We have each probably worked for a CEO who we’d just as soon meet in a dark alley (without video surveillance), while carrying a nightstick and a taser. So when I saw Ed Moyle’s blog about Narcissistic CEOs, I was hoping it would end with “You’d better bring a mop. And a body bag.” Unfortunately Ed highlighted some research that these narcissistic douches adopt technology more aggressively (mostly due to their oversized egos) and are more likely to be successful. Humbug.
My paternal grandmother passed away last week at 103. No, that is not a typo. One hundred and three. Ciento tres for you Spanish speakers out there. She would have been 104 in June. That’s a long time. To give you some perspective, per the infoplease site, William Taft was president in 1909. Robert Peary and Matthew Henson reached the North Pole that year. And the big news in the medical community was finding a cure for syphilis. I’m sure that caused much rejoicing around the world. I guess…
I like to see stuff that challenges common wisdom. The inimitable professor Gene Spafford of Purdue goes far against the grain in calling out the excitement of hacking competitions and red teams as counterproductive to training the next generation of security folks.
We ve talked a bit about the need to “be careful what we wish for,” in terms of making security a higher profile issue with senior management. Well, it’s no longer just vendors throwing FUD balloons that can splat at any time. I was perusing the Seeking Alpha investor site over the weekend when I found an article called Pandemic Cyber Security Failures Open An Historic Opportunity For Investors. Yes, I threw up a bit in my mouth when I read that headline.
Hi folks, Dave Lewis here, and it is my turn to pull the summary together this week. I’m glad for the opportunity. So, a random thought: I have made a lot of mistakes in my career and will more than likely make many more. I frequently refer to this as my well-honed ability to fall on spears.
Now that we have covered all the pesky background information, we can start delving into the best ways to actually protect data.
We (Rich and Gal) were chatting last week about the destructive malware attacks in South Korea. One popular theory is that patch management systems were compromised and used to spread malware to affected targets, which deleted Master Boot Records and started wiping drives (including network connected drives), even on Linux.
Brian Krebs thinks he may have identified the author of the Flashback Mac malware that caused so much trouble last year. Brian is careful with accusations but displays his full investigative reporting chops as he lays out the case:
Huawei not expecting growth in US this year due to national security concerns (The Verge).
U.S. to scrutinize IT system purchases with ties to China (PC World):
Threatpost reports that California is considering a law requiring companies to show consumers what data is collected on them.
Known as the “Right to Know Act of 2013,” AB 1291 was amended this week to boost its chances of success after being introduced in February by state Assembly member Bonnie Lowenthal. If passed, it would require any business that retains customer data to give a copy of that information, including who it has been shared with, for the past year upon request. It applies to…