New UN Tool Maps Asia-Pacific Cybersecurity Landscape

News of cyber attacks and personal data breaches frequently make headlines nowadays, particularly in Asia Pacific*, and every time a new incident happens, it deals a blow to the trust of some users. Since cyber threats are grave and growing, society must understand how policymakers are addressing cybersecurity concerns, and what can be done to strengthen trust.

A United Nations agency recently launched a tool to do exactly that. Against the backdrop of increasingly complex cybersecurity policies around the world, the portal aims to “enhance informed participation in key policy processes by all relevant stakeholders”, thus facilitating information sharing, capacity building, and trust and cooperation in cyberspace. We spent some time with it to evaluate the state of cybersecurity in Asia Pacific and to highlight the importance of the issue.

The Cyber Policy Portal, released this month by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), maps the global cybersecurity capability landscape, covering all 193 of the UN Member States, 13 intergovernmental organizations, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and a number of multilateral frameworks.

The interactive map draws from public information and, where applicable, carries links to original documents. Systematically, it answers some of the salient questions Continue reading

Not So Fast Ansible, Cisco IOS Can’t Keep Up…

Remember how earlier releases of Nexus-OS started dropping configuration commands if you were typing them too quickly (and how it was declared a feature ;)?

Mark Fergusson had a similar experience on Cisco IOS. All he wanted to do was to use Ansible to configure a VRF, an interface in the VRF, and OSPF routing process on Cisco CSR 1000v running software release 15.5(3).

Here’s what he was trying to deploy. Looks like a configuration straight out of an MPLS book, right?

Read more ...

Passwords in a file

My dad is on some sort of committee for his local home owners association. He asked about saving all the passwords in a file stored on Microsoft's cloud OneDrive, along with policy/procedures for the association. I assumed he called because I'm an internationally recognized cyberexpert. Or maybe he just wanted to chat with me*. Anyway, I thought I'd write up a response.

The most important rule of cybersecurity is that it depends upon the risks/costs. That means if what you want to do is write down the procedures for operating a garden pump, including the passwords, then that's fine. This is because there's not much danger of hackers exploiting this. On the other hand, if the question is passwords for the association's bank account, then DON'T DO THIS. Such passwords should never be online. Instead, write them down and store the pieces of paper in a secure place.

OneDrive is secure, as much as anything is. The problem is that people aren't secure. There's probably one member of the home owner's association who is constantly infecting themselves with viruses or falling victim to scams. This is the person who you are giving OneDrive access to. This is fine for the Continue reading

You can sign up for this team collaboration app for free today

Efficiency is the name of the game in today’s fast-paced digital world; and whether you’re leading a team—or an entire company—you should always be looking for new and creative ways to get more done in less time. That’s the goal, right? While there are plenty of pricey tools like Slack and Skype that promise to fine-tune your productivity, few are as quick and impactful as Glip, and it won’t cost you a dime.To read this article in full, please click here

The Revenge of the Ancillaries

Have you ever tried to make water flow in a specific direction? Maybe you have some particularly muddy spot in your yard, so you dig a small ditch and think, “the water will now flow from here to there, and the muddy spot won’t be so muddy the next time it rains.” Then it rains, and the water goes a completely different direction, or overflows the little channel you’ve dug, making things worse. The most effective way to channel water, of course, is to put it in pipes—but this doesn’t always seem to work, either.

The next time you think about shadow IT in your organization, think of these pipes, and how the entire system of IT must look to a user in your organization. For instance, I have had corporate laptops where you must enter two or three passwords to boot the laptop, provided by departments that require you to use your corporate laptop for everything, and with security rules forbidding the use of any personal software on the corporate laptop. I have even had company issued laptops on which you could not modify the position of icons on the desktop, change the menu items in any piece Continue reading

Build security into your IoT plan or risk attack

The Internet of Things (IoT) is no longer some futuristic thing that’s years off from being something IT leaders need to be concerned with. The IoT era has arrived. In fact, Gartner forecasts there will be 20.4 billion connected devices globally by 2020.An alternative proof point is the fact that when I talk with people about their company's IoT plans, they don’t look at me like a deer in headlights as they did a few years ago. In fact, often the term “IoT” doesn’t even come up. Businesses are connecting more “things” to create new processes, improve efficiency, or improve customer service.As they do, though, new security challenges arise. One of which is there's no “easy button.” IT professionals can’t just deploy some kind of black box and have everything be protected. Securing the IoT is a multi-faceted problem with many factors to consider, and it must be built into any IoT plan.To read this article in full, please click here

