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. Several regulatory organizations have established...

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 the venerable Health Insurance Portability and...

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 professional, licensed psychotherapists and...

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 patients, advises that extortionists have been...

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 increased security risks when teams released...

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% year over year, with the healthcare sector...

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 responding to the threat. Key Takeaways One...

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 bypass network security controls and...

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 set of standards that can be used to grade services...

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 technology ecosystems and emerging threat vectors...

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 the enterprise network or expose sensitive...

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 their systems and networks are never perfectly...

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 from manufacturers with “default”...

Data loss can be a consequence of a variety of factors from malicious ransomware to hardware failures and even natural disasters. Regardless of the reason for data loss, we need to be able to restore our data. A data recovery plan begins with prioritizing our data, protecting it while it is being stored, and having a plan to recover data. Key Takeaways for Control 11 Prioritize your data and come...

With the continuing rise of ransomware, malware defenses are more critical than ever before with regard to securing the enterprise. Anti-Malware technologies have become an afterthought in many organizations, a technology that they’ve always had, always used, and never really thought about. This control serves as a reminder that this technology is as critical as it ever was and lays out the...

Web browsers and email clients are used to interact with external and internal assets. Both applications can be used as a point of entry within an organization. Users of these applications can be manipulated using social engineering attacks. A successful social engineering attack needs to convince users to interact with malicious content. A successful attack could give an attacker an entry point...

Audit logs provide a rich source of data critical to preventing, detecting, understanding, and minimizing the impact of network or data compromise in a timely manner. Collection logs and regular review is useful for identifying baselines, establishing operational trends, and detecting abnormalities. In some cases, logging may be the only evidence of a successful attack. CIS Control 8 emphasizes...

When it comes to cybersecurity, vulnerability management is one of the older technologies that still play a critical role in securing our assets. It is often overlooked, disregarded, or considered only for checkbox compliance needs, but a proper vulnerability management program can play a critical role in avoiding a series data breach. CIS Control 07 provides the minimum requirements, table stakes...

CIS Control 6 merges some aspects of CIS Control 4 (admin privileges) and CIS Control 14 (access based on need to know) into a single access control management group. Access control management is a critical component in maintaining information and system security, restricting access to assets based on role and need. It is important to grant, refuse, and remove access in a standardized, timely, and...

Knowing who has credentials, how those credentials are granted, and how they are being used is the foundation of any secure environment. It begins with user accounts and the credentials they use. Maintaining a thorough inventory of all accounts and verifying any changes to those accounts as authorized and intentional vs unintended is paramount to establishing a secure environment and this includes...