Cybersecurity Expert

A mammoth data breach was disclosed by hotel chain Marriott International today (30 Nov 18), with a massive 500 million customer records said to have been compromised by an "unauthorized party".  The world's largest hotel group launched an internal investigation in response to a system security alert on 8th September 2018, and found an attacker had been accessing the hotel chain's "Starwood network" and customer personal data since 2014, copying and encrypting customer records. In addition to the Marriott brand, Starwood includes W Hotels, Sheraton, Le Méridien and Four Points by Sheraton.  You are at risk if you have stayed at any of the above hotel brands in the last 4 years The Marriott statement said for around 326 million of its guests, the personal information compromised included "some combination" of, name, address, phone number, email address, passport number, date of birth, gender and arrival & departure information. ...

Bruce Schneier summed it up best in 1999 when he said " C omplexity is the Worst Enemy of Security" in an essay titled A Plea for Simplicity , correctly predicting the cybersecurity problems we encounter today. The IT industry has gone through lots of changes over the past few years, yet when it comes to cybersecurity, the mindset has remained the same. The current thinking around cybersecurity falls into the definition of insanity, with many organisations doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, and are then shocked when their company is the latest to hit the hacking headlines. The current security model is broken and is currently too complex. As Paul German, CEO, Certes Networks , argues, it’s time to strip network security back and focus on the data.  What should Organisations Really be Protecting? Ultimately, by overcomplicating network security for far too long, the industry has failed - which won’t come as a surprise to many. We’ve ...

The ‘wearable technology’ market has been exponentially growing in recent years and is expected to exceed 830 million devices by 2020 . One of the key drivers pushing this rapid expansion are fitness trackers, namely wristband tech and smartwatch apps which monitors our daily activity and health. But as we integrate wearables devices seamlessly into our everyday lives, what are the privacy and security risks they pose? How should wearable manufacturers and app developers be protecting consumers? Insurance company Vitality offers customers a heavily discounted Apple Watch  to customers in return for their fitness routines and health data, the more activity you do each month, the greater your reward through a monthly discount. While t his exchange of information for rewards provides a great incentive for consumers to improve their health, the personal data consumers are sharing in return has a tangible value for the insurance company. However, providing an insurance compan...