This Week's Gurus

For years, cybersecurity was considered a “check-the-box” discussion during the merger and acquisition (M&A) process. It was almost always examined to ensure there weren’t any glaring issues or major red flags—but due to limited time resources, or the ability to parse out qualitative responses during M&A from real performance, there wasn’t a great deal of importance placed on it.  Very few transactions would be prevented due to cyber security practices today, however each M&A does...

On the back of what was a fantastic first round of questioning with insightful responses from leading figures in the IT security industry, the CISO Chat segment on the IT Security Guru has returned for the second round of questioning. We have caught up with a host of CISO’s and senior security experts to get their thoughts and ideas on the 2018 cyber landscape and will include advice, guidance & problems faced. We will leave...

By Tim Brown, VP security at SolarWinds MSP Every year, the entire month of October is given over to Cybersecurity Awareness—a campaign dedicated to promoting information security and safer use of the internet by everyone. But is it having an effect? Are UK businesses more aware of—and better prepared for—the cyberthreats they face? The answer is yes… and no. Businesses are increasingly aware of cybersecurity, with research from the Ponemon Institute showing a clear majority...

Despite the inevitability of a cloud-based computing future, organisations are still hesitant to abandon their existing on-premises infrastructures, whether it be for security and/or compliance issues or due to workloads that don’t lend themselves well to virtualised platforms. Thankfully there is a middle ground. A colocation to cloud strategy is about enabling companies to locate servers in third-party datacentres where they can realise the benefits of lower costs and improved security. More importantly, they can...

Data scientists and information security practitioners have long operated in their own independent spheres of influence. When you look at their responsibilities, however, you begin to see they are more alike than different. A data scientist is someone who analyzes and interprets complex data to assist a business in its decision making, which is similar to an InfoSec practitioner who uses data to detect threats to an organization. Both take business data generated within the...

By Lewis Henderson, VP of Product, Glasswall Solutions The success of the Rubella Macro Builder toolkit has demonstrated that the cyber-crime-as-a-service is in rude health right across Europe. A report from Flashpoint reveals that the toolkit has been used to create malicious macros in Microsoft Office documents sent as email attachments in massive criminal spam campaigns. Rubella Macro Builder is fast, on sale at a lowered price of just $40 per month, and is in...

By Ronald Sens, EMEA Director, A10 Networks Just imagine that a DDoS attack is crushing your network. Your enterprise’s internet pipe is under siege and almost to capacity. There is nowhere else for the traffic to go, making it impossible for legitimate user traffic to get through. So, what is the result? The attack is successful, your network or services fall down, you lose productivity and revenue, your brand is irrefutably damaged and all you...

David Worthington, VP, Payments at Rambus In today’s on-demand world, we expect to be able to spend, move and receive money instantly. For this reason, real-time payments (RTP), also known as ‘faster payments’ or ‘instant payments’, are gaining momentum globally. Accenture estimates that there are now 35 countries with real-time payment schemes in operation or under development. With account-based fraud on the rise, however, the move from standard to real-time transactions is causing significant security...

By Steve Mulhearn, Director of Enhanced Technologies, Fortinet Just one year ago, the WannaCry ransomware attack made global headlines when it hit 230,000 computers, creating total chaos. A number of high-profile organisations have continued to be targeted by this ransomware, some quite recently. Just a few weeks ago, the Atlanta police department fell victim to a ransomware attack which cost them the permanent loss of years of video evidence. It's part of a growing trend that...

David Higgins, Director of Customer Development, EMEA at CyberArk  The trusted insider has always been a security risk - whether an executive with access to sensitive information or an administrator on an enterprise network. But according to a recent report from the Ponemon Institute, in the past two years the insider threat has rocketed for businesses, with the average number of incidents involving employee or contractor negligence having increased by 26 percent, and by 53...