(ISC)² Blog

Infosecurity Europe 2023 Preview – Our Pick of the Keynote Sessions

In the first of two previews of Infosecurity Europe 2023, we look at our top picks for unmissable keynote sessions across the three days of the conference, held at ExCel in London from June 20-22. By John E. Dunn As the pivotal cybersecurity conference in the region, every Infosecurity Europe conference is oriented to topical themes. This year is no exception, with the speaker lineup covering everything from the on-going anxiety of cyberwar, how zero trust can be made to work once it leaves the drawing board, and the never-ending puzzle of assessing supply chain risk. The following is our... Read more →

Latest Cyberthreats and Advisories - January 13, 2023

Cybercriminals attack schools, the FCC looks to change data breach rules and artificial intelligence alters the cybersecurity landscape. Here are the latest threats and advisories for the week of January 13, 2023. Threat Advisories and Alerts How Businesses Can Securely Use MSP Services Managed Service Providers (MSPs) offer a popular and effective way for businesses to outsource their IT. While an MSP’s service can bring productivity gains and cost savings, they can also pose an added security risk. After all, an MSP customer will typically provide the MSP with administrative access to their data, increasing their attack surface. To stay... Read more →

What's Next for Cybersecurity in 2022?

What does next year have in store for the cybersecurity industry? The “Top Five Cybersecurity Predictions for 2022” webinar presented by Steve Piper, CISSP, Founder & CEO of CyberEdge overdelivers and gives us TEN predictions for the coming year. The webinar, moderated by Brandon Dunlap, Leadership Partner, Security & Risk Management at Gartner, opens by covering the good, bad and ugly of 2021 and then moves to an engaging cybersecurity forecast for 2022. In the presentation, Steve mentions his regret in limiting the title to just five predictions, and expands upon the list by adding five honorable mentions. Top Five... Read more →

#ISC2CONGRESS - Lisa Forte Keynote: Insider Threats A Bigger Challenge Than Ever

In one of the most sobering presentations about the current state of security delivered during (ISC)² Security Congress 2021, security expert Lisa Forte said no matter how many protective measures an organization takes, it can never achieve zero risk. Insider threats are always a possibility. Forte, co-founder of Red Goat Cyber Security, used her keynote speech on the third and final day of Security Congress to drive home the point that insider threats have gotten harder to identify. Not only does technology make it easier to steal data, bad actors also can manipulate insiders into becoming unwitting spies. And that’s... Read more →

Exceptions to Security Policy - What are they and how to deal with them?

By Yuri Braz, CISSP, CRISC, PMP Information Security, or cybersecurity, has become more relevant every day. One of the main reasons is because information has become the main asset of most companies. Thus, this information needs to be safeguarded or companies would not be able to create value for society and its shareholders. Large institutes, such as (ISC)², help to develop and democratize the information security field, so that today the majority of medium and large companies have an information security policy. An infosec policy is the first step towards risk governance, essential for the practice of due care and... Read more →

Security Predictions for 2021 from the (ISC)² Community of Security Professionals (PART 1)

By Diana-Lynn Contesti, CISSP-ISSAP, ISSMP, CSSLP, SSCP, John Martin, CISSP-ISSAP, and Richard Nealon, CISSP-ISSMP, CISSP, SSCP, SCF, CISM, CISA 2020 was a year of change. It changed the way that folks work and how they interact with each other. Wondering what 2021 might look like for information security professionals? This is the first in a series of posts where we will discuss what we believe 2021 may have in store for information security professionals. Some of the issues faced by security professionals in 2021/2022 will include (but are not limited to) the evolving landscape of privacy, and the ongoing necessity... Read more →

The Human Element of Zero Trust

One weak link in a chain is all that’s needed to topple a cyberdefense. Sometimes this comes down to an errant line of code in a hastily developed API, inadequate penetration testing, or old, unpatched, exploitable code hidden deep within a legacy system. But more often than not, it’s because of the actions of an individual – a single person who clicks on a malware payload within a phishing email, or who allows someone to physically access a workplace unchallenged, or whose work-from-home office features a Wi-Fi router that was never properly secured. Effective cybersecurity demands a zero trust platform.... Read more →

The First Line of Defense: Are Humans Doing a Good Enough Job?

As published in the March/April 2020 edition of InfoSecurity Professional Magazine By Crystal Bedell Humans have long been touted as the weakest link in security. But in many ways that axiom oversimplifies the issue of the human element and makes end users collectively the bad guy when, for the most part, they’re only trying to do their jobs. Understanding why humans behave the way they do, and allowing them to inform a security strategy, can strengthen the human element so that people aren’t the weakest link but a helpful component of your security arsenal. “We put people in front of... Read more →

CEOs: Cybersecurity Will Be a Major Challenge in the Coming Decade

Cybersecurity concerns remain top of mind for global CEOs as they weigh the challenges their organizations will face in the next five to 10 years. A new report by global management consultancy EY reveals that cybersecurity tops the list of concerns for CEOs, along with income inequality and job loss caused by technology advances. The findings in EY’s 2019 CEO Imperative Study confirm earlier research showing that chief executives view cybersecurity threats as one of their most daunting challenges. Adding to the problem, the EY study reveals that CEOs lack confidence in the C-suite’s ability to address these challenges. Only... Read more →

A Growing Nuisance: How to Fend Off Bad Bots

Bad bots make up more than one third of internet traffic, and although some of them try to influence elections and feed conflict on social media, most are targeting business websites, according to a newly published report. Set loose across the internet, armies of bad bots constantly carry out a multitude of misdeeds against businesses in just about every industry. Their activities include scraping prices by competitors looking to gain an upper hand in price SEO searches, stealing proprietary content, taking over accounts with stolen credentials, perpetrating credit card fraud, skimming money from gift card accounts and executing DDoS (distributed... Read more →

