Archive for July, 2015

Never Judge an Information Security Professional Solely by their Security Certifications

Thursday, July 30th, 2015

Recently I attended a gathering where a litigation lawyer was giving a presentation and made the statement, “The defendant’s information security officer did not have any type of security certification, such as a CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) or CISM (Certified Information Security Manager), which demonstrated lack of qualification for her position, and negligence on the part of the hospital system that had hired her to fill that position.” (more…)

Stay Alert for Stegoloader and Rombertik Malware Threats

Friday, July 17th, 2015

Recently a friend of mine sent me a photo of the image on his computer screen. It was a Windows firewall warning message that his computer had been infected with malware. He said that when he tried to re-boot the computer it got into an endless loop and he could not get it to do anything. He finally took it to the computer repair shop, and they had to reload a new system. Thankfully he had a complete, clean, backup of all his files, so he didn’t lose anything. I asked what the repair folks said the problem was, and he indicated that they didn’t tell him anything specific, only that he “probably had bad malware.” (more…)

Hey, Developers! Save Privacy in the IoT Explosion

Thursday, July 2nd, 2015

I’ve been concerned with and writing about the information security and privacy risks involved with the data created, transmitted and processed by smart devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) for several years since they first started emerging (e.g., here) and will likely be writing on it even more in the coming months and years. According to a new IDC research report, the IoT market will grow from $655.8 billion in 2014 to $1.7 trillion in 2020 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.9%. Will privacy die in this IoT explosion? If IoT developers and manufacturers take action now, I’m optimistic that they can save privacy in the IoT explosion. (more…)