The term Cloud Computing appears in Google search nearly 54 million times. But The Cloud remains to be this elusive entity to the general population. Those who fit into this category either see cloud-based computing as this near-magical technology that whisks your data into another dimension for you to summon at a moments notice at your beck and call (which sounds pretty wizard-like). For those who work with the technology daily and understand its capabilities, the technology is much more simplistic than others would make it seem, even though it does have some technical nuances.
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What You Need to Know About NIST Password Guidelines
Almost every online interaction, whether it be a financial transaction, company login, or a simple email conversation, requires the use of a password. With data breaches becoming more common and prolific, passwords have evolved into complex strings of characters that are difficult to remember. Ironically, this conundrum has resulted in stores selling password books for recording all the numerous credentials individuals use on a daily basis; however, this defeats the very purpose of passwords. Consequently, the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) began researching past data breaches and experimenting with various password structures to identify better authentication practices. Besides providing NIST definitions for cloud computing, the NIST has also now provided guidelines to create safer passwords. Do you know how to create a safe and effective password for your profiles? Learn about NIST password guidelines and NIST compliance by reading on.
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How to Improve Your Security With NIST
Business owners should know the answer to the question, how prepared is your business to face cyber threats? However, most do not. The National Institute of Standards and Technologys (NIST) cybersecurity framework is one of the most recognized structures for improving sensitive data security against todays cyber threats from all devices. Meant to be a voluntary framework for taking security measures to identify and minimize cybersecurity risks, the NIST framework has been used in a wide variety of industries. In this article, well break down why the NIST framework was created, how it is structured, and how it helps to create a robust cybersecurity risk-management strategy. The NIST framework can be daunting at first, particularly for smaller organizations that may not be sure how to leverage the framework to create actionable insights into gaps in their cybersecurity. The information provided in this article should prove as a helpful starting place for organizations wishing to get a brief introduction to the NIST framework, as well as highlight some of the key advantages that adopting the NIST framework brings to organizations of any size.
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What is NERC CIP Compliance?
Flashback to August 14, 2003 when North America experienced its worst blackout to date with more than 50 million people losing power in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and parts of Canada. Less than 3 years prior to this massive blackout, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) had been appointed as the electric utility industrys primary point of contact with the U.S. government for national security and critical infrastructure protection issues. After nearly eight (8) months of investigations into the record-breaking blackouts, NERC found that the prevention of future blackouts could be done through making Reliability Standards mandatory and enforceable through the U.S. federal government.
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Protecting System Components in CDE through Encryption
Encrypting your cardholder data environment (CDE) is of paramount importance if youre keen on not just protecting your customers card data, but also salvaging your organizations data security. If your company handles any amount of credit card information, it must comply with the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards).
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Performing Regular Testing, Risk Analysis, and Addressing Risks
Consistently testing and quickly addressing risks to your network security system is not just one of the common security controls that can be looked over, it is imperative to effective and safe performance. If your companys security system does not receive the necessary updates to its infrastructure, it can be potentially devastating for your organization.
Not being on top of these essential tasks can open the door to a myriad of cyber security threats from internal and external sources that could take years to recover from. However your business plans to approach security system testing, you should make sure you efforts fall in line with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) requirements. (more…)
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PCI Compliance Firewall Requirements (PCI DSS Req. 1)
With the rise of credit cards and online banking, financial theft has gradually shifted away from physical bank robberies to electronic payment fraud. Although payment cards facilitate convenient financial transactions for society, they also offer an ideal opportunity for threat actors to remotely steal a person’s identity or breach a companys information database. While all cybersecurity solutions are important, we want to first dive into how to increase your security across the payment card industry.
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Developing a Cybersecurity Policy for Incident Response and Prevention (PCI DSS Req 12.1)
Were not even midway through 2018, and this year has already seen some of the most high profile companies and brands become victims to potentially malicious cyber attacks. Delta Airlines, Sears, and Panera Bread are just a few examples of high-profile companies that have had to contend with data breach and unauthorized access by outsiders so far this year.
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Protect Cardholder Data With Antivirus Software
What is Antivirus Software?
Lets face it, we are living in a highly technical age. Computers and digital technology surround us, cell phones that fit in our pockets have turned into full blown portable computers. There have been threats to computers just about as long as computers have been around. The first antivirus (AV) software was used to protect against just that, a computer virus. The name remains today, but there are far more malicious tools out there other than viruses. Modern anti-virus software protections can include shields against trojan horses, worms, spyware, adware, rootkits and can sometimes include guards against phishing.
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How to Keep Data Secure for Cardholders (PCI DSS Req. 3)
The Payment Card Industry (PCI) is a coalition of credit card companies including American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa. Non-compliance with the 12 requirements specified in the PCI Data Security Standards (DSS) puts your company at greater risk of a future data breach that comes with a steep financial cost as evidenced by the plethora of well publicized data breaches last year alone. Of the 12 PCI DSS requirements, it was found that 79% of failed PCI Compliance assessments were in non-compliance because of not being able to protect cardholder data via requirement 3. Thats huge.