The new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) which came into effect in 2018 meant some big changes in the way businesses collect and handle personal data. The idea behind the new legislation is to give individuals better access and control over their own personal data. While this is great news for individuals, it requires a little extra work from businesses who must now provide legal grounds for collecting data and must only use it for the intended purpose. What’s more, they need to follow these regulations to the letter and remain GDPR compliant at all times.
This applies to companies of all sizes – even your small business. If you collect personal data in any form, such as emails, addresses, names or financial details, your business needs to be GDPR compliant. If it’s found that you’re not effectively managing and protecting your data you could face a big fine. Though regulators may be a bit more lenient with smaller businesses depending on how much data you hold, an unwanted fine is always bad news. That’s why we’ve put together this checklist to help ensure your small business is GDPR compliant. In this guide we’ll look at:
- Understanding your data and responsibilities
- Defining your data consent policy
- Access requests and disposing of old data
- Setting up a data storage and security policy
- Training all staff on GDPR
- Creating data processing notices
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Medical IoT devices operate in care facility environments that encompass care giving, case management, customer service, and clinic management. As such, the risk of data gathered and managed by medical devices extends beyond the device itself. A compromise of clinic management services can propagate to IoT device command and control, allowing compromise of devices in attacks that do not directly touch the device at all. This is clearly the major driver for the emerging category of “Medical IoT (IoMT) Cyber Security ”
A large hospital for examples could be home to as many as 85,000 connected devices. While each of these devices has a significant role in the delivery of care and operational efficiency, each connected device also opens the door to a malicious cyberattack. A recent report from Irdeto, found that 82 percent of healthcare organizations’ IoT devices have been targeted with a cyberattack within the last year.
Going over the players in this industry, it is clear that the Medical IoT security category includes a number of different approaches with the common target to provide the customer with a clear assets discovery and timely alerting on security breaches and attacks on its Medical environment.
Although many large security players are addressing this niche too, CyberDB identified a number of emerging players that are focusing on this industry and as such we expect them to benefit from the growth in this market. These players are (in alphabetical order):
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Breach and Attack Simulation is a new concept that helps organizations evaluate their security posture in a continuous, automated, and repeatable way. This approach allows for the identification of imminent threats, provides recommended actions, and produces valuable metrics about cyber-risk levels. Breach and attack simulation is a fast-growing segment within the cybersecurity space, and it provides significant advantages over traditional security evaluation methods, including penetration testing and vulnerability assessments.
Going over the players in this industry, it is clear that the BAS category includes a number of different approaches with the common target to provide the customer with a clear picture of its actual vulnerabilities and how to mitigate them.
CyberDB has handpicked in this blog a number of exciting and emerging vendors. These players are (in alphabetical order):
Those companies have a number of characteristics in common, including a very fast time to market, successful management team and strong traction. In addition, all of them have managed to raise Series A or B funding over the last 16 months, ranging from $5M to $32M.
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The Endpoint security solution is the fastest-growing category in cybersecurity, no doubt as a response to growing threats.
From all the categories in the cybersecurity world, one stands out in terms of sales volume and growth.
The Endpoint security products (also known as EPP- Endpoint security platforms) are designed to secure laptops, desktops, servers from malware. The rapid growth in this particular product category has several reasons. The first is the rise in attacks against endpoints, which is driven by financial motives. Ransomware attacks (which are targeting endpoints) have doubled in the last 12 months. When an organization is under attack, the most vulnerable assets are usually the endpoints, which host all the data and provide the attackers with access to other endpoints and servers, which they then use to identify data and encrypt it.
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“I’ve read that my web hosting provider’s website that they have a good security solution in place to protect me against hackers.”
This is a pretty common answer that a lot of bloggers and small business owners gave me when I ask them if they know about how secure their web hosting is. Also, they often add that their budgets are pretty tight so they’ve chosen to go with “an affordable provider.” By “affordable,” of course, they mean ‘ridiculously cheap.”
Come on, people.
Do you really think that a cheap web hosting has everything in place to stop a website attack? Do you think that they will protect you from all types of hacker attacks?
While I don’t know everything about how web hosting providers choose security solutions, I can tell you with some confidence that a lot of them have laughable solutions.
