Read about the latest cybersecurity news and get advice on third-party vendor risk management, reporting cybersecurity to the Board, managing cyber risks, benchmarking security performance, and more.
Insights blog.
Slicing through CISA’s KEV Catalog
Slicing through CISA’s KEV Catalog
Dive into the critical insights of CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog with Bitsight’s latest blog! Discover how KEVs, which signal urgent cybersecurity risks, are being tracked and mitigated across industries. Learn why addressing these vulnerabilities quickly is vital and how it impacts organizational security.
The last couple of years have been tough on higher education systems in terms of cyber security. In 2012, in particular, there was a near-record-high number of data breaches, with nearly two million exposed records reported. The following year saw Maricopa Community College in Arizona experience a data breach that affected 2.4 million people. In 2014, there have already been several high-profile .EDU data breaches. In our latest Bitsight Insights report, we found that many universities are struggling to secure their networks due to unique IT infrastructure requirements and persistent security problems.
In 2011, the SEC issued a set of disclosure guidelines that told companies to disclose any potential cyber risk, possible effects of that risk, as well as the status of internal controls and risk management procedures in place. It was a grand idea, one that had the potential to protect investors and boards by keeping them in the loop when it came to matters of security. Unfortunately, its grand potential wasn’t brought to fruition. The guidance was never updated to account for the growing frequency of security breaches, and companies were failing to report cyber incidents. Now, the SEC is revisiting the issue and considering turning those guidelines into standards so that companies will have to live up to the level of transparency their investors have come to expect.
On July 21, 2014, Brian Krebs (once again) broke the news of a potentially major retail breach. Goodwill Industries and its 165 independent agencies across North America appear to be the most recent victims in the seemingly plagued retail industry.
As executives and corporate boards are increasingly being called upon to act on cyber security issues, security practitioners need new tools to better communicate performance to upper level management. Benchmarking, a tool used by businesses to track performance, can (and should) be used to better communicate and understand security posture.
It took a long time for the CISO role to emerge in corporate America (and maybe 25% of large enterprises have one), so it will be quite a while before it becomes a consistent board seat. In the meantime, corporate boards are made up of current and former CEOs, CIOs & CFOs, academia and distinguished public servants from civilian and military backgrounds. I believe they are all too aware of the implication of cybersecurity risk. Like many senior executives, boards have recently had a crash course in the impact of security breaches. Either because they have witnessed them first hand….or from ‘a safe distance’ as competitors and peers have struggled through cyber attacks and loss disclosures. But there is no existing framework for discussing cybersecurity risk among a corporate board, certainly nothing that equates to their existing framework for discussing growth, profitability, legal exposure, supply chain, M&A, HR best practices, geopolitical risk etc. For those perpetual board meeting topics there is a consistent push for internal data and instrumentation that can be compared and benchmarked with a peer group, an industry or a competitor.
For 'the practice' of board oversight to extend to cybersecurity risk, those same benchmarks must exist. Without objective comparison between peer/competitor/industry, how can the experience and advice of your celebrated academic, retired CEO, distinguished public servant or maverick CIO have any context? How can measurement be put in place?
Mr. Aguilar is on the right track. Boards must start taking responsibility for the cybersecurity of their companies. If not, there will likely be financial and reputational repercussions for board members that fail to place this issue as a critical priority in retaining and growing the value of a company. Yet, while the time for board level discussions on cyber security has come, it is also the time for new innovative solutions to enable this practice. This is where Security Ratings come in.
For 'the practice' of board oversight to extend to cybersecurity risk, those same benchmarks must exist. Without objective comparison between peer/competitor/industry, how can the experience and advice of your celebrated academic, retired CEO, distinguished public servant or maverick CIO have any context? How can measurement be put in place?
Mr. Aguilar is on the right track. Boards must start taking responsibility for the cybersecurity of their companies. If not, there will likely be financial and reputational repercussions for board members that fail to place this issue as a critical priority in retaining and growing the value of a company. Yet, while the time for board level discussions on cyber security has come, it is also the time for new innovative solutions to enable this practice. This is where Security Ratings come in.
In a previous blog post, we outlined federal initiatives to pass a data breach notification law that would simplify the current myriad of state regulations. In the wake of the Target and Neiman Marcus data breaches, legislators and government officials called for a national data breach notification standard. While bills have been introduced, little action has been taken beyond Senate or House subcommittee hearings. While high-profile breaches that brought this issue into the conciousness of the American public and government, the need for transparency is even more pressing due to the high volume of unreported breaches: Our own analysis found that just in our home state of Massachusetts, 1 million residents had their PII compromised from healthcare breaches during 2007-2011. Yet, just because there has been little movement in the US federal government does not mean data breach notification has been a stagnant issue in other countries and on the state level. In this post, we are going to round up some interesting legislative initiatives happening around the globe and in US state governments.
