Recently it has been reported that about 45% of IT security personnel are dealing with extensive issues resulting from employees clicking on email links and attachments that download malware and phishing attacks. Osterman Research issued its “Best Practices for Dealing with Phishing and Next-Generation Malware” in April . Stories included described real-life situations in which law firms lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to cyber attacks. Here are three key takeaways :

  • Users are sharing more information through social media as cybercriminals are refining their tactics, and unfortunately many current anti-phishing solutions are proving insufficient. This makes companies and groups more susceptible to cyber attacks.
  • Organizations should execute a training program that will raise their employees’ awareness of phishing attempts and other possible attacks, so users become the first line of defense in any security infrastructure.
  • Business and IT decision makers should put forth best practices to help their users screen electronic communication and collaboration for social engineering attacks more carefully.

Article via Above The Law, 20 May 2015

Photo: Macbook Pro via Warren R.M. Stuart [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Facebook, Google, Apple and Twitter, along with more than 75 companies and cyber security experts, sent a letter to President Obama on Tuesday, asking him to reject government proposals that would grant law enforcement access to their user’s encrypted data. The letter said that providing law enforcement access to their user’s data will leave them vulnerable to attacks and compromise their products, and asked Obama to reject proposals to force a “back door” into their operating systems. The efforts from several major tech companies to make data more secure precedes the open letter. They also requested that the White House focus on creating policies that advocate strong encryption technology and thus cyber security, human rights and economic growth. Law enforcement does not seem to agree however. Google and Apple were criticized for making their smartphone encryption too difficult for law enforcement to crack, and one official doesn’t understand why businesses market devices to purposefully allow users to escape the law’s reach.

Article via Mashable, 19 May 2015

Photo: Campaigning with a smile (Barack Obama in Austin #3) via Jack Thielepape/jmtimages [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]