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No One Is Safe

Cybercriminals are keeping pace with the major transformation steps that many companies have taken in recent months. Now, IT security fragmentation in the comprehensive home office is a serious problem. Here’s how to solve it.

No One Is Safe

Last week saw the publication of the FortiGuard Labs Global Threat Landscape Report. The results for the first half of 2020 are worrying: “Typically, we see large threat movements over the course of years, but we’ve seen that in the course of six months now, thanks to the new normal of the global pandemic,” says Derek Manky, Chief, Security Insights & Global Threat Alliances at Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs.

Where corporate and office firewalls once provided protection, albeit not an all-encompassing one, the new widespread home workplaces are vulnerable.

Here is our elevator pitch for each key player in the constant battle against hackers and cybercriminals:

Image of: The Cybersecurity Playbook
Book Summary

The Cybersecurity Playbook

An indispensable guide to baking cybersecurity best practices into the corporate culture and everyday habits.

Allison Cerra Wiley
Read Summary

And here are three steps to counter the threat step by step:

1. Educate

Cyberdefense education has never been more important than today. Most of us still handle data and surfing habits negligently. Since most users do not have company-level IT support at home and work with their own computer that is not connected to a security network, the danger of an attack from the internet increases. However, it does not only increase for the individual user, but for the whole company, since individual PCs infected with malware or spyware, for example, are a gateway into the internal company networks and can therefore infect all (or many) other users at the same time.

In Click Here to Kill Everybody, for example, internet security expert Bruce Schneier provides an eye-opening account of the failure of big tech and public policymakers to provide internet security. He then covers the potentially catastrophic consequences of that neglect. Schneier, who is a best-selling author and lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School and Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society, details the risks of failing to act to improve cybersecurity. He offers ideas on actions you can take and runs through the obstacles blocking such actions in this must-read alert for everyone who spends time online.

The following abstracts, including Schneier’s most recent book, offer a crash course in cyber security:

Related Summaries in getAbstract’s Library
Image of: Click Here to Kill Everybody
Book Summary

Click Here to Kill Everybody

Internet security expert cites the risks when everything connects to the web, but nothing is secure.

Bruce Schneier Atlas Books Read Summary
Image of: The Confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the Hacker Who Saved the Internet
Article Summary

The Confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the Hacker Who Saved the Internet

The story of the hacker who became the savior of the internet.

Andy Greenberg Wired Read Summary
Image of: Cybersecurity and Cyberwar
Book Summary

Cybersecurity and Cyberwar

Learn about stealth attacks, botnets and other secret activity from the never-ending world of cyberwar.

P.W. Singer and Allan Friedman Oxford UP Read Summary
Image of: Cybersecurity
Podcast Summary

Cybersecurity

When battling cybercriminals, sometimes the best defense is a good offense.

Euromoney Euromoney Read Summary
Image of: Beyond Cybersecurity
Book Summary

Beyond Cybersecurity

Prepare your company for an inevitable cyberattack.

James M. Kaplan, Tucker Bailey, Derek O’Halloran, Alan Marcus and Chris Rezek Wiley Read Summary

2. Biggest Risks

Every office building and computer network has vulnerabilities – and this applies especially when you work in a home-office computer network. The task of security professionals is to find these vulnerabilities before criminals do. Many companies hire “pentesters” (penetration testers) who get creative at breaking into buildings and networks to evaluate an organization’s defenses. In a short article posted on Motherboard, for example, penetration tester Sophie Daniel shares the tale of her most memorable break-in and draws conclusions about organizations’ most common vulnerabilities. Find this tale and many more insights in the following summary list:

Related Summaries in getAbstract’s Library
Image of: How I Socially Engineer Myself into High Security Facilities
Article Summary

How I Socially Engineer Myself into High Security Facilities

Is your organization vulnerable to malicious social engineering?

Sophie Daniel Motherboard Read Summary
Image of: Palantir Knows Everything  About You
Article Summary

Palantir Knows Everything About You

A data-mining company is growing its bottom line at the expense of civil liberties.

Lizette Chapman, Jordan Robertson and Peter Waldman Bloomberg Businessweek Read Summary
Image of: Are You Managing Your Risks from Social Media?
Article Summary

Are You Managing Your Risks from Social Media?

Unfiltered social media platforms pose reputational and cybersecurity risks. What’s a company to do?

David Houghton, Emily S. Keenan, Mark Edmonds and Leslie H. Blix MIT Sloan Management Review Read Summary
Image of: ‘I Forgot My PIN’
Article Summary

‘I Forgot My PIN’

The security surrounding bitcoin is proving to be unforgiving – and in certain circumstances not quite as tight as many believe.

Mark Frauenfelder Wired Read Summary
Image of: The Aisles Have Eyes
Book Summary

The Aisles Have Eyes

Drawing on consumers’ personal data, retailers can target individual shoppers with personalized marketing.

Joseph Turow Yale University Press Read Summary

3. Solve Your Problem

Who do you ask when you want to close security gaps? Your IT department, that’s right. But who does your IT department ask? Exactly: the friendly hackers next door. We’ve summarized their insights for you – because IT already has enough to do anyway!

Related Summaries in getAbstract’s Library
Image of: The Art of Invisibility
Book Summary

The Art of Invisibility

A cybersecurity expert offers step-by-step instructions for protecting your privacy online.

Kevin Mitnick Little, Brown & Company Read Summary
Image of: Protect The Content, Not The Location
Report Summary

Protect The Content, Not The Location

In today’s collaborative business world, passwords and firewalls aren’t enough to keep sensitive business documents safe.

Doug Miles AIIM Read Summary
Image of: Cybersecurity for Executives
Book Summary

Cybersecurity for Executives

Keep your data safe in the face of intensifying cybersecurity risks.

Gregory J. Touhill and C. Joseph Touhill Wiley Read Summary
Image of: Safety in the Cloud
Article Summary

Safety in the Cloud

Why have only one guard to protect your business data when you can have an entire cloud-based cyberarmy?

David Burg and Tom Archer Strategy+business Read Summary
Image of: How to Encrypt Your Entire Life in Less than an Hour
Article Summary

How to Encrypt Your Entire Life in Less than an Hour

Quickly and easily keep your personal data safe with encryption.

Quincy Larson Medium Read Summary
Image of: How to Prepare for the Cyberattack That Is Coming to Your Company
Article Summary

How to Prepare for the Cyberattack That Is Coming to Your Company

A hacker just breached your company’s cybersecurity. What should you do?

Alex Pentland, Stuart Madnick, Shoaib Yousu and Michael Coden World Economic Forum Read Summary
Image of: Cyber Incident Response
Report Summary

Cyber Incident Response

Organizations need to be on guard against external and internal cyberthreats.

The Economist Intelligence Unit The Economist Intelligence Unit Read Summary

Still here? Now quickly close those dubious pages in the other tab – and say goodbye to correspondence with the handsome stranger in Facebook chat or on LinkedIn.

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Researched Abstracts
18 We have curated the most actionable insights from 18 summaries for this feature.
1 1 Podcast
8 8 Articles
7 We read and summarized 7 books with 2191 pages for this article.
2 2 Reports
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