Blog

Enrique Suarez Presenting:

Define Your Digital Strategy—Now

Source:

Ross, Jeanne W.
Sebastian, Ina
Fonstad

Center for Information Systems Research (CISR)

M.I.T

2015-06-18

Abstract: The confluence of social, mobile, analytics, cloud, Internet of Things, and other powerful, readily accessible technologies is disrupting businesses in all industries. Success requires a coherent digital strategy that is informed by the capabilities of these technologies. Leaders guide investment decisions by focusing on eithe

As recent data breaches have shown, cyber attacks are particularly threatening to government entities handling sensitive data like Social Security numbers. Unfortunately, state agencies struggle to hire cybersecurity professionals.

The cause of this staffing shortage? There simply aren’t enough qualified people for the job^[i]. Thankfully, change is in the air.

To attract skilled cybersecurity experts, some state governments are expanding IT internships for high school and college students. Many ar

This past April, an Air Force reconnaissance airplane caught fire. At the time, 27 airmen were on the plane, and all their lives were put in danger. What went wrong and caused this costly error? According to U.S. Air Force investigators, the mistake traces back to an error in vendor management. In this case, a vendor failed to properly secure an oxygen tank, resulting in a “highly flammable oxygen-rich environment that ignited.”

Findings also indicate that problems with the military contractor ma

National Preparedness Month is happening right now. It’s the perfect time to take action for you and your community. It’s all about making plans to remain safe, and when disasters do strike, to keep communications going. September 30th is the culmination of NPM, with the National PrepareAthon! Day.

If a burglar sees your Facebook status that you are traveling on vacation and then enters your house, and takes $10,000 worth of valuables, it’s safe to say you as the homeowner facilitated the theft.

It sounds almost like science fiction, even in this cyber age: A thief hacks into your computer and encrypts your files, meaning, scrambles the information so you can’t make sense of any of it. He demands you pay him a big fat payment to “unlock” the encryption or to give you the “key,” which is contained on the thief’s remote server.

You are being held ransom. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center has sent out a warning to both the common Internet user and businesspeople about this ransomwar

The New York Times author David Leonhardt recently published a puzzle that I recommend all governance personnel attempt. Take a second to give it a try before reading this blog, but if you’re pressed for time, I’ll outline the basic premise.

The puzzle asks that you find the rule in the following pattern of numbers by guessing other sets of numbers that may or may not obey the rule. The sequence that obeys the rule is:

You may think you have the puzzle figured out already, and if you guessed, say,

Darkode anyone? Not anymore. This underground bad hackers’ forum was recently demolished by the FBI, says a report on www.justice.gov. The dozen hackers associated with Darkode are facing criminal charges.

Though there are about 800 of such forums, Darkode was among the worst (or shall I say “best”?), presenting a serious threat to worldwide computers. Gone is Darkode’s ventures of buying, selling and trading malware, and exchanging hacking strategies—to actually carry out crimes, not just fun br

You take your car to the mechanic; it’s been making a funny grinding noise when you press on the gas pedal. The mechanic tells you what’s wrong and what needs to be fixed, then socks you with the estimate.

How can you tell he’s not embellishing a lot of the “diagnosis”? You know nothing about cars. You have to take his word for it. What if the second opinion is also from a scammer and sounds a lot like the first opinion? You’re screwed.

An article at carbuying.jalopnik.com describes five auto repa

It is September and it’s National Preparedness Month—a great time to get involved in the safety of your community. Make plans to stay safe, and this includes maintaining ongoing communications. National Preparedness Month culminates September 30th with National PrepareAthon! Day.

I learned in high school biology class that one of the things that distinguishes life forms from inanimate objects is that living things replicate. Therefore, a computer virus is, well, alive; it replicates itself. It’s

Some of us remember college dorm days, when students were envied if they had their own typewriter. These days, college students must have a personal laptop computer, and a smartphone, and their lives revolve around these connected devices.  Such dependency should be proactively protected from loss or theft.  Campus security now means more than just being beware of who might be hiding in the bushes at night.

When you send your college kid off into the world, you want them to be prepared for life’s

Cybersecurity has been on our radar a lot lately, but that's thanks to the alarming number of recent, high-profile security breaches. Take a look at our recent blog post regarding a major flaw in the Android operating system, or our discussion of hackers' disturbing rate of maturity.

Federal officials recently broke up a long-term insider trading scheme

In early August of this year, it was announced that Feds succeeded in breaking up a hacking and insider trading scheme in which international hack

One of the strongest forms of confirmation is a double reversal signal.

For example, the current chart of Wal-Mart shows how two bullish reversal candlesticks show up on the price chart, and how to interpret them. In this case, candlesticks provide strong bullish signals even though momentum contradicts what these show. A skilled chart reader knows that when you get contradictory signals, you either have to wait out the signal trends or find strategies that benefit if the stock price moves in eit

Hackers with big skills and a big ego will be drawn to Facebook and Twitter as their targets. But they’ll also target dozens of other companies, reports an article on arstechnica.com.

One group in particular stands out as the attackers, using zero-day exploits. They are known as Wild Neutron and Morpho, says the article, and have been active possibly since 2011, burrowing their way into various businesses: healthcare, pharmaceutical, technology.

It’s been speculated that the hackers want the insid

You’re sitting on your front porch. You see a stranger walking towards your property. You have no idea whom he is. But he’s nicely dressed. He asks to come inside your house and look through your bank account records, view your checkbook routing number and account number, and jot down the 16-digit numbers of your credit cards. Hey, he also wants to write down all your passwords.

You say, “Sure! Come on in!”

Is this something you’d be crazy enough to do? Of course not!

But it’s possible that you’ve

Dealing with what is in front of us today is always appealing.  However, sometimes we need to shift our thinking to the much longer-term.  This is a problem we face when dealing with managers and their thinking around risk. Here is a story I use to help people to think more long-term.  I am interested to hear how you meet the same challenge.

“When I think about long-term thinking and the lack of it I always seem to come back to pollution.  Why anyone thinks we can continue to pollute our atmosphe

Should a Credit Analyst think of an analysis to assess borrower’s credibility to repay the loan without liquidation of collaterals or should he go for collateral comfort that should support the credit to end the loan in itself without going into troubled credit hassles?                               

In situations as above, professional handling in credit analysis as well as special attention to collateral analysis have to be given to minimize the credit/default risk before extending credit.     

Take the Risk out of ERM and GRC Software

Forrester predicts that by the end of 2015, over half of all ERM and GRC software implementations will be done through Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models. While SaaS GRC software is undoubtedly gaining traction and market share, many organizations are still hesitant to pursue SaaS solutions. Organizations fear housing organizational data “in the cloud” (a myth we explore below), and fall victim to the common misconception that on-premise solutions provid

The OCC released its “Semiannual Risk Perspective” and, perhaps as anticipated, banks continue to struggle plugging gaps in information technology practices.

Among the risks highlighted in the study, as reported by Joe Mont at Compliance Week:

• Evolving cyber-threats and information technology vulnerabilities require heightened awareness and appropriate controls.
• The high volumes and frequency of changes to information systems to address regulatory requirements, enhance risk monitoring reporting, an

What’s going on this September? National Preparedness Month. This will be the time to increase your awareness of the safety of your business, family, pets and community. During disasters, communication is key. National Preparedness Month concludes on September 30 with the National PrepareAthon! Day.

It would be like a science fiction movie: You go to pull up the file detailing the records of your last quarter’s profit and loss statement, and instead you get a flashing notice: “Your computer has b