(ISC)² Blog

Breaches Increased in 2019, but the Number of Exposed Records Declined

The number of U.S. data breaches bumped up 17% in 2019 but despite the increase, the volume of sensitive consumer records that were exposed declined substantially by 65%, according to a newly published report. These statistics are a complete reversal of what happened in 2018, when the number of exposed consumer records soared by 126% and breaches declined by 23%, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center’s (ITRC) End-of-Year Data Breach Report for 2019 Data breaches tracked in 2019 in the United States jumped to 1,473, from 1,257 in the previous year, the report revealed. Meanwhile, 164,683,455 sensitive records were... Read more →

Security Predictions for 2020 from the (ISC)² Community of Security Professionals (Part 2)

By Diana-Lynn Contesti, CISSP-ISSAP, ISSMP, CSSLP, SSCP and John Martin, CISSP-ISSAP Continued discussion from Security Predictions for 2020 from the (ISC)² Community of Security Professionals (Part 1) Internet of Things (IoT), Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Operating Technology (OT) related to the state of digital certificates The issue is not just self-signed digital certificates or expired certificates. Many of these devices have digital certificates, which need to be managed via a Key Management System and maintained. The fallout, of course, is that without proper controls, these devices can and will be compromised. Currently, the onus is on the consumer... Read more →

Cyber Threats to Healthcare on the Rise

Hospitals are set up to fight infections, but not necessarily the kind that has been plaguing healthcare institutions lately – malware. A new report estimates that cyber threats against healthcare targets increased 60% since January, surpassing the total number of threats identified in all of 2018. The most common threat targeting the healthcare industry is Trojan malware, which increased 82% in the third quarter from Q2, according to the report by Malwarebytes, Cybercrime Tactics and Techniques: The 2019 State of Healthcare. Most of the Trojan attacks involved Emotet and TrickBot, which are the two most dangerous Trojans around since 2018.... Read more →

Cybersecurity Is the Top Concern for Midmarket Executives

Nearly half of midmarket executives (47%) in a newly released quarterly report cited cybersecurity as their top concern for the coming year. The Middle Market Indicator report, by Chubb and the National Center for the Middle Market (NCMM), shows that cybersecurity topped the list of concerns for the second quarter in row. The concern isn’t surprising. Any executive who pays attention to the cyber threat landscape is bound to feel trepidation about the potential for cyber attacks against their organization. A study published by The Conference Board earlier this year found that cybersecurity is the top business concern for U.S.... Read more →

SSCP vs. CISSP Exams: How are they different?

You’re considering a cybersecurity certification and the SSCP and CISSP are both on your list. After comparing the material, you’re thinking there’s a good bit of overlap between the two. But is there, really? And if you sit for one exam would you be able to sit for the other without additional study or preparation? These are excellent questions. In fact, we hear them a lot. And the reality is, there ARE commonalities, which is true for most things in the field. However, these two certifications are wholly different and were developed from two distinct perspectives. In many ways, the... Read more →

Making Cyber Threats Big Data Manageable

By Adrian Winckles Director of Cyber Security, Networking and Big Data Research Group, Anglia Ruskin University Whilst figures differ depending on which report you read, Gartner estimates the average time between a breach and detection to be about 285 days. By this time, an attacker has long gone. With all the security products in an enterprise network today, why is this still so long? One reason maybe because threat detection is a big data problem. Particularly for network traffic based solutions. A handful of probes, or mirror ports, across a high-speed enterprise network and you could be capturing Terabytes of... Read more →

HCISPP Spotlight: Rema Deo

Name: Rema Deo Title: Managing Director Employer: 24By7Security, Inc. Location: Coral Springs, Florida Education: MBA Years in IT: 25+ Years in Cybersecurity: 5+ Cybersecurity Certifications: HCISPP How did you decide upon a career in healthcare security and/or privacy? I have been in risk management technology and compliance technology career for banking for several years, so when it was time for a change, Cybersecurity and Compliance related work was a logical next choice. 24By7Security has a client portfolio consisting of healthcare organizations as well as several other industries. Healthcare security and privacy work is still more nascent compared to financial technology,... Read more →

A First-Hand Experience with CISSP CAT

Patrick Strijkers is a 43-year-old information risk security officer at a pension funds firm in the Netherlands. He works in the IT security department in security incident management. Patrick’s employer runs a job rotation program, allowing him to gain experience in a variety of roles, with his next position coming invulnerability management this September. He holds the following security certifications: CompTIA Security+ CompTIA Network+ EC-Council Certified Ethical Hacker v8 EC-Council Certified Security Analyst v8 EC-Council Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator v8 Rapid7 Nexpose Rapid7 Metasploit Pro Patrick’s goal last year was to earn his CISSP certification. He attended a five-day boot... Read more →

Don't be a sitting duck in the next OT cyberattack

By Ravindra Krishna, CISSP In a recent Operational Technology (OT) cyberattack, Monero Crypto-currency mining malware was discovered in the ICS network of a water utility company located in Europe. The company found the malware during a routine monitoring check of their OT network and confirmed that the malware infected five servers including the Human machine interface (HMI), which is used to control and manage physical components of OT networks. This attack provides further evidence that OT networks are not simply vulnerable, but actually easy targets. The Post-Stuxnet OT Cyberattack Era I believe that we can divide OT attacks into two... 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 →

