The hack attack on Sony has been a business disaster for the movie company.
In addition to leaked emails, revelation of salary data, and unfortunate disclosure of various private opinions regarding movie stars and upcoming films, the company’s stock price fell by double digits.
Sony’s business is of course entertainment and the media has had a field day with all the secret details regarding Hollywood celebrities. The nightly newscasts have played out like a soap opera and the company’s attempts to plug the gaps have been futile at best.
It remains to be seen how all this will play out long-term both internally and externally. Certainly relationships have been stressed to the maximum with corporate executives. Movie makers and “A” list actors may be hesitant to do business with the company.
While many cyber experts, including the FBI, have been quoted as saying this attack was planned and executed at a very high level of sophistication, reports indicate the company was not in full lock-down from a potential breach.
In fact its PlayStation network suffered an attack in 2011. Personal information on millions of PlayStation games were stolen. The network was down for weeks. Many question whether these issues were ever fully addressed.
Admittedly Sony is a worldwide organization and high-level cyber attacks are more likely targeted against larger well-known companies. JP Morgan Chase and eBay were both recent targets.
Still most companies of all sizes can take appropriate steps to ensure the highest levels of security protection are in place.
These include…
1. Investing appropriately in cyber security. Many large corporations don’t allocate the resources for high levels of security. They wait until disaster strikes and then make the appropriate investment in firewalls, anti-viral programs etc. The same holds true for smaller organizations. Unfortunately smaller companies may not have the luxury of an easy of a bounce-back as a multi-national giant. Small firms could lose sales, contacts and key data. A small business could be down for days or even weeks. Such a breach for a smaller organization could make the difference between ensuring a year of profitability or falling into the “red”.
2. Preparing for a well-planned response. All businesses should have a back-up system in place. Electronic off site back-up utilizing the cloud, for example, is a solid way to retain all records and data should records be breached, stolen and/or lost. Proper back-up enables a company to maintain business operations with little downtime as possible.
3. Creating a crisis communications plan. Chances are your firm will not be the subject of intense media scrutiny should a breach occur and important, private data made public. Still in this litigious environment it makes sense to have a plan in place should a crisis occur. This should involve a technology component to discover how the breach occurred and to take the proper IT related steps to prevent it from happening in the future. It should also involve a media component to properly address inquiries from print and television reporters. The document should be reviewed and updated periodically. Hopefully this plan will not need to be enacted but is money well spent should disaster occur.
The hack attack on Sony is a good reminder that an attempted breach can occur to almost any company at any time. Executives should not be hesitant to invest in the highest levels of Internet security no matter the size of the business.
The scope of IT security analytics is broad. Threat intelligence if provided in advance will help to prevent any security incidents from occurring. Though complete mitigation of the risks is an impossible task and hence incidents are inevitable which are mostly associated with breach of data. Initially it was believed that IT security analytics was a requisite before, during and after the incident. In the past there were different products in each area, but the boundaries between them are blurring. Blacklists and Whitelists Threat intelligence is the lifeblood of the IT security industry. Common spam emails, malware signatures and fake URLs are included in the blacklists whereas all the applications that the users use for their legitimate purpose are included in the whitelists. IT security suppliers have access to resources at some level. However it is known that intelligence gathered before is never going to stop the unwanted security breaches from occurrence. What can be done when an event has occurred or data have been breached? In such cases the need is to understand the extent of damage.
Applying IT forensic methods like reports for internal investigation or communicating with crime investigators. Examples of such incidents include discovery of unknown malware or disgruntled employees in the company. Guidance released a new version of Encase product called Encase analytics. These analytics collects clues to what has happened on the servers, storage systems and end user devices. Encase analytics is a network based tool where huge volume of data is involved. Encase analytics needs kernel level access across multiple operating systems to inspect registries, system data, memory, hidden data, and so on. Network and security appliance log files are also of use. Guidance makes use of SIEM (security information and event management) tools. The benefits include ready customised reports for certain regulatory regimes like PCIDSS, the UK Data Protection Act and the mooted EU Data Protection Law. Access Data’s Cyber Intelligence and Response Technology (CIRT) provides host and network forensics as well as the trickier-to-address volatile memory, processing data collected from all these areas to provide a comprehensive insight into incidents.
New Capabilities: These new capabilities include improved malware analysis, more automated responses and real time alerts. This is all well beyond historical forensics, moving Access Data from after, to, during, and even some before capability. Access Data relies on SIEM suppliers for some of its intelligence., In the past, SIEM has also typically been an after technology. Most SIEM suppliers come from a log management background, which is the collection and storage of data from network and security system log files for later analysis. To use intelligence from a range of sources in real time in order to identify and mitigate threats as they occur is the crux of IT security. Plenty of measures like running suspicious files in sandboxes, allowing only known good files to run, blocking access to dangerous areas of the web or judicious checking of content in use can be taken. These are all products that help towards broader aspiration of real-time mitigation. Supplementing these with analytics across a wide range of sources during an attack provides more extensive protection.
Some of the examples include:
• Identifying unusual traffic between servers, which can be a characteristic of undetected malware searching data stores
• Matching data egress from a device with access records from a suspicious IP address, user or location
• Preventing non-compliant movement of data that can be done by an ignorant employee
• Linking IT security events with physical security systems
• Detecting unusual access routes The good news is more and more are making use of their ability to process and analyze large volumes of data in real time to better protect IT systems.
