Ransomware reminders force focus on prevention and planning

Ransomware reared its ugly head again recently, with some stark reminders that it’s still a serious business risk. A household name suffered what seemed a major infection, while it emerged that many victims never get their data back. Last week, Boeing narrowly avoided a tailspin after a senior engineer alerted colleagues of a WannaCry infection. […]

Here’s how to get the most from a cybersecurity assessment

Would your organisation pass a cybersecurity assessment? Not one of 200 UK NHS trusts did, after the Department of Health checked them following the WannaCry ransomware outbreak. The NHS trusts’ complexity meant the assessments set a high bar. But for many SMEs, the assessments identify opportunities to improve, rather than obstacles to overcome. They show […]

AWS Cloud: Proactive Security and Forensic Readiness – part 3

Part 3: Data protection in AWS This is the third in a five-part blog series that provides a checklist for proactive security and forensic readiness in the AWS cloud environment. This post relates to protecting data within AWS. Data protection has become all the rage for organisations that are processing personal data of individuals in […]

AWS Cloud: Proactive Security and Forensic Readiness – part 2

Part 2: Infrastructure-level protection in AWS  This is the second in a five-part blog series that provides a checklist for proactive security and forensic readiness in the AWS cloud environment. This post relates to protecting your virtual infrastructure within AWS. Protecting any computing infrastructure requires a layered or defence-in-depth approach. The layers are typically divided […]

No, Minister: politicians’ unsafe email access practices renew password debate

Passwords are back in the news thanks to a politician’s unwitting post on Twitter. British MP Nadine Dorries admitted that her staff and interns all have access to her email through a shared password. As inevitable as a politician’s promise at election time, there was a stampede of commentators decrying such an obvious security fail. […]

Phishing is the biggest threat to users’ login details, major study finds

Phishing has long been recognised as one of the most effective tools in an attacker’s arsenal. Now, extensive new research based on a year’s worth of data provides further empirical proof. Criminals find phishing far more effective than keyloggers or data breaches for obtaining credentials and accessing someone’s account. Between March 2016 and March 2017, […]

AWS Cloud: Proactive Security and Forensic Readiness – part 1

Part 1 – Identity and Access management in AWS This is the first in a five-part blog series that provides a checklist for proactive security and forensic readiness in the AWS cloud environment. This post relates to identity and access management in AWS. In a recent study by Dashlane regarding password strength, AWS was listed […]

Companies face Cybersecurity double whammy in Brexit and GDPR

There are two seemingly separate major events happening in the coming years that will impact on how companies process and store personal data of people living in the European Union. The first is the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which comes into effect in May 2018. The other is Brexit, where the United Kingdom […]

AWS Cloud: Proactive Security & Forensic Readiness five-part best practice

In a time where cyber-attacks are on the rise in magnitude and frequency, being prepared during a security incident is paramount. This is especially crucial for organisations adopting the cloud for storing confidential or sensitive information. This blog is an introduction to a five-part blog series that provides a checklist for proactive security and forensic readiness in […]