In the business world, compliance means making sure that companies of all sizes are meeting the standards set by regulatory or oversight groups in various laws and standards, such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOX, and GDPR. Sometimes, an organization will self-impose its compliance by adhering to guidance and frameworks from organizations such as NIST, ISACA, ISO...

In response to increasing societal concerns about the way businesses store, process, and protect the sensitive data they collect from their customers, governments and standardization organizations have enacted a patchwork of regulations and laws. Some of these are generic regulations (CCPA, GDPR), while others are industry specific (SOX, NERC, HIPAA,...

The Cross-Sector Cybersecurity Performance Goals (CPGs) are a new baseline released jointly by CISA, NIST, and the interagency community, with a goal of providing consistency across all critical infrastructure. The primary webpage for these goals gives us a great understanding of what they are (and are not). It is worth delving into those specifics to...

Change detection is easy. What is not so easy, is reconciling change. Change reconciliation is where most organizations stumble. What was the change? When was it made? Who made it? Was it authorized?  The ability to answer these questions are the elements that comprise change management. Historically, the haste of accomplishing a task consisted of a...

Have you ever walked up to an ATM after another person finished with the machine only to find they left it on a prompt screen asking, “Do you want to perform another transaction?” I have. Of course, I did the right thing and closed out their session before beginning my own transaction. That was a mistake an individual made by careless error which could...

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework was meant to be a dynamic document that is continuously revised, enhanced, and updated. These upgrades allow the Framework to keep up with technological and threat developments, incorporate lessons learned, and transform best practices into standard procedures. NIST created the Framework in 2014 and updated it with CSF 1...

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...

For most modern businesses, there’s a divide between Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT). The difference between these equally integral facets of digital manufacturing is a subject currently under debate. Ultimately, information technology deals with information and data. In contrast, operational technology handles the physical...

It is always said that security is never a one-size-fits-all solution.  This is true not only because of the apparent infinite varieties of equipment in each individual organization, but also, and perhaps more importantly, the different ways that every organization views security. Some spend lots of time focusing on physical security, especially those...

Cybersecurity has, since its inception, been a corporate-based problem. Whether it is a public, or private corporation, these entities were the primary targets of most cybercrime. In recent years, the industrial sector has increasingly become the target of attack for malicious actors. The reasons include newly internet-connected devices that were once...

The lack of healthcare cybersecurity is one of the most significant threats to the sanctity of the global healthcare industry. This is made evident by the fact that in 2020 more than 18 million patient records were affected by successful cyber-attacks on the U.S. healthcare system. Health professionals should not take this issue lightly, as financial...

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...

Agencies of the US Government have issued a joint warning that hackers have revealed their capability to gain full system access to industrial control systems that might help enemy states sabotage critical infrastructure. In a joint cybersecurity advisory issued by the Department of Energy, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA),...

In recent years, cyber espionage has been growing in magnitude and complexity. One of the most common targets is Industrial Control Systems (ICS) within critical infrastructure sectors. With many organizations relying more heavily on ICS networks, there has been an increase in threats and cyberattacks aimed at these systems. Not only do these attacks...

Cloud adoption has come a long way from its early days where corporate executives questioned the stewardship of their data. The initial suspicions of “where’s my data” have been laid to rest, as administrative tools and contractual obligations have emerged to give better visibility to, and accountability of, data custodianship. Even the capabilities of...

  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...

Industrial control systems (ICS) are specific kinds of assets and associated instrumentation that help to oversee industrial processes. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, there are three common types of ICS. These are supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, which help organizations to control dispersed...

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...