But the bad news is that there is no silver bullet and never will be. A range of security technologies will be required to provide state-of-the-art defences and there will be no standing still. Those who would steal your data are moving the goalposts all the time and they will be doing that before, during and after their attacks.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8832698
Photo Source: http://unsplash.com/
As a recent convert of Microsoft Office 365, I wanted to take a moment and outline why I applaud my company’s decision to transition to this new cloud-based email platform. To put it lightly, it has transformed the way we do business (and yes, I would shout it from the rooftops if I had access to our office building roof).
To give a better understanding for why I love Microsoft Office 365 so much, I first have to take you on a journey to the past to understand what Clast Act, our client’s office was dealing with before. They were working in an environment that was filled with desktops, the only people that had access to mobile email solutions were the mobile managers. They were able to work from anywhere and everywhere and were the envy of every employee. This was when we realized that their company was metaphorically duck taped to their desktops.
This is when the unthinkable happened. A disaster had occurred when the sewage line in Class Act’s building decided to explode everywhere which rendered their office closed while the building manager took care of the dilemma. Class Act was shutdown for a week, and things grinded to a stand-still since most of the office didn’t have access to the files they needed or the ability to communicate with one another other than through text messages on our personal cell phones.
No one had the ability to work from home, and our internal email server was giving us another fight to contend with. Emails were being delayed or lost, clients were unsatisfied, and our IT Director was ready to lose it from all of the complaints that were being registered. It was time for something new. And that’s when the glory that is Microsoft 365 came into our lives.
At first, Class Act and our deparmented astounded at the ability to now work from anywhere and everywhere, but to our great fortune, that was only the beginning. Do you know what kinds of awesome add-ons come with Office 365? We didn’t, but here’s a brief list:
My friends, I have seen the future of email at work, and it is glorious. I urge you all to join me and my company and discover for yourselves what Microsoft Office 365 – particularly when combined with IBM servers – can do for your business.
Discover what Microsoft 365 can offer your business.
(Reuters) – The U.S. Secret Service refused to provide data on its computer security systems to the Department of Homeland Security in 2014, preventing it from being able to verify if it was complying with security policies, an inspector general’s report said on Monday.
The service, which has faced withering criticism after several security lapses including a White House breach in September, “refused to comply with mandated computer security policies,” according to the report by the DHS inspector general.
The review also said DHS agencies were not doing enough to protect computer systems from such high-risk bugs as Heartbleed, which allowed hackers to spy on computers but not take control of them.
The report said FEMA and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service still use the Microsoft Windows XP operating system, which may be vulnerable to hackers and that Microsoft stopped providing software updates for in April.
“DHS has worked to improve and secure its vast IT resources,” said Inspector General John Roth. “But those improvements can only be effective if component agencies fully adhere to the rules and DHS management vigorously enforces compliance.
“Failure to do so will pose a serious threat to DHS and its Homeland Security missions.”
The inspector general’s office said the Secret Service has agreed to begin providing the required data to the DHS chief information officer. It made six recommendations to improve security, which the department accepted.
Homeland Security combined 22 different federal departments and agencies into one when it was established in 2002.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Andrew Hay)
Photo Courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/instantvantage/
The International Data Corporation just released a list of predictions that estimate where the cloud is going in 2015. At the top of their list, they stated that more than 90% of data that is transferred from devices over a network will be hosted via cloud services. Why is this number so high? It’s simply because the cloud services reduce the complexity of necessary support and offer a litany of cool new features – features that are changing the way companies of all sizes do business.
If you aren’t yet sold on cloud computing, here are 4 reasons why you should re-consider.
Low price point. Data growth has become a serious issue for many companies. Preparing for storage expansion is a top priority for any IT office head, and it can be a major undertaking for companies. Expenses range from planning and designing to equipment procurement, implementation, integration, and beyond.
Cloud services, on the other hand, give companies additional storage without the upfront cost of a project – all for one low monthly payment. Companies can host entire offices in a familiar environment and not be tied to capital expenditures for their server networks.
Variety of applications. From sales to finance, project management, data reporting, social media platforms for business, collaboration tools, mobile device management software, and beyond – there is an application out there to fit your business need. With cloud services, those new applications or services are even easier, install, implement, and launch company-wide.
Reduced risk. There is a risk that goes hand-in-hand with on-site data center expansion. It is fantastic when business is booming and you need more robust systems to carry-out operations, but what if your business hits a recession? All of the sudden, companies can find themselves caught between a high OpEx and low cash flow – which is a terrifying, uncomfortable situation for any business.
With the scalability of the cloud, companies can easily scale up or down their storage needs. With cloud computing, companies pay for the storage that they need to use, avoiding the tight pinch of slowing business.
Accessibility and collaboration. With cloud services, your company can access business-critical applications and services from anywhere with a secure internet connection. This means supporting and enabling enhanced collaboration with remote employees just got that much easier. Having easily accessible platforms offers more insight and visibility into the operations of your business – especially cloud applications with built-in analytics and reporting structures.
Want to explore how proven cloud services can change the operations of your business? As an IBM Business Partner, Aperio can help you tap into IBM’s rich portfolio of solutions sized and priced for mid-sized businesses. Reach out to an Aperio IT expert today to lay out your best options.
Photo courtesy of: http://www.unsplash.com
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