Companies are spending more and more on IT security. A recent report by Canalys found that the worldwide IT security market will grow 6.6% annually, becoming a $30.1 billion dollar industry by 2017. This increase in spending may have something to do with the heightened consequences of data breaches and security events. Another recent study, this one from the Ponemon Institute, found average data breach costs to be a lofty $3.5 million. But, as companies spend more and more money on IT security products and services, how can they verify that their overall security is improving?
In his talk “CISOs Talking SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud)”, Jim Routh, CISO at Aetna recounted a lunch conversation that he shared with eight recently hired CISOs. Through the course of the lunch discussion, the CISOs ascertained the following three facts: 1) Each CISO was interviewed for their current position by the CEO, 2) they were all being very well compensated, and 3) the lowest amount of budget increase was double.
Routh’s lunch time anecdote makes it clear that the role of the CISO is evolving. The elevated importance of the CISO within the enterprise shows an increased enterprise awareness and focus on information security risk, but it also speaks to the new nature of the CISO’s role. Traditionally, the CISO was more a of a “back-office” manager focused on network and security operations. The role has evolved. The CISO is in many ways on par with other “C-level” executives. The new CISO is customer-facing and revenue-generating.
Security has been historically classified as a business expense with
Routh’s lunch time anecdote makes it clear that the role of the CISO is evolving. The elevated importance of the CISO within the enterprise shows an increased enterprise awareness and focus on information security risk, but it also speaks to the new nature of the CISO’s role. Traditionally, the CISO was more a of a “back-office” manager focused on network and security operations. The role has evolved. The CISO is in many ways on par with other “C-level” executives. The new CISO is customer-facing and revenue-generating.
Security has been historically classified as a business expense with
As a result of their major data breach late last year, Target has undergone a major house-cleaning to signify to the market just how seriously they are taking cyber security.
Originating from the French proclamations of Charles VII’s ascension to the throne after the death of Charles VI, “The King is dead, long live the King” speaks to the inevitability of succession. It is now not a stretch to think about the inevitability of future CEOs leaving power and ascending to power as a result of cyber breaches.
Businesses often undertake a check-box approach to cyber security by purchasing security products, meeting compliance standards and performing quarterly or yearly audits. While these methods have proven value, they are often not enough. This leaves businesses vulnerable to threats in a constantly changing risk landscape. To overcome these obstacles, businesses should gain expanded visibility into security performance through data-driven comparison and continuous monitoring.
Healthcare security and how updated HIPAA/HITECH Act regulations are changing the nature of risk in that industry are hot topics right now. "The rules have made it easier for organizations to have penalties levied against them because of the actions of a subcontractor," Elizabeth Warren, a healthcare attorney with Nashville Tennessee-based Bass Berry & Sims, is quoted as saying in this Becker’s Hospital CIO post. And she’s absolutely right.
Since California became the first state to enact a security breach notification law in 2001, 46 states and the District of Columbia have enacted similar disclosure laws. These laws follow similar basic tenets that “companies must immediately disclose a data breach,” a burden most stringent when the data compromised could be classified as personally identifiable information (PII), such as name, social security number, date of birth, mothers maiden name, etc.
Last week Stephen Boyer, CTO and Co-Founder of Bitsight, and Oliver Brew, VP of Professional, Privacy and Technology Liability at Liberty International Underwriters, hosted a webinar titled, "Security Ratings: A Big Data Approach to Measuring and Mitigating Security Risk". During this webinar, they discussed the challenges to measuring security risk and how Security Ratings can give businesses the tools to proactively identify and mitigate risk.
Unfortunately, something ugly has tarnished the canvases of the artists and crafters who used their debit or credit cards to shop at Michaels from May 8, 2013 to January 24, 2014. In late January 2014, Michaels announced that it was investigating a potential security breach involving customers’ credit card information. After weeks of analysis, Michaels finally confirmed yesterday that a targeted attack did indeed occur on some of their point of sales systems and that approximately 2.6 million cards may have been compromised.
At Bitsight, we have observed significant botnet activity on Michael’s network over the past year. In particular, we observed multiple instances of Conficker, a botnet that can comp
At Bitsight, we have observed significant botnet activity on Michael’s network over the past year. In particular, we observed multiple instances of Conficker, a botnet that can comp