Revisit Your Password Policies to Retain PCI Compliance
PCI version 4.0 requires multifactor authentication to be more widely used.
Whereas multifactor authentication had previously been required for
administrators who needed to access systems related to card holder data or
processing, the new requirement mandates that multifactor authentication must be
used for any account that has access to card holder data. The new standards also
require user’s passwords to be changed every 12 months. Additionally, user’s
passwords must be changed any time that an account is suspected to have been
compromised. A third requirement is that PCI requires users to use strong
passwords. While strong passwords have always been required by the PCI standard,
the password requirements are more stringent than before. Passwords must now be
at least 15 characters in length, and they must include numeric and alphanumeric
characters. Additionally, user’s passwords must be compared against a list of
passwords that are known to be compromised. Another requirement of PCI 0 is
that organizations must review access privileges every six months to make sure
that only those who specifically require access to card holder data are able to
access that data.
Making the world a safer place with Microsoft Defender for individuals
Today’s sophisticated cyber threats require a modern approach to security. And
this doesn’t apply only to enterprises or government entities—in recent years
we’ve seen attacks increase exponentially against individuals. There are 921
password attacks every second.1 We’ve seen ransomware threats extending beyond
their usual targets to go after small businesses and families. And we know, as
bad actors become more and more sophisticated, we need to increase our personal
defenses as well. That is why it is so important for us to protect your entire
digital life, whether you are at home or work—threats don’t end when you walk
out of the office or close your work laptop for the day. We need solutions that
help keep you and your family secure in how you work, play, and live. That’s why
I’m excited to share the availability of Microsoft Defender for individuals, a
new online security application for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family
subscribers. We believe every person and family should feel safe online. This is
an exciting step in our journey to bring security to all and I’m thrilled to
share with you more about this new app, available with features for you to try
today.
Data Is Vulnerable to Quantum Computers That Don’t Exist Yet
To stay ahead of quantum computers, scientists around the world have spent the
past two decades designing post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms. These are
based on new mathematical problems that both quantum and classical computers
find difficult to solve. In January, the White House issued a memorandum on
transitioning to quantum-resistant cryptography, underscoring that preparations
for this transition should begin as soon as possible. However, after
organizations such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
help decide which PQC algorithms should become the new standards the world
should adopt, there are billions of old and new devices that will need to get
updated. Sandbox AQ notes that such efforts could take decades to implement.
Although quantum computers are currently in their infancy, there are already
attacks that can steal encrypted data with the intention to crack it once
codebreaking quantum computers become a reality. Therefore, the Sandbox AQ
argues that governments, businesses, and other major organizations must begin
the shift toward PQC now.
Developer, Beware: The 3 API Security Risks You Can’t Overlook
By design, the majority of APIs send data from the data store to the client.
Excessive data exposure results when the API has been designed to return large
amounts of data to the client. Attackers can collect or harvest sensitive data
from such API responses. For example, a group fitness app displays the home
location of the group’s participants. The locations are displayed on a map using
the latitude and longitude of each athlete. A well-designed API is intended to
return only the latitude and longitude of each athlete. Conversely, a poorly
designed API returns user information about each athlete, including their full
name, address, email, phone number, latitude and longitude, and more. This is an
example of excessive data exposure as the API is returning more data than it was
designed to do. This might occur when a poorly designed API pulls a record from
the database and returns it to the client in its entirety, exposing all the data
in the file. In this situation, the true business use case was not fully
understood during development.
Apple finally embraces open source
Apple is open-sourcing a reference PyTorch implementation of the Transformer
architecture to help developers deploy Transformer models on Apple devices. In
2017, Google launched the Transformers models. Since then, it has become the
model of choice for natural language processing (NLP) problems. ... As a
company, Apple behaves like a cult. Nobody knows what goes inside Apple’s four
walls. For the common man, Apple is a consumer electronics firm unlike tech
giants such as Google or Microsoft. Google, for example, is seen as a leader
in AI, with top AI talents working for the company and has released numerous
research papers over the years. Google also owns Deepmind, another company
leading in AI research. Apple is struggling with recruiting top AI talents,
and for good reasons. “Apple with its top-five rank employer brand image is
currently having difficulty recruiting top AI talent. In fact, in order to let
potential recruits see some of the exciting machine-learning work that is
occurring at Apple, it recently had to alter its incredibly secretive culture
and to offer a publicly visible Apple Machine Learning Journal,” said Dr
author John Sullivan.
