Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Cyber-attacks are becoming more sophisticated and devastating, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). With ransom demands rising and the cost of data breaches soaring, businesses are investing heavily in building their cyber defenses. However, cybersecurity is not bullet-proof. Buying a cyber risk insurance program can help outsource residual risk, and deploying multi-factor authentication is a prerequisite not only for getting coverage but also for lowering premiums.

Penetration testing is something that more companies and organizations should be considering a necessary expense. I say this because over the years the cost of data breaches and other forms of malicious intrusions and disruptions are getting costlier. Per IBM Security’s “Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021,” the average cost of a breach has increased 10% year over year, with the healthcare sector having the highest cost breaches for 11 consecutive years.

Compliance is a key part of any organisation and in business terms, it is about ensuring companies of all sizes and their employees comply with existing national and international laws. In the UK the Companies Act 2006 is the main legislation that forms the primary source of company law and businesses of all sizes must ensure they adhere to it to remain compliant.

The most relevant cybersecurity threat to most businesses may be human, not technical. A sudden wave of cybercrime paired with longstanding tech labor challenges has created a cybersecurity skills gap, leaving companies without the expertise they need. Some companies lack dedicated security staff entirely, while others have a small, overworked department trying to manage massive workloads. Companies that hope to stay safe need to address this talent shortage.

The popularity of cloud services has increased exponentially in recent years. The prospects of saving on capital and operational expenditures have been significant driving forces in influencing companies to adopt cloud services. Scalability and elasticity are also key drivers that encourage companies to move to the cloud. However, moving to the cloud comes with a lot of challenges. Security is a big concern for organizations that want to migrate to the cloud.

Over US $43 billion has been lost through Business Email Compromise attacks since 2016, according to data released this week by the FBI. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) issued a public service announcement on May 4 2022, sharing updated statistics on Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks which use a variety of social engineering and phishing techniques to break into accounts and trick companies into transferring large amounts of money into the hands of criminals.

When I joined nCircle as a security researcher in 2006, ASPL 117 had just been released. I missed the ASPL-100 release celebration, which included custom sweatshirts, but there was still one unclaimed shirt in the office and I brought it home, my first piece of company swag. That shirt still hangs in my closet all these years later.

In 2002 I sat in a local bookstore in Jackson Hole, WY that offered a few Internet-connected computers for hourly use. After chatting with the owner and petting the resident store dog, I took a few guesses at the password protecting these computers. It took me maybe 10 attempts. It was, of course, some variation of the dog’s name. While this is a very dated story, it’s this kind of story that still drives many people’s perception of why a strong password is necessary.

It is often stated that security is hard. Whether it is the people, processes, and technology, or any combination of the three, security is a never ending challenge. Conversely, compliance is the opposite. Compliance is relatively straightforward. For too long, and for too many organisations, meeting a compliance standard was seen as a satisfactory way to boast of security. The competing ideologies of security versus compliance have long vexed even the most optimistic cybersecurity professional.

In the past, I’ve written about digital privacy and how much data we leak through our day to day interactions. I think this is an important topic to consider and really focus on and it is an element of cybersecurity at both the enterprise and personal level that isn’t discussed enough.