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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

It’s hard to keep track of the news of politics these days, and even if you can, how do you know it’s even real? The political landscape has greatly changed since January, and there have been a lot of laws passed that will affect us all, including the repeal of a law that protected your privacy on the internet. Basically, with this repeal, your internet service provider, or ISP, can sell your browsing history to anyone.

If you use the internet, you will be affected by this law. Not only will this

What does a reserve bench do for a team in sport? It provides the coach with options, real options, depending on how the game plays out. If a player is injured, a reserve bench provides the coach with a range of players to choose from and that is why the bench is often frequented by great all-round performers, players who can carry out a range of roles.

Last week I wrote about options as a key method of managing your blind spots. Now I’m taking that thought one step further: Exploring your option

For those readers of Part I and possibly some new readers as well, I hope that this article continues to add value and provide a different perspective – one through the eyes of a frontline employee.

I believe it is worth noting some of the activities which I have found senior executives need to engage in beyond those already stated in Part I which can contribute to making this change process successful.

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I created these steps, collected from various sources and personal experience, to provide you with guidance on what you should be doing to prevent, detect and respond to ransomware and other malicious software attacks. Hope you find it useful. If you would like more information I suggest you take our course on managing cyber exposures at the Global Risk Academy http://globalriskacademy.com/p/the-definitive-guide-to-cyber-exposure-management

These five steps are a good beginning.

1. Scan your envir

If you are like most of us, you probably have a password, antivirus program, and a firewall for your home computer to protect it from hackers. Are you doing the same thing for your phone?

From 2015 to 2016 malware infections on smartphones swelled by 96%, and about 71% of the smartphones out there do not have any software at all to protect them. What does that mean for you? It means the odds are against you when it comes to getting your phone hacked. Luckily, there are some things you can do to p

I am a bit of a gardener. More because I like the physical work than the “creations” that result. Which means all my talk of VEGetables and hard-smart work of late is right up my alley (check out my recent blogs here).

Just to recap, VEG stands for Values, Environment and Genes, the three key factors that most influence your personal biases and hard-smart work is you going the extra mile that your competitors don’t.

What makes gardening interesting is all the options you have, the process yo

Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is an approach prescribed to manage and balance organizations’ risk with their objectives. It looks to provide a strategic overview of an institution and their risks. Since the global financial crisis, institutions were criticized for their apparent siloed approach to risk management, failures to bring each area together for a holistic overview of risk to manage within its risk appetite. ERM provides a central risk function to improve an institutions coordination

I can already sense what you’re thinking! The last thing we need is another article on cultural or organisational change! Please, give us a break! Certainly I know all too well the number of consulting organisations out there like Senn-Delaney and all the other ‘big’ and ‘small players’ as well as independent consultants who believe they have the unique edge or insight into this issue.  I have a good friend and colleague, John Childress who is head of Principia Group in London who just recently

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Be honest. Do you have a key to your house under your doormat or a flowerpot? If you do, you might as well put a sign out that says “Come rob me.” This isn’t to say you shouldn’t have a key somewhere, though. After all, you might need it one of these days. However, there are better places to hide your house key:

• In a Lockbox – A key lockbox is a good idea. These have a combination that you will need to get into it, but, of course, you have to remember that combination.
• In Your Car – You also might

Breaches are preventable failures in risk management. A healthcare breach at Metro Community Provider Network (MCPN), a federally approved organization, led to a $400,000 penalty and a mandated correction plan. The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) levied the penalty; the cause of the breach has been cited as a failure to conduct “a timely and comprehensive risk assessment,” according to Information Security Media Group. 

As we’ve said before, an old proverb – An ounce of prevention is worth a pound

Last week I promised more on hard-smart work, the way to defeating our personal biases that create our blind spots. So here is a link to an excerpt from my book DECIDE How to Manage the Risk in Your Decision Making, a 5-minute read which tells the story of the invention of the Linotype machine and the power of hard-smart work.

For those with 2,500 emails pending in your inbox (you know who you are!), here is a quick summary of the excerpt:

The invention that epitomises the benefits of hard-smart w