Leveraging Open Source for Business Intel
By Bozidar Spirovski, CISSP, MCSA, MCP
Open source intelligence (OSINT) is a form of intelligence collection management that involves finding, selecting, and acquiring information from publicly available sources and analyzing it to produce actionable intelligence…
How to Protect Your Social Network Identity
By Mark Smail, CTO at Onix International, Inc.
Over a billion people visited social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter last month so it’s not surprising that hackers have these sites in their cross-hairs. In fact, according to recent research from Breach Security Labs, social networks were the most targeted category in 2009, accounting for 19% of all malicious attacks last year. By using simple data encryption and password protection tools, you can ensure that your personal information and online identities remain secure and private…
Insurance Industry Fights Liability Claims
By John Watkins, Attorney with Chorey, Taylor & Feil
In your policy it states quite clearly that no claim that you make will be paid. You unfortunately plucked for our Never-Pay Policy, which if you never claim is very worthwhile - but, uh, you had to claim - and there it is… Monty Python’s Flying Circus, circa 1971
Behavioral Based Email Security Systems
By Simon Heron, CISSP Internet Security Analyst
There needs to be a change to email security if we want to stop seeing high profile security breeches such as the ones that hit Hotmail and Google in 2009, and the America law firm Gipson Hoffman & Pancione more recently. The problem is, most email filtering systems will trust the email address and therefore allow it through.
Technology Drives New Age of Collaboration
By Christopher Burgess, Senior Security Adviser
Are you embracing the collaboration phenomenon that has been storming, complete with thunder, lightning and rain over the past few years? Or have you been hiding under an umbrella to avoid this social media storm? Yes, we are all interconnected, whether we want to be, are expected to be, or prefer not to be. We are, as they say in poker, all in, as collaboration is here to stay ― and it’s driven by technology…
How To Valuate Crucial Information Assets
By Danny Lieberman, Security Expert and Founder of Software Associates
Estimating asset value is without doubt the most frequent question we get when it comes to calculating data security risk in monetary terms. A common mistake made by marketeers who work for data security vendors is to estimate the cost of a data security breach as the number of records multiplied by some plug number. The cost of a data security breach to a company is not the same as the cost of a customer data record breach to a customer…
2009 Infosec Threat Analysis Summary
By Simon Heron, CISSP Internet Security Analyst
Three million new threats were identified in 2009, which equates to almost one every 10.8 seconds. 2,905,697 threat signatures were released to protect against new or variant threats, an increase of 6.9 per cent from 2008. Most spam and malware originates from botnets and compromised hosts. There’s been a move away from mass-mailed spam and malware of old, to more targeted vulnerability exploits as cyber-criminals look towards more efficient means of carrying out their attacks. These examples highlight the need for all companies to review security policies for the applications and software that they permit people to access via their corporate networks or work computers.
Forgotten Security: Patching and Updating
By Simon Heron, CISSP Internet Security Analyst
The fourth guide in our ‘Forgotten Security’ series, Forgotten Security: Keeping up to date, is targeted at IT teams, encouraging them to take another look at their procedures, ensuring that they cover both software and equipment. A fully updated system is protected against the latest threats.
Vietnam Tops November Spam Report
By Simon Heron, CISSP Internet Security Analyst
Vietnam has become the number one source of spam – being responsible for more than 10 per cent of the worlds spam emails – and the UK has entered the virus production charts, being responsible for 2.79 per cent of the world’s viruses. Brazil, the US and Korea still dominate when it comes to virus production.
Trade Secrets and Confidential Information
By John Watkins, Attorney with Chorey, Taylor & Feil
According to recent reports, a Chinese company just agreed to a $200 million settlement of a trade secret case in California. Associated Press has reported that a former Home Depot manager has been criminally accused of passing trade secret information. These issues are extremely serious and should be considered carefully by any company large or small.
