Thursday, March 12, 2020


Know anyone who could use this information? (Architecture as security enabler)
Why are governments so vulnerable to ransomware attacks?
Emisoft estimates that over 2019, ransomware attacks impacted at least 948 government agencies, educational entities, and healthcare providers. Analysis conducted by Recorded Future suggests that 81 successful ransomware attacks took place against US government bodies across the year, and these incidents would often have a knock-on effect of impacting high numbers of towns and cities in their local areas.
Florida County, Louisiana, New Orleans, and Texas are only a handful of regions where ransomware has caused severe disruption. If ransomware infiltrates a government network, this can lead to the shutdown or a loss of access to core government systems, thereby impacting local community services.
IBM research has already suggested that many US local and state government agencies are "overconfident in their attitude towards malware and cybersecurity incidents, and now, Deloitte further implies that governments are simply not doing enough.
On Wednesday, Deloitte released a report, "Ransoming government: What state and local governments can do to break free from ransomware attacks," which explores how these attacks are able to take place -- and what government officials should be doing to tackle the ransomware challenge.
State and local governments will often pay up as the most logical course of action rather than attempt to restore systems through backups -- if this is even possible -- or face the possibility of weeks and weeks relying on pen-and-paper records. Cyberinsurance may cover a portion of payouts, and unfortunately, not paying up can sometimes prove to be significantly more costly.




Best Practice: encrypt your data.
Dutch government loses hard drives with data of 6.9 million registered donors
The Dutch government said it lost two external hard disk storage devices that contained the personal data of more than 6.9 million organ donors.
The hard drives stored electronic copies of all donor forms filed with the Dutch Donor Register between February 1998 to June 2010, officials from the Dutch Minister of Health, Wellness, and Sport said earlier this week.
The disks were last used in 2016 and were placed inside a secure vault for storage, as Dutch authorities rotated to using newer drives.
Officials never said if the data contained on the hard drives was encrypted or not. [Suggests they do not know. Bob]




An infographic. Perhaps a picture will save you 1000 words?
Cybersecurity Trends to Know in 2020
This infographic from Paradyn lays out the top cybersecurity trends you should know about in 2020 including:
  • GDPR
  • AI-powered security solutions
  • Cloud security
  • IoT security
  • Next-gen authentication technology
Scroll down to the infographic to discover more about the latest cybersecurity trends today!




This should be obvious, but is more likely never thought of…
The haphazard response to COVID-19 demonstrates the value of enterprise risk management
Just 12% of more than 1,500 respondents believe their businesses are highly prepared for the impact of coronavirus, while 26% believe that the virus will have little or no impact on their business, according to a survey by Gartner.
This lack of confidence shows that many organizations approach risk management in an outdated and ineffective manner,” said Matt Shinkman, vice president in the Gartner Risk and Audit practice. “The best-prepared organizations can expect to enjoy many business advantages over their less-prepared peers as they minimize the disruption caused by the coronavirus.”




A bit of background.
This Is the Ad Clearview AI Used to Sell Your Face to Police
Clearview AI emailed advertisements to police departments in August 2019 with the subject line “How To Solve Crimes Instantly With Face Search Technology,” using the Fraternal Order of Police’s online platform FOPConnect.
Clearview is like Google Search for faces,” the ad copy reads. “It only takes one photo of a suspect’s face, one quick tap on your cell phone or computer, and one second of search time. Get results from mug shots, social media, and other publicly available sources.”




Another reason for my students to write every week.
Thought leadership drives trust in cyber-leaders, sharing best practice
Senior security executives in UK prefer to work with organisations that publish thought leadership over ones that don’t - and are willing to pay a premium.
Nearly 85 percent of senior executives from UK businesses across telecom, IT financial services, retail and the public sector prefer to work with organisations that publish thought leadership over ones that don’t, according to a survey by Code Red.
More than 80 percent of the respondents said that thought leadership material issued by a company is a good indicator of the type and calibre of that organisation’s thinking. Nearly 75 percent were willing to pay a premium to work with a thought leader, said the survey.




Worth trying?
WEEKLY SELF-STUDY PLAN TO ACE DATA SCIENCE
Data Science is a vast field where statistics and programming go hand-in-hand. In order to ace this field, enthusiasts must follow a learning routine that involves practising, reading, competing as well as engaging with the community. This is a 4-weeks plan which can be repeated every month to enhance your depth of understanding in Data Science. It includes both theoretical and real-world practical resources related to data science and machine learning. The plan is tailored to provide you with the necessary tools one need to become a master in Data Science.
In this article, we discuss 4 simple yet powerful weekly self-study methods, which will help a data science enthusiast to be ahead of the curve.
Program Type: Self-Paced
Estimated Duration: 4 Weeks
Pre-Requisite: Basics of Machine Learning, Big Data, Python, SQL
Tools: Python, R, SQL, Hadoop, MapReduce and Tableau



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