This Week’s Cybersecurity Top 3
A lot went on this week in the world of cybersecurity. Between Capitol Hill, still furious from the recent announcement of the massive Yahoo breach that a group of 48 congress members requested “more information,” to European ATMs literally being blown up old-school style to get some cash, to ongoing political cyberattacks, it’s safe to say it’s been hard keeping current. This week, three big pieces of news rolled out on the red carpet – without looking, any guesses as to what they are?
- Stricter Regulations On Cybersecurity Hit The U.S.’s Biggest Banks
We mentioned last week that the Group of 7 Nations (G7) reached an agreement on guidelines to better protect the global financial industry from online attacks. We expected the roll out of the new policies to happen soon, but not this quickly. This past Wednesday, U.S. regulators shared the plan to protect the country’s largest banks from potential cyberattacks. The plan was released jointly by the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in order “to strengthen how large U.S. banks and foreign banks operating in the U.S. with $50 billion or more in assets, manage and address threats to cybersecurity.” The regulation would require that financial firms develop and maintain a cybersecurity risk plan, to be approved by their boards, and is fully incorporated into their business strategies. The public has 90 days to comment on this initial proposal.
- Cybersecurity And The Election
Cybersecurity has been a hot topic throughout this year’s U.S. Presidential Election. First, we were discussing with intense scrutiny Hillary Clinton’s person email server and the thousands of emails that were later marked classified, and then ultimately leaked. Not only was this a topic for the first presidential debate, but continued to be an area of concern throughout her campaign. Then it was the hack of the DNC and Donald Trump’s steadfast refusal to blame Russia. Fast forward to this week, and the breaking story that Trump’s corporate email servers were running an outdated operating system along with an unpatched Web server. Apparently as late as July 2015, Trump’s organization was using the Windows Server 2003 operating system. Really?! Clearly, neither candidate has best practices in place regarding cybersecurity, and many observers are concerned that no matter who is elected, neither candidate is proving through their actions that they are able to face cybersecurity issues and crime head on. This is a breaking story and new information is still surfacing, so stay tuned for more details.
- National Cyber Security Center Movement
It’s a given that there will be more cybersecurity breaches; the only question is where and when. As cybercriminals continue to up the ante, the stakes just become bigger, and the targets larger. There have been so many high visibility breaches in the last year alone that governments are finally beginning to worry about how to best protect themselves. Just last month, the U.K. set up the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) which the intention of corralling all of the government’s cyber security agencies under one roof, to better secure the government’s networks, but also to cover the security of critical national infrastructure and assist both business and citizens in protecting their digital assets. As a result, Ireland plans to set up their own National Cyber Security Centre, and also become the first EU country to roll out 5G, since over 75% of consumers in Ireland manage their banking on mobile devices.
Taking bets on which country will be next (for either the next big breach or to get 5G cell service).