SSCP Spotlight: Wai Sheng Cheng

Name: Wai Sheng Cheng Title: Security Analyst Employer: Cboe Global Markets Location: Kansas, U.S.A. Degree: Master of Science, Information Systems Engineering, Johns Hopkins University Years in IT: 6 Years in information security: 3 Cybersecurity certifications: SSCP How did you decide upon a career in cybersecurity? I decided on a career in cybersecurity when my email account was first compromised in 2011. I learned about this when my friends and family called to ask if I had sent out emails asking for money. As an engineer-in-training, I was curious to know why and how this had happened. It was through this... Read more →

Holiday Risks: Shopping Scams in Retail, Travel and Hospitality

UPS, FedEx, USPS and other delivery workers have been on overdrive for weeks. Online shopping can ease the stress of the season, but is it safer to confront the crowds? Let’s be honest, consumers are not waiting until off hours to fill their digital carts. Hackers prey on the knowledge that it’s ever more difficult for end users to distinguish the difference between fraudulent and valid emails, which presents security issues to the enterprise as well. For the cybersecurity of end users (and the companies where they work) many headlines this week, have shared tips on how to avoid falling... Read more →

SSCP Spotlight: Todd Painter

Name: Todd A. Painter Title: Network Engineer Employer: UNG, Inc. Location: Boiling Springs, SC (USA) Years in IT: 7 Years in information security: 3 Cybersecurity certifications: SSCP, Security+, working on CISSP How did you decide upon a career in cybersecurity? Looking at the current scope of IT, it was apparent to me that the IT security field would have the largest growth in the coming years. With that in mind, I knew that I had a good chance at becoming a valuable asset to any company that needed a security expert, or someone with more of a security mindset rather... Read more →

Reaching More Cybersecurity Professionals in a Growing Market

Though more attention has come to the security industry, cyber crime continues to challenge defense. Cybersecurity can no longer be ignored. In case you missed the press release last week, we’re letting you know that (ISC)² announced an open call for expert cybersecurity speakers for our 2018 Security Congress. In fact, there was lots of news coming out of (ISC)² last week. We are also welcoming nominations for the 2018 Information Security Leadership Award – Government. It’s the end of the year, which means the start of a new one. With the new year comes the promise of growth and... Read more →

With new leadership at the helm, DHS may recruit more talent

If leadership truly does come from the top, having Kirstjen Neilsen as the newest Homeland Security secretary may prove promising when it comes to filling the jobs gap. After all, she’s the first person to bring industry experience to the role. Few things have the ability to obliterate people’s passion for their work like a terrible boss, especially when that boss lacks the knowledge and skills needed to guide an organization’s growth. But Kirstjen Neilsen certainly has the potential to really reform and improve the Department of Homeland Security. It’s exciting times, but that is not all the notable news... Read more →

Exploring Industrial Cyber Physical Security Enhancement

By Cevn Vibert, ICS Industrial Cyber Physical Security Advisor Cevn will be hosting the session Grass Roots Industrial Control Security at (ISC)² Secure Summit UK, between 12th and 13th December 2017. The industrial cybersecurity market is facing rapid changes as more threats are discovered, more impact is felt by end-users and cybersecurity vendors vie for leadership. My session will highlight both alerts and advice for end-users of automation and control systems (ICS/OT), as well as selected advisory notes for practitioners of Industrial Cyber Physical Security. Strategic methodologies and programmes of activities for mitigation of impacts on IIOT, IOT and how... Read more →

SSCP Spotlight: Mario Bardowell

Name: Mario Damar Bardowell Title: Security Analyst Employer: Leidos Location: Orlando, Florida, U.S.A. Degree: B.S. in Network Systems Communications Years in IT: 8 Years in information security: 2 Cybersecurity certifications: SSCP, CISSP, CompTIA’s CASP and Security +, CEH How did you decide upon a career in cybersecurity? The decision to pursue a career in cybersecurity was made due to the impression I received when I got a chance to work with an information security professional in my very first role as a help desk analyst. The man was sharp and always did things by the book. He didn't cut corners... Read more →

As cyber grows more popular, so do techniques for developing security skills

It’s not only the tech sector that’s talking about cybersecurity. The cybersecurity industry has been advocating for awareness training for the better part of the last decade, and since the Equifax breach, security has gone mainstream. With its new popularity, cybersecurity has evolved into a hot political issue as well. One result of the attention is increased regulations, which has many defense contractors scrambling to meet the December 31, 2017 deadline for Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) compliance. In a year of many major breaches, legislators are eager to move forward on the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) project to... 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 →

CCSP Spotlight: Greg Harris

Name: Greg Harris Title: Senior Security Consultant and Adjunct Professor Employer: Big 4 Firm and Kennesaw State University Location: Alpharetta, Georgia, U.S.A. Degree: MBA, MS in Information Systems, BS in Computer Science & Mathematics Years in IT: 15+ Years in cybersecurity: 13+ Cybersecurity certifications: CISSP, CCSP, CRISC, CISM, CISA, GCFA How did you decide upon a career in cybersecurity? McKesson Corporation hired me as a Security Infrastructure Engineer through a campus-recruiting program at Kennesaw State University in 2003. My undergraduate degree was a Bachelor of Science with a double major in Computer Science and Mathematics. With my Navy Electronic Warfare... Read more →