Insight

Since its launch in late May, the UK government’s Test and Trace service has been contentious. Not only has its efficacy been thrown into question by reports it’s failing to contact thousands who may have contracted COVID-19, but the Department of Health has also been forced to admit it launched the initiative without accounting for privacy. While the Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, may feel the need to get the system “up and running at incredible...

It’s a fact perhaps not so widely known that 40% of acquiring companies going through an M&A discovered a cybersecurity problem during the post-acquisition integration.  What this would indicate is that acquirers aren’t being given the right information about the data security in the company they are buying. That’s pretty shocking considering the level of due diligence required in the M&A process. So why is this happening? We know from our experience helping companies discover...

If you haven’t seen this video on attention, please do so, it’s just over a minute long.  https://www.youtube.com/embed/vJG698U2Mvo The video is by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, both authors of the book, ”The Invisible Gorilla,” in which they reveal the numerous ways our intuitions can deceive us.  In essence, much like we react to the video above, we realise that our minds don’t work the way we think they do. We think we see ourselves and the...

In a rapidly changing environment, an organisation needs to be able to anticipate, prepare for, respond and adapt to incremental change and sudden disruptions in order to survive and prosper. This organisational resilience is a strategic capability and goes beyond just crisis management. It involves learning from experiences and adopting best practices to deliver business improvement by delivering secure communication and building competence and capability across all aspects of an organisation. With the world still...

The PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) released a new framework known as the PCI Software Security Framework (SSF) to secure modern payment software. The new framework is a collection of standards and programs that were built to secure the design and development of payment software. With the introduction of SSF, the existing standard – PA DSS (Payment Application Data Security Standard) will soon fade out. This simply means that the SSF replaces PA-DSS with...

In the latest IT Security Guru Tweet chat, we were joined by PerimeterX, a leading voice in the world of application security, and a host of other voices from across the Infosec spectrum: Analysts, technical experts, members of the C-suite and professional bodies came together to discuss the emergence of shadow code, a new term to describe the use of third-party scripts in applications, without authorisation or safety validation. Our assembled influencers came ready to...

Everyone has had to become accustomed to the phrase “social distancing” —  the practise of using distance from others to minimise health threats. Inevitably, people have started using the analogy "digital distancing" to talk about similar ideas in information security. It’s not exactly new to use disease metaphors in infosec — we already talk about ransomware “infections,” for example. But with public health understandably in the front of people’s minds, let’s discuss "digital distancing" as...

COVID-19 has accelerated years of digital transformation into just a few months, weeks, and even days. Accenture recently moved 1.2 million NHS workers to Microsoft Teams in less than a week. And we are not alone – Satya Nadella recently said that Microsoft had seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in 2 months. This monumental shift to remote working, changing business priorities and the reconfiguration of supply chains has created new attack vectors and...

Businesses can make better decisions if they have a good idea of who is using their website. Are they young or old? Male or female? It turns out they are very likely not even people. The majority of web traffic is made up of automated bots, and a great deal of these are malicious. The popular narrative around bots is that they are spreading misinformation on social media, but most aren’t involved in nation state-level...

Governments are playing catch-up across the world. Data privacy breaches from large tech companies, such as Nintendo and Marriott, are becoming more commonplace—and as a result are putting pressure on authorities to introduce stricter compliance policies to safeguard the public. As such, IT pros who live in countries that have implemented policies, such as GDPR, PCI DSS, HIPAA, and DPA, are now impacted on a day-to-day basis. Today more than ever, IT pros are being...