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Cybersecurity is the process of protecting and defending an enterprise’s use of cyberspace by detecting, preventing and responding to any of the malicious attacks like disabling, disrupting, injecting malware, or anything thing else aimed to harm the organization.
At its center, cybersecurity defends your organization from vicious and threat attacks aimed to disrupt and steal information from your organization. Cybersecurity risks are similar to financial and reputational risks as it could directly affect the organization’s growth, driving the costs up and adversely affecting the revenue.
If you’re a part of an organization, and especially, if your workplace stocks sensitive information of individuals or clients involved, then this is an ideal time to educate yourself regarding cybersecurity and ways to safeguard your organization against cyber attacks and threats with the help of professionals who hold cybersecurity certifications.
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Businesses need to take their cyber security seriously. There are huge financial implications for being hacked, not just from the perspective of lost revenue and weakened reputation, but also in the form of stricter regulations from laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, there are a number of myths about cyber security that make it difficult for companies to know what the best course of action is. Here are four myths about cyber security that are still affecting British businesses.
Myth #1: Cyber security is purely dealt with by the IT department
One commonly held myth that can actually put businesses at risk is the idea that cyber security is something that the IT department (and only the IT department needs to be concerned about). Of course, it is necessary to provide your IT team with the budget and resources to defend your business against the risk of a cyber-attack.
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Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a huge variety of benefits for businesses, and organisations are increasingly opting for cloud solutions for their data, website, and applications. However, there are still some businesses using AWS that have not put the proper cyber security controls in place. Here we take a look at ten great tips to improve your AWS cyber security.
- Understand your responsibilities
When you work with any kind of web services provider you need to understand what you are responsible for and what will be managed by the provider. This is absolutely true in terms of AWS – where Amazon runs its so-called ‘shared responsibility model’. In this model AWS is responsible for protecting the infrastructure of the AWS cloud system including hardware, software, and networking.
On the other hand, you as the customer is responsible for customer data, identity and access management, firewall and anti-virus configuration, and issues such as data encryption. It can sometimes be necessary to work with outside agencies to manage your own cyber security.
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According to recent reporting, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) announced that its Cyber Operations Center (COC) is expected to be fully staffed and functional by 2023. The new COC marks NATO’s understanding of the importance that cyberspace plays in conflict, particularly in times of political tensions that has resulted in cyber malfeasance that has targeted elections and critical infrastructure. The establishment of the COC is a natural evolution in how to address cyber attacks in a more timely manner by integrating cyber actions with more conventional military capabilities. In early 2014, after notable cyber incidents were a part of international incidents that occurred in Estonia in 2007 and Georgia in 2008, the Alliance updated its cyber defense policy to classify digital attacks as the equivalent of kinetic attacks under its collective security arrangement under Article 5 of the treaty.
In those particular instances, Russia was suspected in orchestrating or at least tacitly supporting the cyber attacks that afflicted both states. Since then, Russia’s alleged cyber activities have only become more brazen in their scale and aggressiveness. From suspected involvement in launching cyber attacks against Ukrainian critical infrastructure to launching a variety of cyber operations to meddle in the elections of foreign governments, Russia has taken advantage of the uncertainty of cyberspace where there is little consensus on key issues such as Internet governance, cyber norms of state behavior, or the criteria by which cyber attacks escalate to a point of war.
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With the approach of the United States’ 2018 midterm elections, concerns have been expressed by many regarding the security and integrity of the voting process. Given the news how suspected Russian agents actively sought to use hacking and influence operations to sway voters in a particular direction during the presidential election, the concern is legitimate, even if there was no evidence that votes were actually altered in 2016. The preservation of the democratic voting process has been thrust into symbolic “red line” territory that needs and should be protected against foreign interference. Indeed, the Department of Homeland Security re-enforced this by elevating election infrastructure to the status of “critical infrastructure” in early 2017.
Clearly, hacking and gaining unauthorized access to those systems and devices associated with the election process is something that deserves immediate attention. After all, many countries would ostensibly agree that breaking into computers is a criminal offense, regardless if data is taken, destroyed, or altered. In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, there were clear incidents where suspected Russian hackers stole data, and even compromised voter-related records, resulting an indictment of Russian nationals on a wide variety of charges ranging from conspiracy to commit fraud, money laundering, and identity theft, to name a few.
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