If you read cyber security related stories in the news, or receive any kind of sales or marketing brochures from cyber security companies, you will doubtless hear that cyber attacks are becoming more 'sophisticated'. Additionally any company that ever has to publicly admit to being hacked...
If you follow cyber security in the news, or twitter or LinkedIn, you'll often hear debates about attribution - usually taking the form of Attack X is the work of Country Y. Most recently the attacks on the Swift network have been associated with the...
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post giving some advice on what you should do first if you find yourself in charge of cyber security at your organisation. You can read it here. I thought I'd follow up on that post, with some...
Data breaches have been in the news a lot recently. We've had the Panama Papers, which have caused so many unflattering headlines for many of our clearly above board and honest guv'nor world leaders. A large amount of data apparently from Qatar National Bank turned...
I do a fair bit of training, and often I find people have come along on a intro to cyber security course because they have suddenly found themselves responsible for security in their organisation. So regardless of whether you are new to security, or an...
The idea of disruptive hacking has long been a favourite of the media and certain talking heads. The idea that a dedicated team with laptops could take out the power and other critical services across a whole country is one that captures the imagination, and...
I read with interest a post by Elliot Atkins, a friend and former colleague. You can read his post here. I agree with all of his points, but there is one bit in particular I want to dwell on today, as I think it has wider...
I've been working with a client recently on incident response, and was reminded how useful it can be to use scenarios to develop your process. I have long been an advocate of testing earlier in the development of an incident response plan - come up...
A couple of weeks ago I was reviewing my spam folder, and I saw this: (click to embiggen). I immediately burst out laughing, and was very impressed indeed with whoever had done this. This is an incident This was a pretty standard phishing email. It used the tried an...
Speaking last week at GCHQ in Cheltenham, the Chancellor announced the creation of a new 'National Cyber Centre' (NCC). You can read the full text of his speech here, and some highlight factoids here. I recommend at least reading the highlights, though there is a...