Early adopters position themselves for quantum advantage
Perhaps most significant, however, is funding for a series of collaborative
projects aimed at demonstrating specific applications for today’s quantum
computers. Following a call for proposals in the autumn, for each successful
bid the NQCC will first work with the project team to analyse the use case,
assess the requirements, and determine whether the application can be usefully
tackled with current technologies. “The next stage would be to identify
appropriate algorithms or develop new ones, and then run them on a physical
quantum computer,” says Decaroli. “We can then benchmark the results against
classical solutions and potentially across different quantum-computing
platforms.” One crucial partner in the SparQ programme is Oxford Quantum
Circuits (OQC), the only UK company to offer cloud-based access to a quantum
computer. Its latest eight-qubit processor, named “Lucy” after the pioneering
quantum physicist Lucy Mensing, was released on Amazon Web Services in
February this year. “We are looking forward to working with end users in
different industry sectors to provide access to our hardware,” commented Ilana
Wisby, CEO of OQC.
How decentralization and Web3 will impact the enterprise
For one, over time, Web3 will almost certainly become a vital approach to the
way our IT systems work. Decentralization is now a significant industry trend
that will be insisted on by a growing number of tech consumers and businesses
as well. Instead of storing information in our own databases and running code
in parts of the cloud that we pay for or otherwise control, businesses will
have to get used to relying on Web3 resources (data, compute, etc.) and
sharing more of that control. Much of the important data we need to run our
businesses will increasingly be kept in more private and protected places,
stored in blockchain and other types of distributed ledgers. A rising share of
our applications over time will be more akin to open source projects and run
using smart contracts that all stakeholders can transparently view, verify,
and agree to. Even our businesses will have strange new subsidiaries that are
actually embodied entirely in code and run automatically on their own, using
digital inputs from stakeholders. And this is just the beginning. The
cryptographic systems and immutable transaction ledgers of Web3 have now stood
enough of the test of time to prove out and show the way.
Blockchain's potential: How AI can change the decentralized ledger
When asked whether AI is too nascent a technology to have any sort of impact
on the real world, he stated that like most tech paradigms including AI,
quantum computing and even blockchain, these ideas are still in their early
stages of adoption. He likened the situation to the Web2 boom of the 90s,
where people are only now beginning to realize the need for high-quality data
to train an engine. Furthermore, he highlighted that there are already several
everyday use cases for AI that most people take for granted in their everyday
lives. “We have AI algorithms that talk to us on our phones and home
automation systems that track social sentiment, predict cyberattacks, etc.,”
Krishnakumar stated. Ahmed Ismail, CEO and president of Fluid — an AI
quant-based financial platform — pointed out that there are many instances of
AI benefitting blockchain. A perfect example of this combination, per Ismail,
are crypto liquidity aggregators that use a subset of AI and machine learning
to conduct deep data analysis, provide price predictions and offer optimized
trading strategies to identify current/future market phenomena
We don’t need another infosec hero
Instead of thinking of ourselves as heroes—we aren’t Wonder Woman, or Batman,
or Superman—it’s time to think of ourselves as sidekicks. On a good day, we
help someone else make wiser risk choices, and those choices result in more
profitable outcomes for everyone. But it is someone else who is the hero; we
just hold their cape and refill their utility pouch. How do we do that? It
begins with some humility. Most people in our profession work in cost centers.
To the rest of the company, we are a drag on the business, and while we like
to talk about business enablement, our first goal has to be removing the
business impediment we’ve become. Are you responsible for product
security? Engage the software architects who write the code and teach them how
to do their own safety and security reviews earlier in their process.
... No matter what part of the business you support, start learning what
they need to do to get the job done. Identify opportunities where you can get
out of their way first, and then look for ways to help improve their processes
to be faster and safer.
Entering the metaverse: How companies can take their first virtual steps
If the virtual world experiment is successful, it will be because of superior
immersivity. Concerts, movies, sporting events and consumer experiences must
offer interactivity and wholistic engagement that makes the real world appear
dull and lacking in possibilities by comparison. While entertainment companies
will more easily master the metaverse experience offered to audiences, brands
and businesses in the vast majority of other industries will likely struggle
to conceptualize and develop the level of immersivity that will be required to
be effective. Healthcare, education and financial services could all prosper
from virtual properties and offerings – medical professionals seeing patients
and patients building communities of support, classrooms that are not confined
to textbooks but bring subject matter to life for greater curiosity and stock
markets with available real-time multidimensional metrics that make Bloomberg
terminals appear outdated. These virtual theme parks of consumerism and
participation allow for brand reinvention, offer the possibility for novel
sources of revenue and obviously skew to a younger audience that may not have
yet come across or interacted with these same brands in the real world.
Quote for the day:
"Good leaders make people feel that
they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery." --
Warren G. Bennis
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