Being a cybersecurity professional means you’re regularly in charge of making complex decisions with real-world consequences, like choosing the right cybersecurity benchmarks, controls, frameworks, or best practices for your organization. Should you apply the CIS Controls, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, or something else? Without overarching industry consensus, it can be...
One of the most common factors that can lead to cybersecurity incidents is a security misconfiguration in software or application settings. The default settings that come with the implementation of these tools and solutions are often not configured securely, and many organizations do not invest the time and resources into ensuring that they are.
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Like every other industry, the healthcare sector is barely recognizable when compared to its state 20 years ago. It, too, has been transfigured by technology. While this has brought many impactful benefits, it has also introduced at least one major challenge: keeping sensitive patient information private.
At the heart of this privacy challenge stands...
Cybersecurity in Mental Healthcare - The Overlooked Risk
Did you know the New-Age Therapeutic sector is unregulated? If that surprises you, then you’re not alone. I was a little surprised, too. Yes, there are various professional bodies a practitioner can join, and there are courses they can attend, but they aren’t forced to.
It should be noted that...
Plastic surgeries across the United States have been issued a warning that they are being targeted by cybercriminals in plots designed to steal sensitive data including patients' medical records and photographs that will be later used for extortion.
The warning, which was issued by the FBI yesterday and is directed towards plastic surgery offices and...
In the past, teams incorporated security testing far after the development stage of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC). Security testing would influence whether the application would to proceed to production, or get passed back to the developers for remediation.
This process caused delays while teams worked on remediation or, worse yet, it...
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted to safeguard Protected Health Information (PHI) by mandating procedures and controls to assure the public that critical and private information is controlled from loss of confidentiality, integrity or availability. With few exceptions, an organization is subject to HIPAA if it exchanges data related to the health care...
The United States Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, was enacted to safeguard Protected Health Information (PHI) by mandating procedures and controls to assure the public that critical and private information is controlled from loss of confidentiality, integrity or availability. With few exceptions, an organization is subject to HIPAA if it exchanges data...
Overview
There is mounting concern at the senior executive and board level regarding cybersecurity, driven by highly visible advanced targeted attacks. These attacks threaten precious IP, valuable customer information, company valuation and trade secrets. To truly protect valuable resources, organizations have to accept the nature of modern networked environments and devices, and start defending...
The value of electronic health record (EHR) systems is immense. These digital records are designed to be available anytime and anywhere, connecting healthcare providers with patient data. EHRs are a central repository of patient medical histories, medications, diagnoses, immunization dates, allergies, lab results and radiology images. With access to this accurate patient information, providers can...
Many organizations face the challenging threat environment by strategically choosing a security controls framework as a reference for initiating, implementing, measuring, and evaluating their security posture, as well as managing risk. While many frameworks are available, one of the most notable and commonly used is the Center for Internet Security’s CIS Controls.
This well known framework has...
It’s not enough to cast a wide cybersecurity net and hope you catch the adversaries trying to compromise your data. Instead, you need to narrow your focus to make your efforts truly impactful.
But which of the countless potential cybersecurity attacks out there should you choose to prioritize? MITRE’s Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge (ATT&CK) Framework and the Center for...
Penetration testing is something that more companies and organizations should be considering a necessary expense. I say this because over the years the cost of data breaches and other forms of malicious intrusions and disruptions are getting costlier. Per IBM Security’s “Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021,” the average cost of a breach has increased 10%...
We all know that it is a question of when you will be compromised and not if you will be compromised. It is unavoidable. The goal of CIS Control 17 is to ensure that you are set up for success when that inevitable breach occurs. If an organization is neither equipped nor prepared for that potential data breach, they are not likely to succeeded in...
The way in which we interact with applications has changed dramatically over years. Enterprises use applications in day-to-day operations to manage their most sensitive data and control access to system resources. Instead of traversing a labyrinth of networks and systems, attackers today see an opening to turn an organizations applications against it to...
Enterprises today rely on partners and vendors to help manage their data. Some companies depend on third-party infrastructure for day-to-day operations, so understanding the regulations and protection standards that a service provider is promising to uphold is very important.
Key Takeaways from Control 15
Identify your business needs and create a...
Earlier this year, I wrote about what’s new in Version 8 of the Center for Internet Security’s Critical Security Controls (CIS Controls). An international consortium of security professionals first created the CIS Controls back in 2008. Since then, the security community has continued to update the CIS Controls to keep pace with the evolution of...
Users who do not have the appropriate security awareness training are considered a weak link in the security of an enterprise. These untrained users are easier to exploit than finding a flaw or vulnerability in the equipment that an enterprise uses to secure its network. Attackers could convince unsuspecting users to unintentionally provide access to...
Networks form a critical core for our modern-day society and businesses. People, processes, and technologies should be in place for monitoring, detecting, logging, and preventing malicious activities that occur when an enterprise experiences an attack within or against their networks.
Key Takeaways for Control 13
Enterprises should understand that...
Networks form a critical core for our modern-day society and businesses. These networks are comprised of many types of components that make up the networks’ infrastructure. Network infrastructure devices can be physical or virtual and include things such as routers, switches, firewalls, and wireless access points. Unfortunately, many devices are shipped...