Blog « 14th ANNUAL Cyber Security Summit

April 14, 2017

Lt. Gen. Ron Burgess: Weakest link in security chain generally the individual

Lt. Gen. (ret) Ronald Lee Burgess, Jr., who served as the 17th Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was one of the keynote speakers at Cyber Security Summit 2016 in Minneapolis. As head of the Agency and a former Acting Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, Burgess served as a key player in the national […]

November 9, 2016

DHS Under Secretary: Vibrancy Makes Us Attractive Target for Hackers

“Minnesota is adding tech jobs at the greatest rate of anywhere in the country,” declared Suzanne Spaulding, Under Secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) at the Department of Homeland Security, a keynote speaker at Cyber Security Summit 2016 in Minneapolis. The flip side of that coin with regard to cyber security, […]

November 1, 2016

Cyber Due Diligence Should be a Key Component of a Corporate Acquisition

In July, Verizon announced that it would acquire Yahoo’s Internet business for $4.8 billion. In September, Yahoo disclosed that a massive data breach had compromised 500 million user accounts. The breach happened nearly two years ago, in late 2014. Now, Verizon has stated publicly that it believes the breach has had a material impact on Yahoo. […]

October 7, 2016

Realities of today’s digital economy

Amid mushrooming IoT device sales and attendant channel transaction growth, findings from a recent study raise serious concerns about just how effectively online businesses are able to safeguard their stakeholders’ digital identities. A White Paper titled “The Economics of Digital Identity” was published by The Economist and authored by a team of experts at the Economist Intelligence […]

August 3, 2016

Study: Once inside, hackers don’t need malware

Once they have breached a system, most hackers no longer need malware, according to a new study by LightCyber, a provider of Behavioral Attack Detection solutions. According to the company’s Cyber Weapons Report 2016, 99 percent of post-intrusion cyberattack activities used standard networking, IT administration and other tools. “While malware was commonly used to initially […]

July 14, 2016

Cleveland cyber firm predicts GOP Convention will draw cyber attacks

According to the CEO of Stealthcare, a Cleveland-based cyber security firm, the next major cyber security attack will likely be tied to the GOP Convention, although he believes it won’t come from hacktivitsts upset with Donald Trump but rather from a state-sponsored group. Jeremy Samide, CEO of Stealthcare, points to the recent attack on the […]

July 13, 2016

Cyber Insurance Coverage Disputes: Not What Your Company Expected

While cyber insurance policies are popular, and can be an effective risk-mitigation tool, we have advised clients to be cautious, to evaluate policy language carefully, and to anticipate coverage disputes. Recent cases bear this out: it is critically important that the language in the policy cover, without exclusion, the key losses anticipated by the insured. […]

July 7, 2016

Survey: Most companies don’t budget for ransomware attacks

Based on the prevalence of the scam, some security experts have called 2016 “the year of ransomware,” yet a new survey shows most businesses don’t budget extra funds to regain access after a ransomeware attack. The survey, conducted by data security firm IDT911, found that 65 percent of respondents currently do not, nor plan to, […]

June 16, 2016

RSA: Most companies still exposed to significant cyber risk

Is your company exposed to significant cyber risk? If not, you’re in the minority, according to a new report from RSA. For the second year in a row, RSA, The Security Division of EMC, found that 75 percent of 878 survey respondents across 81 countries have significant cybersecurity risk exposure. There was, however, at least […]

June 13, 2016

Another study suggests ransomware growing in popularity

Based on news reports, ransomware attacks appear to be growing in popularity, and a new study seems to confirm that they have become the scam of choice among hackers. In the first quarter of 2016, 93 percent of phishing emails contained ransomware, according to a recent report from PhishMe, a phishing-defense solutions provider. The company […]

May 18, 2016

Ransomware the biggest immediate cyber threat, Kaspersky warns

Ransomware has overtaken advanced persistent threat network attacks as the most frequent cyber threat, according to security firm Kaspersky Lab, and it doesn’t appear to be slowing down as authorities have had a hard time combating the viruses. A recent Kaspersky report revealed that there were 2,900 new ransomware modifications detected between January and March of 2016, […]