Roger Halbheer on Security
I still remember the first one and now we reach version 23… It has a lot of insights into the malware and cybercrime landscape with really actionable recommendations. The Microsoft Security Intelligence Report can be accessed in different ways: Infographic – https://aka.ms/SIRv23Info Full Report – https://aka.ms/SIRv23 Webinar (April 10th at 10 am PDT) – https://aka.ms/SIRv23webcast…
The growing customer demand lets us expand our cloud services in new ways. Besides other exciting news, we just announced to open a Swiss region with two data centers in the Cantons Geneva and Zurich. Microsoft plans to offer enterprise cloud services for businesses, government, and NGOs from datacenter locations in the cantons of Geneva…
One debate is about the security of the Cloud and the Cloud provider. Once you decide to go there, the next question is about how to get it done. There are a few key and basic concepts to be followed. First and foremost you need to understand, which responsibilities you are moving with the workload…
Not only Russia, I would say…
We all see a lot of chatter on Artificial Intelligence and the impact on Cyber Defense and anomaly detection. I am not clear yet how far it really takes us. I have great hopes but I do not think that it is the silver bullet. However, there are interesting success to look into like that…
Most of you might know it in the meantime: I am back at Microsoft working as an Executive Security Advisor in the Western European region. One of the reasons why I re-joined was that I want to be able to have a real impact with one of the leading providers of technology, especially in the…
This month the Swiss Federal government organized a Swiss Digital Day to help to drive the discussion within Switzerland on the impact of digitalization on the different aspects of our life.Cybersecurity is all over the place, which is very good – something which would not have been the case a few years ago. Everybody knows…
I think it was around 2009 when Microsoft offered to leverage PhotoDNA to help law enforcement to fight child porn. PhotoDNA is a clever technology which helps to fingerprint any picture and keep the fingerprint stable even if you modify the picture (crop, change colors, brightness etc.). The idea is to build a database of…
It is in my opinion a controversial discussion: Do you allow the use of USB sticks in a corporate environment and if yes, how? Obviously, today there are a lot of other means to exchange information but the USB stick still seems to be important for users. To have a presentation for an event on…
The question about underground prices is often coming up – often only for curiosity. However, this pricelist is extremely important if we try to understand at least the motivation and the business case of criminals. Let’s look at a simple business case for a criminal. On the upside we have two bullets: Economical gain –…
I guess we all read the news of President Trump ordering governmental organizations to migrate off any Kaspersky security software ASAP. This is basically an interesting move as it highlights the challenges regarding supply chain security, however, is this an effective was to protect an organization? I hope President Trump and/or his advisors consider a…
I have seen different talks by Simon Sinek and I have to admit, I really like him. I just recently found a TED Talk by him on leadership. He had a few really remarkable quotes on leadership: In military, they give medals to people who sacrifice themselves so others may gain. In business, we give…
Well, another one: CIO or C-Suite: To Whom Should the CISO Report?
At least the security community seems to agree…
I am in this business for almost two decades, which is frightening by itself. On the other hand, it is absolutely fascinating, how the security industry and especially the role of the CSO changed. I do not want to go into long stories of security itself but look at it: Initially it was all about…
A lot of people just throw away their boarding pass after a flight. I mean, what information do you find on it? Name, seat, date and flight. So what? You can find this information for a lot of people on social media anyway, right? Well, not really. There is other information on it as well…
As Threat Intelligence is one of the key assets to be built in companies, the right information sources will be key. The challenge there is not only to get information but to transform it into actionable intelligence. It needs to be targeted to the industry you are working in as well as to the situation…
Me just a few minutes ago (real life, just the room number is not real): At the reception: Me: Sorry, my key does not seem to work anymore. Reception: What is your room number, sir? Me: 683 Reception: Mr. Halbheer? Me: Yes Reception: Let me give you a new key I understand: A scammer would…
Back in the early days at Blaster we told the customers that they must do three things: Switch on your firewall Apply security updates Have an anti-virus software installed and keep it updated It seems that even after Wannacry and Petya people have not learned, yet: Look at these statistics with computers still being vulnerable…
It is not new that in December 2015 and December 2016 Ukraine suffered a power outage due to a cyber-attack. Researchers now figured out that both attacks leveraged the same framework to base their attacks on. It is not as sophisticated as Stuxnet for different reasons (only leverages one vulnerability, the way it communicated, etc.)…
