(ISC)² Blog

Are You Famous, Dada?: A Dedication of the Americas ISLA Award to Future Generations

By Mano Paul, CSSLP, CISSP, ECSA, AMBCI, MCSD, MCAD, CompTIA Network + On our flight to Austin, back from Orlando, on the 22nd September 2011, our five year old son, Reuben, asked me “Are you famous, dada?” Before I tell you how I answered him, let me first tell you the reason for his question. The previous evening, we were gathered at the Peabody Hotel in Orlando, Florida for the inaugural (ISC)2 Americas Information Security Leadership Awards (ISLA) ceremony. As a finalist in the ISLA practitioner category, my emotions were a roller coaster, as I eagerly awaited the announcement of... Read more →

Keeping Kids Safe and Secure This Holiday Season

By Julie Peeler, (ISC)2 Foundation Director When I was a kid, all I wanted was a 10-speed bike for Christmas. Back then, my bike came with a lock so I could keep it safe forever. Nowadays, kids don’t always want a bike. Instead, they’ve put tablets, smart phones, online gaming systems, and every other electronic gadget around on their long Christmas lists so they can be constantly connected. Their electronic requests come with locks too – in the form of passwords – but like anything else, our cyber-connected world comes with positives and negatives. With that said, as the holiday... Read more →

Security Integration, Risk Management, and Security Congress: Works In Progress

By W. Hord Tipton, CISSP-ISSEP, CAP, CISA, Executive Director, (ISC)² The first annual ASIS and (ISC)² Security Congress event was held in Orlando in September, and for those who attended, it was a major success. Our members made the most of the time with their traditional security counterparts at ASIS, and formally recognized that the physical and logical sides of the enterprise have much in common. In practice, however, the integration of physical and logical security still has a long way to go. That’s one of the things you told us in a survey conducted before the Congress: “Perceptions of... Read more →

Security Not Often a Top Priority for Small Business

I recently found an article that outlined a study about cyber security and small businesses. In the study, by Newtek Business Services’ Small Business Authority, it was discovered that “just 27 percent of small business owners have had an outside party test their computer systems to ensure that they are hacker-proof…” I found this to be a relatively shocking number, but one that is believable in today’s tough economy. It would seem that most small organizations would be watching every penny and often during that type of number crunching, Information Technology and I.T. Security budgets are often the first to... Read more →