Earlier this year, I arrived at the office on a Monday morning to a ringing telephone. One of my longtime customers was on the line, frantic about a security issue. When he arrived at work that morning, he discovered that the Microsoft Exchange server at his midsized company was offline and infected with ransomware. Further…
A few years ago, I was talking to an organization’s executive about the budget needed for a security initiative. We discussed the idea that organizations must understand that it’s not if they’ll be breached, but when. If a breach is inevitable either way, the executive asked, why should I spend all this money on security?…
The cybersecurity threats that government agencies — and all organizations, really — face today are vastly different from those of just a decade ago. Cybercriminals are more organized than ever, and state-sponsored adversaries can draw on vast financial, human and technical resources as they carry out their attacks. Plus, the origin of many threats that…
Pop quiz, cybersecurity hotshot: Does your organization have a plan in place to prevent “cryptojacking?” What techniques are you deploying to defend against attackers “living off the land” (LotL) on you network? Have you deployed a “zero trust” strategy in your environment to address insider threats? These were some of the questions being posed to…
With the rise of ransomware attacks against organizations of all sizes, cybersecurity has become a top priority for even small businesses. Unfortunately, the unique challenges of a smaller organization can make securing the IT environment particularly difficult. IT staffs are typically stretched thin and asked to be knowledgeable across a variety of domains. Additionally, allocating…
A few months ago, I received an email from one of my customers, a senior IT leader at a state government agency. He had a problem on his hands. The organization’s digital footprint was growing, and its need for bandwidth seemed insatiable. No matter how much new capacity the agency added to the network, it…
