I recently had the fantastic opportunity to participate on a panel discussion concerning cyber security. The event was hosted by the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce and coordinated by the US Chamber of Commerce and the Department of Homeland Security. Last year the Bush administration launched the Comprehensive National Cyber security Initiative or CNCI. Although focused
I recently started writing weekly tech tips for the San Diego Chamber of Commerce. If you are interested in these tips you can find them at http://www.sdchamber-members.org/TechTip.htm. Past tips are archived there as well. Randy Abrams Director of Technical Education
“What hath God wrought?” were the contents of the first ever telegraph message. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/may24.html An ominous message that would seem to reveal that Samuel Morse understood some security implications of technology, except, it was his friend’s young daughter who appears to have suggested the biblical verse. Perhaps “What hath God wrought” would have been a
As a *Fellow of the British Computer Society (is that the sound of a self-blown trumpet I hear?) I get daily emails that I often don’t have time to read. Which is a pity, because when I do, I often find an interesting nugget. Sometimes I even get a paper magazine (remember those?) through the post,
CNN reported that there a new sleeper virus out there. http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/ptech/01/16/virus.downadup/index.html There is nothing sleepy about the Conficker worm, it is wide awake and looking for people who are asleep at the security wheel. CNN reports that Conficker could allow hackers to steal personal and financial data, and they also report that it “it is
One of the security best practices is to back up your data regularly. This is sound advice as it helps mitigate the damages from many different threats. Lots of people think of data loss when they think of viruses, but very few viruses actually tried to cause data loss. There have been a few that
Many people in the US associate HIPAA with the rules required to protect medical data. It actually is a lot more than that, but the HIPAA laws do require some minimal standards for medical providers. I recently came across an example of where HIPAA is ineffective. The medical providers are required to protect your data,
I know, the Twitter hack is old news, but poor passwords are still common. It is a pity because it really is so easy to make a password much better and still be easy to remember. According to the press, an admin used the password “happiness” and that is how a hacker gained access to
Further to my post of 25th December about the withdrawal of the CastleCops services, there’s a blog at Darkreading that includes more information, including some quotes from Paul Laudanski, who was, with his wife Robin, the driving force behind the organization: also quotes from our own Randy Abrams, David Ulevitch of PhishTank, and Garth Bruen
We’re closing in on the end of 2008 and about to start 7D9, or 2009 for those who do not speak hex. I thought it might be a good time to remind you to change your passwords. There are some important things to remember about passwords. Despite the IT policies that are prevalent throughout the
It’s that time of year when everyone wants a top ten: the top ten most stupid remarks made by celebrities, the ten worst-dressed French poodles, the ten most embarrassing political speeches, and so on. Our research team came up with a few rather more serious ideas, most of which are considered at some length in our about-to-be-published
I promised you some more thoughts on the AVAR conference. Randy Abrams and I put together a paper on user education for the conference (it should be up on our White Papers page quite soon) about the argument between the two main camps in security thinking on the topic. You could sum it up as
