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CYBERSECURITY: A QUICK SUMMARY OF RECENT TRENDS & DEVELOPMENTS THAT BUSINESSES AND LAW FIRMS SHOULD KNOW

In less than 10 months, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the most important change in data privacy in 20 years, will take effect on May 25, 2018. The GDPR is a regulation by which the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission intend to strengthen and standardize personal data protection.

The new regulation will replace the current data protection directive of 1995, and is truly democratizing data privacy. Its objectives are to give European c

Recently I read Essence of Decision – Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis by Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow. I won’t tell a fib and say it is an easy read. Bits of it are. The sections recalling the historical facts and some of the conjecture about the decisions being made by the historical figures were most enjoyable. The theory of decision making was a hard slog.

The book did two favours for me. First it reminded me why I developed the MCI Decision Model and went on to write my first book DE

No matter how cautious a business organisation runs, mishaps and accidents like fire happen. Due to its unpredictable nature, even places confirming to fire safety standards sometimes face heavy destructions in terms of loss of property and life. Fire insurance, therefore, becomes essential for your business. Below is the , as stated by the Economics Times:

Standard Fire & Special Peril Policy: As quoted by the Economics Times, “Fire and special perils policy is an insurance contract that safegua

The blows keep on coming for Wells Fargo. Within a year of their cross-selling scandal, two more scandals have risen to the top of news headlines.

In part one of this series, I set out to make good on a prediction I presented to business journalist L.A. Winokur. I predicted that after the dust settled for the original cross-selling scandal, Wells Fargo would remain vulnerable in other areas of its operations, lest they address the gaps in their risk management program.

In the time it took me to ex

Recently I was staying at a hotel for business on the mid-north coast of NSW. At breakfast, I noticed a group of women golfers sitting near me. They seemed like nice people.

The power of the hotel went out. Heading back to my room I stopped at reception to ask the best way to go. Two of the women were a few paces behind me. One said to the other, just loud enough for me to hear, "Use the stairs you dufus! Must be an accountant."

What the woman didn’t know is that I am an engineer and as an enginee

marcus evans will host the 4^th Edition Leveraged Lending in the Shifting Regulatory Environment Conference on November 29-December 1, 2017 in New York, NY. This interactive meeting will provide you with best strategies to optimize your leveraged lending strategies in the current competitive environment. Take away insights for risk appetite setting, funding and regulatory compliance to increase profitability of leveraged loans.

Walk Away with Practical, Actionable Insights that will allow you to:

• G

Dear Friends,

You may be aware that the Government of India demonetised the highest two denomination bills of INR1000/- and INR500/- on 8th November 2016. Whilst, the usage of demonetisation as a tool to fight corruption and money laundering is debatable, the Indian case study, as per a Reserve Bank of India memo released on 11th August 2017 mentions that an estimated INR2.8 to INR 4.3 Trillion flowed incrementally (money kept outside the banking system) into the banking system. Circa INR64=1-USD

In his book, “The Wisdom Chronicles: Competing to Win”, Dr. Ted Marra made the point that the success of virtually all organizations comes down to the relentless focus on a vital few factors. The unfortunate truth is that most senior executives are clueless about what they are.

Dr. Marra agreed to offer his book 'The Wisdom Chronicles: Competing to Win' for complimentary download for members of Global Risk Community (it is a short book) via the following link: https://mediaexplorers.lpages.co/co

In a recent interview I had with business journalist L.A. Winokur regarding the Wells Fargo cross-selling scandal, I made a prediction: “Once the dust of this scandal settles, perhaps in two or three years, Wells Fargo will remain vulnerable in other areas of its operations to risk management failures.”

Low and behold, the only part I didn’t get right was the timeline. In less than a year of paying $185 million in penalties, the largest fine ever levied by the CFPB, the bank finds itself in headl

Last week I wrote about Face-ism and that it takes us less than 200 milliseconds to form a judgement about someone just by viewing their face. A judgement that is likely to be wrong as our facial expressions are formed from how we are feeling at one moment in time.

Risk suffers in the same way. My original consulting career was in risk. In my training programs on persuasion I usually tell the story about consulting to Australian Government agencies in the early 2000s. Often back in those days I w

This article is contributed by William G Ferrell, CIO of Ferrell Capital Management and the author of a new course on Global Risk Academy - "From Asset Allocation To Risk Allocation"

Risk Allocation

Since Harry Markowitz introduced Modern Portfolio Theory in 1952, Asset Allocation has been accepted as the standard for investment portfolio construction.  Based on historical behavior and individual predictions, managers make return and risk forecasts for categories of investments and combine them

“You need a mentor.”

If you’re like most working professionals, this is one of the first pieces of advice you heard around college graduation or upon landing your first job.  (Stressed out at work? Get a mentor. Not sure how to navigate office politics? Get a mentor. Want to know whether going to grad school or switching careers is the right option for you? Get a mentor. Ad nauseum.)

But whether you received this advice from one of your professors, your mom, your neighbor, or a co-worker, finding

The United States Senate earlier this week introduced a bill with the short title ‘‘Internet of Things (IoT) Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017’’. Quite impressive sounding and would have been very useful if it did indeed provide a path to improved cybersecurity for the IoT. Having read the bill I can tell you that, in my opinion, you will gain little confidence that it will improve your own cyber security.

Several things are clear from my reading:

• Some in the US Government appreciate the risks

Nick Cave and I have something in common. We both fell in love at first sight. In “First impressions – the face bias” on Radio National’s “All in the Mind” program, they played a vignette by Nick Cave where he describes seeing his future wife for the first time where everything “came together… in one great big crash-bang. And I was lost to her. And that was that.”

It was the lead-in to the interview by the program host Lynne Malcolm of Alexander Todorov of Princeton University. Todorov is the aut

As you might know, at the end of July, all types of hackers came to Las Vegas to attend Blackhat 2017. During the conference, some pretty scary hacks were exposed, and we can all take this as a lesson on what we are up against in this technology-heavy world. Here are some of the scariest hacks we learned about during Blackhat 2017:

Carwash Hijacking

Nothing is safe from technology, and these days, carwashes are an unexpected target for hackers. It is perfectly possible that a car wash could be hac

In July, more than 15,000 security pros, hackers, hobbyists, and researchers met in Las Vegas for the Black Hat Conference 2017 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. This was the 20^th year that the security conference was held, and both black and white hat hackers joined together to discuss security.

For two decades, Black Hat has gained a reputation for demonstrations of some of the most cutting-edge research in information security as well as development and industry trends. The event has also had its

The term, or in this case the word “blackhat” in tech generally refers to a criminal hacker. The opposite of black is white and a “whitehat” is a security professional. These terms originate from the “spaghetti western” movies when the bad guy cowboy wore a black hat and the law wore white hats. Fun huh?! Blackhat is also the name of the largest conference on the planet for information security. The conference itself is 20 years old and as Alex Stamos who is the CSO for Facebook and also Blackha

Networking can be intimidating even to the most seasoned business people. It’s especially daunting when you don’t know anyone at the beginning of your career, or you’re starting out in a new industry (or country!) completely from scratch. But in today’s competitive business environment, the best opportunities often come to us from the people who already know and trust us. Without a solid professional network in place, you could miss out on these opportunities.

But how do you start building that p

Kmart recently suffered another cyber breach (the second in the past few years) that echoes events affecting companies including Wendy’s and Target. In this case, a wholly preventable weakness in the company’s POS system let through a malware attack, affecting an undetermined number of Kmart’s 735 domestic sites. Failure to recognize and mitigate the root cause of a security breach is inadequate risk management; it leaves the company vulnerable to future failures.

In response to the breach, Sears