Cybersecurity Expert

Now everyone can learn what privacy means, how your privacy is impacted when using the web and mobile apps, and how to protect your privacy online thanks to a free course from Coventry University. The UK university has worked closely with experts including Pat Walshe at PrivacyMatters to create an informative online course, offering participants easy access to key information about how to keep their online privacy safe. Coventry University has a strong reputation for its digital education provision and online offering after it was ranked number 1 in the world for the delivery of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) by MOOCLabs for 2021. With people's information and digital footprint becoming increasingly sought after, the university hopes the course will build further awareness while helping people stay protected online. Typically, data is collected through cookies and pixels on websites or other means such as browser fingerprinting and trackers embedded in mobile apps. Track...

  I ASME  del iv ers Cyber Essentials on behalf of UK  NCSC By Sam Jones | Cyber Tec Security  and Dave Whitelegg What is  Cyber Essentials?  If you are just hearing about the Cyber Essentials scheme, read on as we unpack 10 things you might not know about Cyber Essentials. 1. UK Gov Launched Cyber Essentials in 2014 The UK Government  National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) published its ‘10 Steps to Cyber Security in 2012' , after the UK Government agencies recognised small-medium sized UK businesses require further cybersecurity guidance and support in order to protect the British digital dependant economy.  This led to the development of five critical 'cyber essentials' technical security controls which provides a minimum level of cybersecurity protection. Assurance of the adoption of these five security controls by an organisation provides a good degree of confidence an organisation is protected against the most common cyber threats, th...

Article by  Beau Peters It is no secret that medical professionals of all levels need to maintain a vast amount of knowledge in their brains at all times. After all, having experience and education is crucial to saving lives and helping patients. But should an understanding of cybersecurity be added to their repertoire? If they want to give the best overall care inside and outside of the clinic, then the answer is yes. As technology has evolved and we have moved to a more remote work environment, it is essential that cybersecurity becomes part of training for everyone in a medical organization, from human resources to the doctors themselves. By knowing the threats and understanding the solutions, doctors can protect their patients and provide advice to keep them safe even after they leave the office. Below are some of the many reasons why doctors should receive a cybersecurity education. Following Privacy Guidelines These days, technology is being used in the medical community mor...

   A roundup of UK focused Cyber and Information Security News, Blog Posts, Reports and general Threat Intelligence from the previous calendar month, March 2021. How not to disclosure a Hack UK fashion retailer FatFace angered customers in its handling of a customer data theft hack.   The clothes retailer revealed a data theft which included its customer's full names, home addresses, email addresses, and partial debit\credit card details. The payment card details included the last four digits and the card's security verification code, the latter code is never permitted to be stored after a payment card authorisation under Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard requirements, so it would appear the business was not PCI DSS compliant at the time of their hack, which strongly suggests the business may not doing enough of the expected IT security good practices to prevent being hacked in the first place, a poor IT defence posture which appears to have even been corrobora...

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced businesses across all industries to revise their working processes and requirements. From shifting overnight to a remote working model, furloughing staff and operating in a challenging economic climate, many businesses were unprepared for these transitions. However, these changes highlight the important role of Human Resource departments in communicating, supporting and responding to the necessary adjustments and helping employees through the process.  HR's role in enforcing a strong cyber aware culture in the new normal As HR departments rethink and reconsider how they foster talent and strengthen their organisations, front and centre to that shift needs to be IT security, underpinned by digital tools and a cyber-aware culture. With a 31% increase in cyberattacks during the height of the pandemic, reinforcing cybersecurity should be at the top of HR’s agenda. Andrea Babbs, UK General Manager, VIPRE SafeSend , discusses what this new way of working...

Article by Paul German, CEO,  Certes Networks   Why is it that the security industry talks about network security, but data breaches? It’s clear that something needs to change, and according to Paul German, CEO, Certes Networks, the change is simple. For too long now, organisations have been focusing on protecting their network, when in fact they should have been protecting their data. Paul outlines three reasons why the security industry has been protecting the wrong thing and what they can do to secure their data as we move into 2021. They’re called data breaches, not network breaches, for a reason Looking back on some of the biggest data breaches the world has ever seen, it’s clear that cyber hackers always seem to be one step ahead of organisations that seemingly have sufficient protection and technology in place. From the  Adobe data breach  way back in 2013 that resulted in 153 million user records stolen, to the  Equifax data breach  in 2017 that exp...

Article by Adam Strange, Data Classification Specialist, HelpSystems In the digitally accelerated COVID-19 environment of 2021 what are the top data security trends that organisations are facing? Here is HelpSystems Data Classification Specialist, Adam Strange’s take on the outlook and trends for 2021. Ongoing Growth in Remote Working will Create Data Security Threats The far-reaching impact of COVID-19 includes the intensified threat of malicious cyber attacks as well as an escalating number of damaging data breaches across almost every sector of business. The rapid shift to remote working during the pandemic left many employers exposed to hackers and highlighted multiple examples of serious network and data vulnerabilities. For example, in a recent article, Infosecurity Magazine quotes research finding that attacks on the biotech and pharmaceutical industry alone rose by 50% in 2020 compared to 2019. And in the defence sector, The Pentagon is seeing a huge rise in cyber attacks thro...

Earlier this year I wrote a blog post about the Manchester City Billion Pound Hack , which explored cyberattacks within elite football. Now it is the turn of City big rivals Manchester United, after they reported their IT systems had been impacted by a cyber-attack , widely reported in the UK media as a cyber-extortion attack. In the last couple of years, cybercriminals have significantly ramped up efforts in targeting UK businesses with cyber extortion attacks, using ransomware malware and confidential data theft to leverage their victims into paying large ransom payments anonymously in Bitcoin. Many businesses have been quick to pay out ransoms after their operations ground to halt due to their IT systems being rendered unusable due to ransomware, and also to avoid dumping their confidential data on the internet by the cybercriminals.   In July 2020 the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) specially warned that cybercriminals were targeting UK sports teams with ransomwar...

Written by Sarah Doherty, Product Marketing Manager at  iland Around the world, IT teams are struggling with choosing between less critical, but important tasks, versus focusing on innovative projects to help transform your business. Both are necessary for your business and need to be actioned, but should your team do all of it? Have you thought about allowing someone else to guide you through the process while your internal team continues to focus on transforming the business?  DRaaS Data protection dilemma; outsourcing or self-managing? Disaster recovery can take a lot of time to properly implement so it may be the right time to consider a third-party provider who can help with some of the more routine and technical aspects of your disaster recovery planning. This help can free up some of your staff’s valuable time while also safeguarding your vital data. Outsourcing your data protection functions vs. managing them yourself Information technology has raised many ques...

The sport of football is a multi-billion-pound global industry, where the world's top-drawer football clubs push competitive advantages to the extreme, not just for the prestige of winning trophies, as success on the pitch also means a greater slice of jaw-dropping TV, sponsorship and advertising revenues.  The key commodity in the football industry are football players, elite talent players command transfer fees up to 100 times their weight in gold and receive millions a year in wages.  Investing in recruiting the best football players increases the likelihood of winning matches, titles and lucrative financial rewards. The competition for success is especially fierce between Europe's largest football clubs. This is leading to ever-inflating player transfer fees and wages, rippling downwards throughout football's global pyramid of leagues, with many clubs gambling with financial outlays on recruiting player talent, in hope of achieving the financial rewards which succes...