Security Awareness

The last years have been characterised by the escalation of operations conducted by the hacktivist groups, such as the famous Anonymous, which have expressed social dissent through cyber attacks.   In contemporary society technology plays a crucial role...

Today, the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of many businesses are becoming aware of the need to ensure their IT systems are secured to protect their organization, their customers, and their stakeholders.  According to Brian Snow, former Technical Director of the U.S. NSA’s Information Assurance Directorate (November 2011):

 “Data-breaches and financial losses are now hurting every segment of the community, it’s a wake up call...

The London 2012 Olympics will physically bring together 10,500 athletes, diplomats, politicians,
business leaders and millions of spectators from all around the world. Behind the scenes there is an immense effort underway to ensure the security and well-being of everyone participating, in any capacity, in this grand event. In this article we provide the reader with an inside-look into the ...

Today, there is a lot of interest in “Cyber warfare” and “Cyber threats”.   Week after week we are bombarded with news about massive security failures, one after the other.   For example according to the UTAH Department of Health, the sensitive personal information of more than 780,000 people was stolen from a Government Health Department...

Critical infrastructure protection, StuxNet, exploding computers, black-outs, collapsing banking systems, and cyber war!!!  

None of us have escaped the headlines warning of impending cyber doom, but this is just sensationalism, right?   How bad is the situation really?   If we have a serious security problem, how do we get ourselves out of this mess? 

Data-breaches, intellectual property loss and your money...  We have all heard the headlines about the social and economic implications of cyber crime, but how bad is the situation really?   If we have a serious security problem, how do we get ourselves out of this mess? ...

Cyber security, civil liberties, our common welfare and the stability of Nations.   How bad is the cyber security situation really?  If we have a serious security problem, how do we get ourselves out of this mess?   In particular, what can I do to improve my situation and protect those I care about?...

To quote the military strategist Carl von Clausewitz, “All war presupposes human weakness and seeks to exploit it.”  

Malicious software (malware) is software that is explicitly designed to exploit vulnerabilities in computing devices and human users to the malicious advantage of the malware author or malware user.  Malware comes in many forms, including...

Defensive Computing Techniques to HelpYou Avoid Malware and Data Loss

by Rich Robinson - Windows Guides — www.mintywhite.com

Every day the international SWIFT banking network processes financial transactions (relayed between banks) valued at literally trillions of dollars.   Today, most of the >1 billion personal computers connected to the Internet are now at least occasionally involved in e-banking, B2B transactions, and other forms of online e-commerce. 

With the introduction of mobile devices, social networks, and the arrival of new technologies such as Near Field Communications, the attack surface ...

This is a two-part mini-series in which we look at the safety (and security) problems in real-time cyber-physical systems used around the world.

Modern computer chips...  A marvel of human ingenuity.  Comprising literally many millions of tiny microscopic computing elements (transistors), carefully arranged in complex and intricate configurations, choreographed with unprecedented timing precision.

This is a two-part mini-series in which we look at the safety (and security) problems in real-time cyber-physical systems used around the world.

In last week’s article we explored the issue around today’s high-speed computers and why their inability to consistently meet software deadlines causes serious problems to automotive applications, industrial control systems, (nuclear) power generators and other computer systems that interact with the real world...

Mobile phones were once the status symbols of high-flying business executives.  Today, mobile phones have nestled intimately into the fabric of our day to day lives.   We often forget how indispensable they are to us, or how much they reassure us...  that is until we can’t urgently contact a business colleague, or one of our children, instantly... 

“Be Social” is the buzzword of recent years.  No matter whether we are at home, in the gym, at work, or elsewhere, we are haunted by the need to be part of something online.  We live alternative online lives, and we have dense networks of relationships that vary depending on the context (social, work, family, ...)....

The explosion of social networks and new user accounts in recent years is staggering.   There are now over 1,000 social networking sites on the Internet, with Facebook currently being the largest, with over 840 million user profiles.  To put this into context, that is equivalent to the combined populations of the USA and UK combined, making it the third largest country by population.  ...