We have been including blog posts related to security breaches throughout the year and I wanted to share with you a great resource from SCMagazine called The Data Breach Blog. This is a blog dedicated to reporting on various data breaches which have occurred and providing information such as how many victims, what happened, what type of personal data, what was the response, and details about issues which allowed the data breach to happen.
One example is this recent data breach of a database containing personal information from 235,000 students, former students, parents, faculty, staff and individuals who sent their SAT scores to Western Connecticut State University. This included names, social security numbers, emails, addresses, phone numbers and even grades. Check out the rest of the blog post to see how they handled the attack….
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IT Professionals Anticipating Data Breaches
Mon, May 20th 2013 11:15a Chief Content Writer According to the results of a survey conducted by Lieberman Software at the RSA Conference in February, 73.3% of IT security professionals are unwilling to believe that they’re companies are prepared for a cyber attack if it were to occur within six months.
Their lack of faith in their infrastructure is not unjustified, however, as cyber attacks have been shown to be adapting as fast, if not faster than the efforts put forth by those that exist to stop them. CEO of Lieberman Software Phi [read] Keywords: policies
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Changing Strategies for IT Security
Thu, May 16th 2013 12:14p Chief Content Writer As cyber threats continue to evolve and become more efficient at compromising your data, so should the business strategies for IT Security to continue to protect said data.
The NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) agrees, and their newly revised catalog of IT security controls provides a framework for just that: a wider range of flexibility for administrators with which to protect their information systems. Specifically, this new set of controls, in a proactive approach rathe [read] Keywords: security
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Small Business Faces Growing Threat of Cyber Attacks
Tue, May 14th 2013 4:18p Chief Content Writer As presented in an article by the Homeland Security News Wire last week, evidence has shown that it’s not just big businesses we’ve come to expect should be concerned with being the targets of cyber attacks, but small and medium business as well.
In particular, the 2013 Information Security Breaches Survey taken in the U.K shows that the number of security breaches on small businesses increased by more than 10 percent over the previous year, bringing the full figure to 87 percent of [read] Keywords: security
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Balancing Security and Usability
Fri, May 10th 2013 8:21a Chief Content Writer There seems to be a constant struggle between keeping your company’s data safe and maximizing the productivity and satisfaction of your employees. There are enough security systems out there to find one that will lock your data down very securely… the problem is you don’t want to make it so secure that even your own employees can’t access the data. On the flip side, if employees are not challenged when they access data, this means would-be bad guys will also not be challenged. So t [read] Keywords: applications
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Subsistence Level Security Spending
Wed, May 8th 2013 11:17a Chief Content Writer The US Census takes place every 5 years, with the last occurring in 2008. According to it, there were nearly 89,000 US companies with between 100-500 employees (link) which we’ll refer to as the Small-to-Medium Business (SMB) market. Many of these companies offer valuable services to their customers and are typically able to secure annual profits. However, looking at these companies’ expenditures would reveal that a bare minimum is spent on IT security and infrastructure. Wendy Nathe [read] Keywords: admin
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Two-Factor for Facebook: A True Story
Fri, Apr 26th 2013 12:20p Chief Content Writer A member of the PistolStar team shares his personal story on the dangers of Facebook, and the benefits of enhanced security two-factor login:
If you haven’t been under a rock for the past few years, you are well aware of the ever popular Facebook web site where friends and foes of many races and generations get together to share information. Yes, I said friends and foes. All good things must have their evil side and Facebook is no exception. You may have a close friend and have trusted [read] Keywords: facebook
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Two-Factor Takeover
Wed, Apr 24th 2013 9:18p Chief Content Writer In extension to our post last week stating that Apple is the latest to join in a trend that’s having more and more of the presently most influential companies adding enhanced security in the form of two-factor login to their accounts, we follow up this week with yet another. Twitter will be joining the likes of Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft as they begin rolling out the feature in a short, but unspecified time from now.
It appears as though Twitter has had this project underway [read] Keywords: apple
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Mobile Authenticator Apps for Two Step Authentication
Fri, Apr 19th 2013 2:18p Chief Content Writer A number of Two Step and Two Factor authentication methods exist today to help further secure our valuable digital resources. As secure as they are, they can cause “ease of use” issues which then puts the onerous on the end user. Using security questions is limited by how well you can answer the questions so others can’t guess them but at the same time, make it easy for you to remember. Security questions get forgotten more times than people would like to admit. Instead of remember [read] Keywords: roaming
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Continuing Towards a World Without Passwords
Tue, Apr 16th 2013 4:16p Chief Content Writer In a move that appears to be an attempt to catch up to its competitors Google and Facebook, Apple and Microsoft are now the latest monoliths to have introduced a two-factor authentication option for their users’ Apple IDs, and Microsoft accounts, respectively. Once again the evidence shows that we’re on our way towards a world without passwords. Multi-factor authentication is ever more trendy, and now everybody’s doing it.
Similarly to the existing two-step verification of [read] Keywords: apple
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Using Public Wi-Fi Responsibly
Fri, Mar 29th 2013 1:15p Chief Content Writer In this highly technical world we live in, filled with all sorts of gadgets and devices designed to keep us in touch with family, friends and business associates, the once upon a time convenience of access to the internet has become almost as necessary to some people as breathing. The internet can be accessed from your phone while in a car, from your home for pleasure or business and of course from your place of business. The access point to look out for though is accessing the internet from [read] Keywords: email
mobile
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We have been including blog posts related to security breaches throughout the year and I wanted to share with you a great resource from SCMagazine called 