Associate of (ISC)²: Thien Phan

Name: Thien Phan (ISC)² Exams Passed: CISSP and CCSP Title: Cybersecurity, Privacy and IT Risk Associate Employer: PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Location: New York City, NY, U.S.A. Education: MBA degree and Bachelor’s Degree in Management Information Systems (MIS) from Binghamton University Years in IT: 1 year Years in cybersecurity: 1 year Cybersecurity certifications: Security+, CCNA Cyber Ops How did you decide upon a career in cybersecurity? It was back in my third year of college when I interned for a multimedia company as a database administrator. I did not know much about how different technologies worked together. I was introduced to the... Read more →

(ISC)² Secure Summit UK Insights: The Future Impact of AI in Cybercrime

(ISC)²’s two-day Secure Summits bring multi-subject sessions from hands on practical workshops to keynotes and panel discussions, featuring local and international industry experts to maximise the learning experience and CPE opportunities. Serving the entire (ISC)² EMEA professional community with regional events, the Summits offer a wealth of educational value, networking opportunities, and a community forum for like-minded professionals, all of which are FREE to (ISC)² members & (ISC)² Chapter members. Read on for insights from one of our popular Secure Summit UK sessions... You’re the CEO of an international oil and gas company. Business risk and risk management planning is... Read more →

ISO 27001 – Between the Reality and the Myth

By Tony Chebli, Senior Manager, Information Security Department/Risk Management Division, Credit Libanais S.A.L Tony will be hosting the session ISO 27001 Between the Reality and the Myth at (ISC)² Secure Summit MENA in Dubai on the 21st and 22nd November 2017. It seems like yesterday, but actually it has been over 13 years, since I obtained my ISO 27001 Lead Auditor certification and started travelling from country to country around the Middle East, preaching the benefits of ISO 27001 certification and its importance to companies that are looking to secure their information assets. I admit it was (and still is)... Read more →

Top 10 (ISC)² Webcasts of 2017

(ISC)² webcasts are a great source for insight into all areas of security. From the Internet of Things to malware and compliance, the topics vary. Here are the top 10 (ISC)² webcasts for 2017 so far as ranked by cybersecurity professionals: Part 1: Future of SIEM - Why Static Correlation Fails Insider Threat Detection Hackers stealing credentials and operating in your corporate network…disgruntled employees collecting customer lists and design materials for a competitor...malware sending identity information back to random domains…these common threats have been with us for years and are only getting worse. Most organizations have invested large amounts in... Read more →

Security Headlines: Payouts and Panic

WannaCry and NotPetya aftermath means payouts and panic. Here are the top security headlines for the week of August 7, 2017: Big money, no whammies! It seems like the hackers behind WannaCry have cashed out their bitcoin into Monero, a harder to track cryptocurrency. Mo money means mo malware. The success – can we call it that? – of WannaCry and NotPetya means ransomware is not going away any time soon, because… well, people and businesses pay the ransom. What’s that definition of insanity? Oh yeah, doing the same thing and expecting a different result… Tripwire research indicates that two-thirds... Read more →

CISSP Spotlight: Paul-Arnaud Wernert

Name: Paul-Arnaud Wernert Title: Senior Manager, Cyber Risk & Security Employer: Beijaflore Location: Paris, France Years in IT: 13 Years in cybersecurity: 13 Cybersecurity certifications: CISSP How did you decide upon a career in cybersecurity? I started to be interested in cybersecurity during my engineering studies. I led a team of students to perform an organizational and technical security audit of the network of a French public company. This was the first experience for me to understand one context, identify its threats and assess associated risks, then explain to the management these risks and the way to mitigate them. After... Read more →

Cloud Security - Where to Begin?

[Translated from Spanish] The use of tools in the cloud and hybrid cloud have reduced business costs and stimulated unprecedented growth in adoption rates worldwide. Several studies show that the cloud is here to stay; which makes it important to analyze the most efficient ways to control and reduce risks, such as threats of invasion, attacks, leakage of sensitive information and unavailability of services. Cloud security is one of the main concerns of IT managers. In addition, the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) reveals that only 16 percent of organizations have fully implemented policies and controls around using the cloud. The... Read more →

The Accidental Security Threat: Insiders

Insider threats can be malicious; but more commonly, they are accidental. The weakest point in any security program is people. They can have ill intent, they can also be manipulated or exploited, and they can simply make a mistake and email a spreadsheet full of client information to the wrong email address. These types of incidents are real and happen every day. They can lead to disastrous results on par with any major external cyberattack. Traditionally, these threats are overlooked by most businesses as they are more concerned with the unknown malicious actor than the known staff member or business... Read more →

Making the users accountable

We all know that information security relays on a layered approach. It´s about people, process/programs and technology. And we all know about Advanced Persistent Threats. How they work, attack vectors, etc. And even so, more and more companies are attacked by each day. I just want to highlight two incidents that are critical on my opinion and will act as the basis of my argumentation. One of the incidents happened to Coca-Cola. They were attacked by hackers on 2009 and the effect of this was the collapse of one giant company acquisition that Coca-Cola was negotiating in China. What is... Read more →

Bullet-proofing messengers

OPINION: A troubling article in Forbes raises concerns about how society takes care of those who raise legitimate, well-founded concerns about their employers. Aside from the specific legal decision in this particular case, there is a wider issue about protecting whistleblowers from retribution. If a whistleblowing employee makes allegations of serious impropriety by his employer, and those allegations are upheld, is it reasonable for him/her to insist on remaining employed by the organization? A few enlightened managements might swallow their pride and allow the whistleblowing employee to carry on normally in employment but I strongly suspect that in most cases... Read more →