Tracking down sensitive data across your cloud estate can be vexing. By their very nature, cloud computing is dynamic and ephemeral. Cloud data is easily created, deleted or moved around. Correspondingly, the cloud attack surface area is equally dynamic, making protection measures more difficult. Over the past few years, a group of tools called data security posture management (DSPM) have been developed to discover both known  and unknown data, provide some structure and manage the security and privacy risks of its potential exposure. In my post for CSOonline today, I look at a dozen different tools from Concentric AI, Cyera, Eureka Security, Normalyze, OneTrust, Palo Alto Networks, IBM, Securiti, Sentra, Symmetry Systems, Varonis and Wiz. (A summary comparison table can be found here.)

These tools will require a significant amount of staffing resources to evaluate because they touch so many different aspects of an enterprise’s IT infrastructure. And that is a good thing, because you want them to seek out and find data no matter under what digital rock they could be hiding. So having a plan that prioritizes which data is most important will help focus your evaluation. Also a good thing is to document how each DSPM creates its data map and how to interpret it and subsequent dashboards. Finally, you should understand the specific cloud services that are covered and which ones are on the vendor’s near-term product roadmap too.

Public corporations have mostly ignored SEC regs published years ago for improving cybersecurity governance. And while the requirements can be difficult to satisfy, companies that have made the effort created nearly four times their shareholder value compared to those that haven’t. That’s the conclusion of a new survey jointly conducted by Bitsight and Diligent Institute, entitled “Cybersecurity, Audit, and the Board.”  According to the Bitsight report, having separate board committees focused on specialized risk and audit compliance produces the best outcomes. 

You can read my analysis of this report for Dark Reading here.

Since 2005, the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) has been posting details about the hundreds of daily common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) discovered by security researchers from around the globe. But last month, the critical government-sponsored database went from being an essential tool to a nearly dark destination. That is when any details in the NVD have been omitted, details that make the vulnerability data useful to enterprise security managers and to the numerous vulnerability management tools that can help prevent potential damages from attackers. My story in Dark Reading tells this sad tale.

CISOs can successfully make their business operations more secure and play a larger role in the organization’s overall strategy, but there are pitfalls to avoid.

According to Forrester’s recent security program recommendations report, “the eyes of the world are on CISOs — but not in a good way. There is now a long list of sacrificial CISOs who have either been fired or left due to disagreements with their firms.”

Navigating what comes next isn’t easy, but in my post today for Dark Reading are five takeaways from Forrester’s analysis that might help identify some pathways to success.

A spate of recent typosquatting attacks shows the scourge of this type of attack is still very much with us, even after decades of cyber defender experience with it.

Ever since the Internet became a commercial entity, hackers have been using it to impersonate businesses through a variety of clever means. And one of the most enduring of these exploits is the practice of typosquatting — i.e., using look-alike websites and domain names to lend legitimacy to social engineering efforts. In my latest post for Dark Reading, I talk about the recent series of attacks, why they continue to persist, and ways that enterprise security managers can try to prevent them from happening, although the fight isn’t an easy one.

Zero trust architectures are essential protective measures for the modern enterprise. The latest NSA guidance provides detailed recommendations on how to implement the networking angle of these measures.

As more workloads shift to the cloud by businesses, there is more need to adopt zero trust computing strategies. But the notion of “untrusted until verified” is still slow to catch on, although in some areas of the world, such as in the United Arab Emirates, zero trust adoption is accelerating.

To try to bridge the gap between desire and implementation and also provide a more concrete roadmap towards zero trust adoption, the US National Security Agency has been publishing a series of guidelines over the past few years, covering device protection and user access. The latest one was released this week concerning network security.

My story on what this means for zero trust is in Dark Reading today, and it can be found here.

When US election integrity and security took center stage as a political football after the 2020 Presidential race, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is doing what it can to dispel security concerns around this year’s trip to the polls.

CISA, along with several other organizations, has beefed up various cybersecurity support resources for elections in general, including more programs for state and local elections officials, and for volunteer poll workers. In my post for Dark Reading today, I describe some of these efforts and explain the unique combination of cyber and physical security needs to ensure our democracy continues with free and fair elections.

This year might be a boon for biometric privacy legislation. The topic is heating up and lies at the intersection of four trends: increasing artificial intelligence (AI)-based threats, growing biometric usage by businesses, anticipated new state-level privacy legislation, and a new executive order issued by President Biden this week that includes biometric privacy protections.

But things could backfire: A growing thicket of privacy laws regulating biometrics is aimed at protecting consumers amid increasing cloud breaches and AI-created deepfakes. But for businesses that handle biometric data, staying compliant is easier said than done. I explore the issues surrounding implementing and regulating biometrics in a post for Dark Reading today.