SIGNAL | July 8, 2016
Federal agencies need to address their aging legacy systems and need to do it now. The situation is so dire that some systems are more than 50 years old and running on 8-inch floppy disks, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.
SECURITY INFOWATCH | July 8, 2016
It was not a good day for the SOC.
Warnings had been emerging over the past few days, but none of them had resulted in crisp defensive action. The team was scrambling, and activity was extreme.
But nothing was happening. No one had seen anything like this before. It was pretty likely that this was a new, active attack, but what exactly was happening? What was the attack vector? What was the target?
No one had seen anything like this before.
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY | July 6, 2016
One of the marks of a great leader is humility—a trait manifested by Ray Rothrock ’77, one of the 2016 Distinguished Alumnus Award recipients. Given jointly by Texas A&M University and The Association of Former Students, this award recognizes Aggies for their professional excellence as well as their service to Texas A&M and their local communities.
INFORMATION SECURITY BUZZ | July 1, 2016
Utility companies nationwide are angst-ing about Friday. Not because it’s a long weekend, but because July 1 marks the end of the extended deadline for compliance – imposed by the Federal Energy Regulation Commission (FERC) – with NERC’s(N. American Electric Reliability Corp.) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) V5 standards.
Why is this important?
BUSINESS INSURANCE | June 19, 2016
Health care organizations are becoming resilient in the face of cyber attacks as hackers attempt to access sensitive patient information.
Experts from Zurich North America and RedSeal Inc., a Sunnyvale, California-based cyber security firm, discussed how health care providers, insurers and affiliated companies can bounce back when data breaches are discovered.
NEW YORK TIMES | June 11, 2016
BELLEVILLE, Wis. — Drive past the dairy farms, cornfields and horse pastures here and you will eventually arrive at Cate Machine & Welding, a small-town business run by Gene and Lori Cate and their sons. For 46 years, the Cates have welded many things — fertilizer tanks, jet-fighter parts, cheese molds, even a farmer’s broken glasses.
And like many small businesses, they have a dusty old computer humming away in the back office. On this one, however, an unusual spy-versus-spy battle is playing out: The machine has been taken over by Chinese hackers.
The hackers use it to plan and stage attacks. But unbeknown to them, a Silicon Valley start-up is tracking them here, in real time, watching their every move and, in some cases, blocking their efforts.
SC MAGAZINE UK | June 16, 2016
That ransomware is a problem cannot be doubted. Whether the current level of media coverage, fuelled by vendor press releases, is doing more harm than good is more open to debate..
Just today SCMagazineUK.com reported how Avecto research had revealed that 30 percent of UK councils suffered at least one ransomware attack in 2015. That is big news.That Smart TVs have been infected by the Flocker ransomware maybe less so. Unless it’s your TV that is asking for cash to start working properly again of course.
USA TODAY | June 16, 2016
U.S. cybersecurity policy has followed a Jekyll-and-Hyde path lately.
In December, Congress passed a bill making it easier for U.S. software companies to hold onto their proprietary technology, to encourage them to share data on cyber threats. It was part of a new push for open cybersecurity standards to help combat rapidly-evolving threats.
In April, however, the Senate Intelligence Committee introduced a bill that would force U.S. companies to provide backdoor access to encrypted data to law enforcement in response to a warrant.
POLITICO | June 15, 2016
AFTER THE DNC ATTACK — The blockbuster news that Russians reportedly hacked the Democratic National Committee to get opposition research on Donald Trump and other information inflamed GOP criticism of Hillary Clinton’s private email server. But it had a host of security ramifications, not just political ones. MC spoke to, or heard from, a range of experts on the meaning of it all.
INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR | June 2, 2016
2015 was certainly a bumper year for M&As. It’s a sure bet that before any of the 2015 M&A deals went through, the buyers looked very carefully at their “target” companies. They will have gone through a comprehensive appraisal and due diligence process that lasted from a few months to a year.
Buyers and their agents (auditors, lawyers and bankers) will have had a pretty exhaustive evaluation checklist – review software licenses, audit financials, inspect buildings, count inventory, validate the value of intangible assets, look at intellectual property, and — the step that’s caused about half of my companies some heartburn — determine if all the shareholders can be contacted and notified. As an investor, I have pretty extensive experience in this process, having been involved in some 34 acquisitions; and one all too common oversight that I am resolute in ensuring makes it to the checklist is cyber security.