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ASSESSING YOUR ORGANIZATION’S CYBER SECURITY: THINK YOU’RE UP TO IT?

By |March 11th, 2015|Categories: Risk Assessment|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |Comments Off on ASSESSING YOUR ORGANIZATION’S CYBER SECURITY: THINK YOU’RE UP TO IT?

The Enron debacle will forevermore be a parable about delusional self-auditing. In much the same way, Cyber Security should never be assessed using internal staff and mechanisms, the ramifications of missing something are simply too great.

According to Cenzic ‘s Application Vulnerability Trends Report: 2014, “While the majority of corporations have the important security building blocks, such as firewalls and intrusion protection systems needed for their security infrastructure, not enough organizations have comprehensive tools and practices in place for securing applications.” Faced with a worldwide shortage of Cyber Security professionals (Cyber Security has only recently become a discipline one may major in!), and companies unable to afford the overhead necessary for the requisite training, this situation is not surprising. Bad news for you. Good news for hackers.

Still think you can go it alone? Do you really understand the sheer magnitude of possible vulnerabilities? Here’s a sobering thought: Everything on the network is hackable. Everything—from your corporate computers to a 3rd party vendor to your employees’ Smartphones. Add to this the risky behaviors employees can engage in—sharing passwords, inappropriate web browsing, copying sensitive data onto mobile devices—and you’ve got exposure. Lots of it.

An objective Cyber Security assessment can assist with evaluation and establishment of controls to:

Implement an information risk management program
Ensure network security is adequate, including boundary and internal
Guide user education and awareness
Verify malware protection and prevention
Deal with secure configuration and patch management for devices (network, servers, PCs)
Manage user access and privileges
Handle incident management
Assist with home and mobile working

If you feel you aren’t ready to tackle all the items above, you should at least undertake a basic evaluation to consider only the most foundational building blocks for cyber security.

In a survey of its 3,400 global members, …
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Cyber Security: No Company is Too Small

By |February 25th, 2015|Categories: Security Assessment|Tags: , , , , , , |Comments Off on Cyber Security: No Company is Too Small

CYBER ATTACKS: NO COMPANY IS too small

Many companies think because they are small they are immune to a cyber attack—after all, they do not have the net worth of, say, Target ($38B) or Home Depot ($55B) or Walmart ($250B). This is a dangerous misconception. The fact is, whether you are worth millions or billions you are at risk, and your insignificant size might be the very thing putting you in jeopardy.

What makes a small business attractive to hackers? For one thing, smaller enterprises often don’t have the resources to implement the programs and training necessary to prevent, detect, and recover from attacks. Larger organizations do have the resources (including insurance) to weather a breach, but smaller ones may suffer irreparable damage. Another attractive difference is that while larger companies have a more holistic, integral view of IT security that extends across an enterprise, smaller companies tend to have a more myopic view where IT security is relegated to, well, IT. In addition, since smaller companies often have less sophisticated firewalls and detection programs, they may be targeted as a portal for later use as conduits to larger organizations. For example, preliminary investigations indicate that the mess at Target may have been initiated by an employee of their HVAC vendor who opened a malware-laden email. It has been said that you are only as strong as your weakest link, and all too often, that link is human.

Whether you recognize it or not, your organization’s systems and data are exposed in countless ways, including via mobile apps, third party vendors, remote employees, former employees, cloud storage, weak passwords, neglected legacy systems, and social media. In its September 30th report, Managing Cyber Risks in an Interconnected World: …
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Rx: Annual IT Health Check

By |July 26th, 2011|Categories: Assessment|Tags: , , , , |Comments Off on Rx: Annual IT Health Check

Welcome to TransAccel’s inaugural blog! I’ve been eagerly anticipating the opportunity to talk to you about what I see as the biggest challenges facing IT and business today. To stimulate my thinking around the new adventure of blogging, I’ve been reflecting on the many years my colleagues and I have strategized, innovated, and just generally cleaned up messes. You have your stories too. This is the place to share them, and we hope you do.

Over the next few months members of my team and I will be writing about:

Where to start? For me it all begins with a good understanding of who you are, where you are, and where you would like to be. And, just as an annual physical exam uncovers potential health issues, we insist on a “IT Health Check” too. After all, how can we know what remedial measures to take without an initial assessment?

Now, it seems pretty obvious that getting an annual check-up is smart and generally contributes to better health, right? Well, how many IT organizations put off a yearly exam and try to self diagnose? Worse yet, how many IT organizations have never even had an exam—you know, an independent review of how they operate? Interestingly, when we do a “Health Check,” we find that most IT organizations today are similar in two respects.

First—and to the seeming surprise of Business—IT is made up of human beings who have the same issues as everyone else: lack of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, inattention to detail, and indifference towards results. Having been in the business some 30 years I can tell you without question that these “soft” skills are just as important as “tech” skills …
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