This Week's Gurus

Every company is striving to be top of its particular market and to be considered a fast-growing and profitable organisation. In order to achieve this, digitisation must be front of mind. Digital technology can provide companies with a crucial edge over competitors in myriad ways such as cost savings, improved customer experience and greater employee satisfaction. But, every additional digital system an IT department introduces can offer another potential entry point for malicious actors looking...

The current political events in Barcelona provide us with a barely-needed reminder that we live in changing times.  I was in the city as part of the Trustonic team exhibiting at IoT Solutions World Congress last week and took some time to speak with fellow vendors. I soon saw some fantastic product demonstrations that drew my attention - I wanted to learn more. Frequently though, the response to: “This looks great - how is it...

When I was nominated for this award thingy they asked me if I’d like to write a blog, yes I said – why wouldn’t I? Millions of eyes reading my words and all that attention I’ll get, it’s a no brainer I thought. And what better a subject to talk about than that equality thing, that’s a real hot topic. And so I put my thinking cap on, and dusted down the thinking pipe. Then...

Many of us Brits like to think we are different to our continental neighbours. There are plenty of things that point to us being unique and our mobile habits seem to back this up. Research shows that us Brits really do think differently to our European counterparts. A global study by A10 Networks found that there are differing attitudes in Europe to app security and smartphone usage. Most notably, Britons tend to flout the rules,...

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect in the UK on 25 May 2018. Yet, many organisations remain in denial, with a typical mindset being: ‘if I ignore it long enough, it will probably go away’, or even, ‘I don’t think it really applies to me’.  Ultimately though, any business that holds personal data about their customers, employees or that runs a payroll is going to be impacted by the regulation. That’s because...

The security of biometrics technology is in the spotlight and stakeholders must take a balanced view on its strengths and vulnerabilities, says Isabelle Moeller, Chief Executive, Biometrics Institute. As deployments proliferate, the technology’s credibility rests on the industry’s will to collaborate globally.     The Oxford English Dictionary offers two definitions for the verb ‘spoof’: ‘To make (something) appear foolish by means of parody; to send up’ and ‘To render a system useless by providing...

During the past six months, the Carbon Black Threat Analysis Unit (TAU) analysed more than 1,000 ransomware samples, categorising them into 150 families, and found the following: Attackers are looking to make quick, easy money with unsophisticated malware combined with sophisticated delivery methods. The majority of today’s ransomware aims to target the largest vulnerable population possible. “Ransomware as a Service (RaaS)” and the emergence of Bitcoin have lowered the barrier to entry even further for...

Since the outbreak of Petya, there have been many articles analysing and dissecting the malware, to determine its purpose, and who is ultimately responsible. Reverse engineering and malware analysis to conduct post incident analysis has provided the basis for the conclusions drawn in these features. Instead, Anomali, in collaboration with threat hunting experts Vector8, viewed the Petya outbreak differently by leveraging threat hunting techniques.   A Microsoft Windows Sysinternals tool called Sysmon was used as a...

Typically considered one of the most accessible and in many cases least-sophisticated types of crime, shoplifting persists as an undeniably damaging affliction across the retail sector. In fact, the National Retail Security Survey reported that loss of inventory cost U.S. retailers an estimated $49 billion USD in 2016, with 70 percent of the loss caused by employee theft and shoplifting. The survey also indicated that in response, retailers are investing more in technological deterrents like live, customer-visible...

In today’s business environment, it’s not uncommon for organisations to outsource some or all of their IT capabilities to third-party contractors. It’s true that there are many benefits to this, outsourcing can save money that organisations would usually spend on full-time employees, so it’s no wonder this practice is so widespread. However, they are often overlooked as a potential threat, despite being granted access to a large proportion of their employer’s critical systems and sensitive...