Gearing Up for National Cyber Security Awareness Month

The security world is gearing up this October to recognize National Cyber Security Awareness Month. For 12 years, the Department of Homeland Security has reached out to people, small and medium-sized business, corporations and younger generations to educate and bring awareness to safety issues surrounding technology and the ever-changing public sharing landscape.

Each week during National Cyber Security Awareness Month, particular topics focus on the most pressing cyber security issues faced today. Our blog posts during October will center around these important messages:

Week 1: General Cyber Security Awareness
With the meteoric rise of major hacks and data thefts, ignorance is no longer a valid defense for organizations. No longer just an IT problem, a strong cyber security plan starts with education and company-wide awareness.

Week 2: Creating a Culture of Cyber Security at Work
The creation of a successful culture of cyber security starts with executive level communication. Along with awareness and situational training, employees should have a support system and escalation process in place to channel any issues to security teams for analysis. A defined, concise security protocol ensures protection at all levels of your organization.

Week 3: Connected Communities: Stay Protected While Always Connected
Today’s social landscape open doors to a wealth of personal information available to anyone with a computer or mobile device. Understanding security measures and controls available within communities reduces the threat of oversharing online. IT and Information Security staff should look to engage local security user groups and network.  Growing a local network provides an additional layer of support and education.

Week 4: Your Evolving Digital Life
As new technology is developed and integrated into our lives, we must continue to demand transparency in data use to ensure ongoing ease of use and control of information.

Week 5: Building the Next Generation of Cyber Professionals
A worldwide shortage of experienced security professionals coupled with the growing demand in the cyber and information security field has led to educators to push for training beginning in elementary or high school. As the field evolves, organizations will need the support of both technical and non-technical candidates.

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VSS helps organizations to reduce their risk exposure across all areas of the enterprise including its people, data, applications, network and servers. By having skills that cover the entire organization, VSS can integrate the best security products and practices to provide clients with an enterprise-wide solution. Learn more here.

Video: IBM Security C-Suites Spotlight - Jamie Giroux, Maximus

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure:" This video series is dedicated to that exact idea applied to security, security breaches and today's evolving world of security threats. Let's not forget the power of prevention. Join us each week as we deliver a short video geared towards: Intelligence & Analytics, Fraud Detection, Risk Management, Forensics, Compliance and Data Security.

Jamie Giroux is the Vice President of Security Compliance and Audit at Maximus, a provider of managed healthcare, human services, and workforce management within the U.S., Canada, the UK, and Australia. Jamie’s main responsibility is to ensure that the proper security controls are in place at Maximus, and to validate that those programs are adequately protecting the company’s assets, data, and people.

In this C-Suite Spotlight interview, Jamie discusses the challenges for security at a large organization with a global presence, the ways in which security has changed over the past few years, and the areas he will be focused on in the next few years as security continues to evolve.

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VSS helps organizations to reduce their risk exposure across all areas of the enterprise including its people, data, applications, network and servers. VSS works with best of breed technologies including IBM Security, IBM InfoSphere, CheckPoint, Ping Identity and cloud security partners. By having skills that cover the entire organization, VSS can integrate the best security products and practices to provide clients with an enterprise-wide solution. Learn more here.

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON April 27, 2015

Sourced From IBM's Security Intelligence  http://securityintelligence.com/

Winning the Three-Legged Race Toward Endpoint Protection

Every summer my (very large) extended family gathers on our ranch in the InterMountain West for an annual reunion. Part of the celebration includes a favorite family pastime: the three-legged race. This consist of couples pitted against each other in a short sprint, where team members have their leg strapped to the opposite partner - giving them, in essence three legs to complete the race. Usually every team but one ends up rolling on the ground in laughter, while one lucky pair actually grasps that this is a game of communication as it is cooperation. The team that wins the race understands it must function in synchronicity to effectively cross the finish line.

IT Security and Operations: A New Three-Legged Race

If your organization is like most, IT security and operations teams probably function a lot like the duos in my family’s three-legged race. Most of the time, they lurch about clumsily, one team pulling in one direction and the other on a different path, flailing about and going nowhere fast. And while that might be an amusing sight at a family reunion when the stakes are low, it’s not so funny when you consider what’s at stake for your organization if your teams can’t operate in unison: the heightened risk of a security breach that could cost you millions.

IT operations is tasked with endpoint management; IT security is tasked with endpoint protection. Every new tool, handoff and process between these two teams creates another opportunity for your defenses to be breached and for additional time and cost to be added. Siloed teams can’t effectively protect you from operational and security threats in today’s world.

The key to having a secure endpoint environment is to have complete visibility and control into all endpoints both on and off your network. If you don’t, you could end up with your name splashed across the headlines as the latest loser in the cybersecurity three-legged race.

Once you establish complete visibility into all your endpoints, you also need the ability to take action in real time to protect these endpoints before they are exploited. Hackers are your opponents in the race, and they have a growing number of sophisticated tools at their disposal — which means a window of opportunity of only a few minutes might be enough to cause you significant financial and reputational damage.

Handling the Endpoint Protection Challenge

Many of the breached companies blasted across the headlines recently had identified the vulnerabilities that existed in their networks but lacked the tools to take immediate action to remediate endpoints. And in some ways, that’s understandable: A complex, growing endpoint environment and an increasingly mobile workforce make the ability to remediate quickly and efficiently a tough challenge. But it doesn’t have to be.

IBM BigFix allows IT security and operations teams to work in unison, and eliminates the traditional silo approach. Built on the world’s largest and deepest security portfolio, BigFix closes the gap between these two groups, giving you real-time situational awareness of every endpoint on your network — regardless of device type or location — and the ability to detect and respond to threats with blazing speed.

That means your team can be the one that functions in unison — and wins the three-legged endpoint protection race against would-be cybercriminals.

The post Winning the Three-Legged Race Toward Endpoint Protection appeared first on Security Intelligence.

Author Mitch Mayne https://securityintelligence.com/author/mitch-mayne/