Cybersecurity Expert

Article by Bernard Parsons, CEO, Becrypt Whether it is an EPOS system at a fast food venue or large display system at a public transport hub, interactive kiosks are becoming popular and trusted conduits for transacting valuable data with customers. The purpose of interactive kiosks, and the reason for their increasing prevalence, is to drive automation and make processes more efficient. For many businesses and government departments, they are the visible and tangible manifestations of their digital transformation. Kiosks are information exchanges, delivering data and content; ingesting preferences, orders and payments. With so much data going back and forth, there is huge value, however, wherever there is value you’ll find malicious and criminal activities seeking to spoil, subvert or steal it . Three categories of Cyber Threat Kiosks are just the latest in a long line of data-driven objects that need protecting. At stake is the very heart (and public face) of digitally evo...

A guest article authored by Bernard Parsons, CEO, Becrypt Whilst I am sure more details behind the Marriott data breach will slowly come to light over the coming months, there is already plenty to reflect on given the initial disclosures and accompanying hypotheses. With the prospects of regulatory fines and lawsuits looming, assimilating the sheer magnitude of the numbers involved is naturally alarming. Up to 500 million records containing personal and potentially financial information is quite staggering. In the eyes of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), this is deemed a ‘Mega Breach’, even though it falls short of the Yahoo data breach. But equally concerning are the various timeframes reported. Marriott said the breach involved unauthorised access to a database containing Starwood properties guest information, on or before 10th September 2018. Its ongoing investigation suggests the perpetrators had been inside the company’s networks since 2014. Starwood disclosed its own...