I was asked to sit on a panel of experts, gaze into the crystal ball and make my predictions for what 2017 holds in store for cyber security, which got me thinking. Let's start with more breaches, more ransomware, more cyber security jobs, wage increases for security professionals, more 'qualified' professionals who don't really know what they're doing but have a piece of paper and, of course, vendors making even more money out of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD). However, none of those is terribly interesting or any different from 2016, or 2015 for that matter, or indeed anything other than trends in the industry. So what does 2017 hold in store for us in the security industry and is there anything new to worry about? Well an obvious one to call out is the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). So what is GDPR? Well, GDPR replaces the previous data protection directive and aims to improve and harmonize data protections for EU citizens. This will i...

I was invited along to SC Media's roundtable on The Threat Landscape last week and they have written an article on it. I was also interviewed and appear in their video summary. The article and video can be found here:  https://www.scmagazineuk.com/roundtable-the-threat-landscape/article/635652/

Well, okay, it won't actually tell you whether they are secure or not and there are other questions you could ask, but the point is you can tell a lot about a company's security by how they answer security questions. I was recently at a security round table and the conversation turned to third parties and how you can assure yourself of their security. Some advocated scoring companies or certifications, while others advocated sending questionnaires. The argument against questionnaires is that they are a point in time view of the organisation. However, you can ask process and policy based questions and you can tell a lot from how they answer. So, what is the question that will reveal all? Well, as I said it's not one question as such, more a type of question. It should be about something basic, some security control you're sure they have because everyone does. For example: Why do you have a firewall? Probable answers: "because everyone has one"/"bec...