University Challenged and the school of phishing

The Data Protection Commission’s annual reports always make for interesting reading, and the 2019 edition was no exception. Maybe it’s because BH Consulting’s work crosses into both cybersecurity and data protection, but one detail caught our eye. Phishing was one of the highest ranked causes on the list of data breach notifications by category. The […]
Rules and regulations like EU Cybersecurity Act are a sign of a maturing industry

The older and more mature an industry gets, the more standards it needs to align with. For example, financial services has been around for a long time and is heavily regulated. Cybersecurity is quite young in comparison, but it’s going in the same direction. This is a natural progression, because of the impact that the industry has […]
Staying relevant in the tech sector, Madonna-style

Having served 30 years working in cybersecurity and privacy, I reflected recently on how someone in the tech industry stays relevant, and why that is important. Madonna revisits her brand every five years and reinvents herself by updating her image, getting a new producer, and releasing a new single. In the music industry, this keeps […]
A personal digital privacy plan to help protect your data online

Regular readers will know that we at BH Consulting are passionate advocates for digital privacy in all its forms. So for this week’s blog, we’re delighted to feature Zoë Rose, whose post, “A Guide to Digital Privacy for You and Your Family”, first appeared on Tripwire’s State of Security blog. It’s an excellent long read […]
Absent incident response spells trouble for Travelex

In an ideal world, humans would only ever learn from doing things right, but failure is a persistent teacher. That’s why for every Norsk Hydro or Maersk competently and professionally handling major security incidents, there’s also a Travelex. In this blog, we dig into why the world’s largest foreign exchange company has become the latest […]
Analysis of the Irish National Cyber Security Strategy

The Irish Government has published its five-year plan for ensuring its infrastructure and computer networks are “resilient, safe and secure”. The new National Cyber Security Strategy 2019-2024 is an update to the first strategy which was published in 2015. Here’s our analysis of the plan. The 60-page strategy paper [PDF] sets out a series of 20 […]
CISO as a service helps to tackle ongoing need for security

As cybersecurity gets more attention in businesses and organisations, the need for a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) has come into focus. In the past, many organisations tackled security piecemeal, as a series of point-in-time exercises, but some now realise they need a dedicated resource to manage their security on a consistent, ongoing basis. Many […]
Cybersecurity and data protection in 2019: the BH Consulting year in review (part 2)

Security is a busy field, and 2019 was no exception. Following last week’s blog looking back at the first six months of the year, here’s the second part covering cybersecurity, data protection and privacy stories that emerged between July and December. July Summertime and the living wasn’t easy if your company was called BA or […]
Cybersecurity and data protection in 2019: the BH Consulting year in review (part 1)

It’s that time of year again, where we look back at, and reflect on, the previous 12 months. In that spirit, here’s the BH Consulting review of 2019. The roundup we present is our take on cybersecurity, data protection and privacy issues. As regular readers will know, we don’t aim to be a website of […]
A recipe you can trust: baking real consent into cookie notices

Anyone who has used the internet since May 2018 must have encountered a growing number of cookie consent notices whenever they browse a website. But are these notices telling us as individuals everything that’s happening with our data? And what should organisations do to make their actions more transparent? The answer to the first question, […]