Editor's News

The Government has launched the CBEST framework for sharing detailed threat intelligence and delivering cyber security tests and benchmarking for UK financial services providers.   Developed with the Bank of England (BoE), Her Majesty’s Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority, as well as CREST, this is the first of initiative of its type to be led by any of the world’s central banks.   This news follows the launch of the Cyber Essentials scheme last...

Neiman Marcus, who suffered a breach of data that may have affected around 1.1 million credit cards, are on the lookout for its first chief information security officer (CISO).   According to the Wall Street Journal, the job was posted in late May to the Neiman Marcus careers website. Job responsibilities include creating security and risk management programs, giving security guidance for all IT projects and bulking up the company’s disaster recovery policies.   However a...

The eye is often so firmly on advanced and targeted threats, that basic malware is missed and therefore often succeeds.   Manoj Apte, SVP at Zscaler, told IT Security Guru that companies may say that they have every kind of security feature available, but ifae security operations centre (SOC) team is doing things that they shouldn’t be bothered about and are inundated with other things, then the business will consequently suffer.   “They say: we...

Matthew S. Loeb has been named as the new CEO of ISACA, replacing acting CEO Ron Hale.   He will assume his role on the 1st September having led the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) as executive director most recently.   He said: “As enterprises continue to invest in information systems to build personal relationships with their customers and gain business efficiencies, challenges of compliance, risk, big data, privacy and cyber security are...

Around two months after the OpenSSL flaw “Heartbleed” shook the internet’s privacy foundations, new vulnerabilities have been discovered in the protocol.   According to an advisory, an attacker using a carefully crafted handshake can force the use of weak keying material in OpenSSL SSL/TLS clients and servers. This can be exploited by a Man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack where the attacker can decrypt and modify traffic from the attacked client and server.   While still serious, the...

Microsoft will release seven patches next week to cover updates for Word, Office and Internet Explorer.   Included is a critical update for Internet Explorer addresses , which has not been used in any active attacks according to Microsoft, while the other critical patch addresses a remote code execution issue in Windows, Office and Lync.   The other five patches are rated as critical; one is for a remote code execution vulnerability, two for information disclosure...

Today sees the UK Government launch a scheme to help businesses become more secure.   Developed by Government and industry to provide a clear statement of the basic controls all organisations should implement to mitigate the risk from common internet based threats, and to offers a mechanism for organisations to demonstrate to customers, investors, insurers and others that they have taken these essential precautions, the Cyber Essentials scheme offers ten steps to security.   According...

An amendment to the Computer Misuse Act could see life sentences given to anyone found guilty of a cyber attack that has a catastrophic effect.   According to a report by the Guardian, the amendment to the Computer Misuse Act 1990, part of the Queen’s speech at the State opening of Parliament yesterday, will see hackers face a full life sentence for any “cyber attacks which result in loss of life, serious illness or injury...

A whole lifecycle of threat intelligence, from planning and collection through to analysis and dissemination, is needed to meet and defeat threats.   According to Dr David Bailey, CTO for Cyber Security at BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, the importance of threat intelligence is apparent for all organisations, especially in the wake of some high profile cyber attacks.   Speaking at an event for the Telco community, Bailey said: “Threat intelligence is a vital component of...

Today’s Queen’s speech at the state opening of Parliament has seen a move to amend the Computer Misuse Act and issue harsher sentences.   Among the 15 bills for revision, the Serious Crime Bill will see an amendment for the Computer Misuse Act 1990 to ensure sentences for attacks on computer systems fully reflect the damage they cause.   Asked if this is a case of the Government taking action too late to try and...