Build security into your IoT plan or risk attack

The Internet of Things (IoT) is no longer some futuristic thing that’s years off from being something IT leaders need to be concerned with. The IoT era has arrived. In fact, Gartner forecasts there will be 20.4 billion connected devices globally by 2020.An alternative proof point is the fact that when I talk with people about their company's IoT plans, they don’t look at me like a deer in headlights as they did a few years ago. In fact, often the term “IoT” doesn’t even come up. Businesses are connecting more “things” to create new processes, improve efficiency, or improve customer service.As they do, though, new security challenges arise. One of which is there's no “easy button.” IT professionals can’t just deploy some kind of black box and have everything be protected. Securing the IoT is a multi-faceted problem with many factors to consider, and it must be built into any IoT plan.To read this article in full, please click here

Build security into your IoT plan or risk attack

The Internet of Things (IoT) is no longer some futuristic thing that’s years off from being something IT leaders need to be concerned with. The IoT era has arrived. In fact, Gartner forecasts there will be 20.4 billion connected devices globally by 2020.An alternative proof point is the fact that when I talk with people about their company's IoT plans, they don’t look at me like a deer in headlights as they did a few years ago. In fact, often the term “IoT” doesn’t even come up. Businesses are connecting more “things” to create new processes, improve efficiency, or improve customer service.As they do, though, new security challenges arise. One of which is there's no “easy button.” IT professionals can’t just deploy some kind of black box and have everything be protected. Securing the IoT is a multi-faceted problem with many factors to consider, and it must be built into any IoT plan.To read this article in full, please click here

Build security into your IoT plan or risk attack

The Internet of Things (IoT) is no longer some futuristic thing that’s years off from being something IT leaders need to be concerned with. The IoT era has arrived. In fact, Gartner forecasts there will be 20.4 billion connected devices globally by 2020.An alternative proof point is the fact that when I talk with people about their company's IoT plans, they don’t look at me like a deer in headlights as they did a few years ago. In fact, often the term “IoT” doesn’t even come up. Businesses are connecting more “things” to create new processes, improve efficiency, or improve customer service.As they do, though, new security challenges arise. One of which is there's no “easy button.” IT professionals can’t just deploy some kind of black box and have everything be protected. Securing the IoT is a multi-faceted problem with many factors to consider, and it must be built into any IoT plan.To read this article in full, please click here

A Hybrid Cloud Approach from FraudGuard.io that Handles 50M Requests a Day

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This is a guest post from Ryan Averill at FraudGuard.io.

At FraudGuard.io we are a team of just a few developers; all working with our customers to try to make their applications as safe as possible. We have been working on FraudGuard for about 3 years and we’ve had paying customers for more than 2 years now. The main idea behind FraudGuard is for us to get attacked so you don’t have to. In other words; reduce the overall number of attacks your application receives each day by leveraging our threat data. We do this by by taking our attack data from our network of honeypots and share that data via API direct to you. Instead of some businesses just running services like Maxmind, that update occasionally, we actually run the entire process in house so we can immediately share real-time attack data from around the world....

IDG Contributor Network: The cloud-based provider: Not your grandfather’s MNS

Today, the wide area network (WAN) is a vital enterprise resource. Its uptime, often targeting availability of 99.999%, is essential to maintain the productivity of employees and partners and also for maintaining the business’s competitive edge.Historically, enterprises had two options for WAN management models — do it yourself (DIY) and a managed network service (MNS). Under the DIY model, the IT networking and security teams build the WAN by integrating multiple components including MPLS service providers, internet service providers (ISPs), edge routers, WAN optimizers and firewalls.The components are responsible for keeping that infrastructure current and optimized. They configure and adjust the network for changes, troubleshoot outages and ensure that the network is secure. Since this is not a trivial task, therefore many organizations have switched to an MNS. The enterprises outsource the buildout, configuration and on-going management often to a regional telco.To read this article in full, please click here

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