On for Splunk is now available on Splunkbase. This update adds capabilities based on industry best practices and customer feedback and is designed to help companies mature in their OT security journey.

The rumors are true: it can get lonely at the top. As a CISO, I have many teams below me, a board of directors to keep happy and an organization to protect. This is nothing new, and at this stage of my career, I’ve become familiar with the many challenges — and even greater rewards — that go hand in hand with leading. Of course, it helps that I’ve been managing from the jump.

A vulnerability is any flaw or weakness within the technology system that cybercriminals can exploit to gain unauthorized access to a network, information assets and software applications. For any organization today, there are plenty of vulnerabilities. Knowing where and how vulnerabilities can exist, you can start to get ahead of them. So, let’s look at the 5 most important types of vulnerabilities.

ISO/IEC 27001 is the international standard on information security. It was established by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) to stipulate the framework for implementing Information Security Management Systems (ISMS) in an organized and risk-effective way. For this article, we’ll mostly refer to ISO 27001, but know that we’re referring to both ISO/IEC 27001. Got it? Let’s begin!

Data security is a major concern for almost everyone. From organizations to individuals, most of us who use or supply cloud-based services want to ensure that our information stays confidential and accessible. However, these concerns are amplified to national security when government data is the subject. That’s why the U.S.government has a stringent set of security requirements known as FedRAMP®. All cloud vendors that provide services to federal agencies must comply with these standards.

What do cybercriminals do with the information they obtain during a data breach? Most of the time, it results in credential stuffing. Credential stuffing is a cyberattack where criminals systematically use stolen data to test usernames and passwords across multiple online platforms. Bad actors gain access to these accounts for financial gain, identity theft and other malicious purposes.

Cloud security incidents are skyrocketing. In fact, nearly half (45%) of all security incidents target cloud-based services. Another angle: 80% of business organizations experienced at least one cloud security breach incident last year. (Arguably the worst part here is that, when a system is breached, the average dwell time is 9 weeks.) Still, over 72% of businesses plan to continue investing in the cloud. So how do you make cloud computing a secure environment for sensitive business information?