UK Minister for Digital on CyberSecurity..

Britain’s most critical industries are being warned to boost cyber security or face hefty fines, as the government acts to protect essential services from cyber attacks.

"We want our essential services and infrastructure to be primed and ready to tackle cyber-attacks and be resilient against major disruption to services," said the current Minister for Digital, Margot James.

In August last year, it was mentioned by the former Minister of Digital Matt Hancock, that a new government directive is being considered, that will allow regulators to inspect the Cyber Security status of companies.
More specifically, it was said that companies in the Energy, Transport, Water and Health sectors, are expected to have "the most robust safeguards".

The Global Risks Landscape 2018

Towards the end of each year, we tend to come across several reports and white papers that discuss the cyber-threat predictions/concerns for the following year. However, I do believe that very few of these reports really attempt to dig deep when it comes to emerging Cyber related threats and really discuss future trends. 

I have had several discussions regarding the future of cyber risk exposure and how cyber risk assessments will start experiencing a significant shift in the following months. There is a bigger picture when it comes to cyber threats and cyber crime. It is not only how much a data breach or business disruption will cost, but at what scale it affects people's lives. This is the moment we need to take a step back and look at magnitude and implications. The main reasons why things should be expected to dramatically change in the Cyber front between 2018-2020, are briefly outlined below:

a) The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). GDPR has brought Information Security and Cyber Security into the boardroom as a discussion topic, "motivating" stakeholders to act upon the requirements before the regulation is finally in effect (25 May 2018). You should also consider that the disclosure of a breach needs to take place within 72 hours from the moment it was detected, the increased cost of responding to a data breach, and the fines imposed under GDPR.    

b) The number of Cyber attacks expected in 2018 and their impact, according to the Cyber Security Breaches Survey conducted for 2017. (FYI: The official Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2018 detailing business action on cyber security and the costs and impacts of cyber breaches and attacks will be publish in April 2018).

c) Now consider the domino effect when it comes to the scale and magnitude of the cyberattacks anticipated by 2020, in contrast with the current state of readiness of business entities and their dependencies across all industries. 

The recently published Global Risk Report by the World Economic Forum (www.weforum.org) has highlighted some very important facts regarding the risk perception for the year 2018. Cyberattacks are now perceived as a global risk of highest concern, especially to business leaders in advanced economies. Cyber is also viewed by the wider risk community as the risk most likely to intensify in 2018 according to the publish Global Risks Report. 

A "HIPPA Extortion" case hit the news

Following my recent article where I tried to explain the concept of "GDPR Extortion", a data breach of a Health IT provider hit the news early this week, and the case of "HIPPA Extortion" became a sad reality.

For those of you who are not familiar with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996), is a United States legislation that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information, and in this case it applies to the Health IT provider that was breached.

The Nashville-based company (Medhost) is being asked by the cyber-criminals to pay 2 Bitcoins (BTC) which at the moment is approximately $35K (USD), otherwise they will sell the data they managed to steal. What is however very interesting in this story, is that they try to make their case by saying that they will do:

" ..a media release regarding the lack of security in a HIPPA environment. "

The screenshot is from Google's cache*, as the website of the breach company appeared on 19/Dec 2017 at 20:02 GMT. 

Will "GDPR Extortion" become the new "trend" in cybercrime?

Even though this is not an "official" term that is being used (well, at least not yet), it does describe the concern I am trying to explain to people at different occasions. I often discuss GDPR from the security perspective, and the conversations most of the time end up focusing at the implications of the regulation and the "next day". 

This is when I end up trying to describe the potential scenario of "GDPR Extortion", as I always like to see things through different lenses when it comes to forward-thinking in Information Security and CyberSecurity. 

By saying "GDPR Extortion" I tend to mean something similar to "DDoS Extortion", and it is easier to give an example to people in order to explain this type of potentially evolving threat. 

RIPE NCC - RIPE ATLAS

I recently saw Vesna Manojlovic’s  (@Ms_Multicolor) talk at BalCCon (@BalCC0n) about the RIPE Atlas device and I wanted to find out more about the project. I felt a need to play around with the device, see how it works, run a few security tests, and of course, be part of the online community that has access to the data in real-time.

Getting started with the RIPE Atlas probe (@RIPE_Atlas) was more or less straightforward. 

The RIPE NCC (@RIPE_NCC) is building the largest Internet measurement network ever made. 

For those who are not familiar, the RIPE NCC assigns and allocates Internet number resources across Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia. The RIPE Atlas employs a global network of probes that measure Internet connectivity and reachability, providing an unprecedented understanding of the state of the Internet in real time. You can explore the RIPE Atlas measurements, maps and tools, once you register for an account. 

Starting with the probe I had to visit the URL http://probev3.ripe.net which redirected me to https://atlas.ripe.net/docs/probe-v3/. On that page, one can find further information about the device, and what one should do if they find one connected to a network, and of course what to do if one has found a lost device.