Roger Halbheer on Security
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…
DetailsI 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…
DetailsIt 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…
DetailsThe 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 –…
DetailsI 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…
DetailsI 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…
DetailsWell, 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…
DetailsA 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…
DetailsAs 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…
DetailsMe 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…
DetailsBack 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…
DetailsIt 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.)…
DetailsIt is interesting how many companies offer privacy services since the EU announced GDPR and the number is still growing. Almost every company today has a GDPR practice or at least is offering GDPR services. The question shall be asked, whether they are up to the task. I would expect – as companies will get…
DetailsWe have seen ransomware and other vectors for the bad guys to make money. Additionally, the criminals are trying to make money from stolen data, wherever they can. That’s the latest one: Cosmetic surgery hacked. Nude photos and data exposed on the dark web, as hackers blackmail patients Nasty if you are one of them……
DetailsThe 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report by Verizon was just recently published and it contains a few interesting data points: 75% of the breaches were conducted by outsiders. So, the outsider threat is by far bigger than the insider. However, if you would assume breach, you kind of kill both attacks with one approach 51%…
DetailsAs you might know, I am deeply convinced that better threat intelligence allows us to take better security decisions – and I am not the only one making this statement. I am trying to get my head around threat intelligence since a while now and realized that depending on with whom I talk, they have…
DetailsA few years ago, we saw a clear difference between state actors and criminals looking at the technologies and procedures they applied attacking an environment. Over time we have seen these two groups coming closer together. In the meantime, criminals seem to have caught up. They started to use more sophisticated and targeted malware and…
DetailsWe always talk about it, right? Security is a top management responsibility but who is really taking this responsibility? Typically the CSO gets under pressure, once incidents happen. Well, Marissa Mayer – the CEO of Yahoo – does, now: Yahoo CEO Loses Bonus Over Security Lapses And with GDPR just around the corner with fines…
DetailsOne of the discussions I have with a lot of customers is around managed security services. Especially themes like Security Operation Centers seem to be fairly emotional as quite some customers want to build and run one themselves (and yes, I know the challenges around regulation). One of the points I often make is the…
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