Category Archives: Internet Security
Why Cyber Security Stocks Have Rallied Over The Last Month – Forbes
UKRAINE - 2021/04/23: In this photo illustration, the Fortinet logo of a cybersecurity company seen ... [+] displayed on a smartphone screen. (Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Our theme of Cyber Security Stocks has gained a solid 6% over the last month and remains up by about 22% year-to-date. In comparison, the broader Nasdaq-100 NDAQ has returned about 18% over the same period. The recent outperformance comes on the back of a renewed interest in the cybersecurity space following several high-profile cyber attacks, including the recent attack on software company Kaseya and the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline in May. This could make companies and governments more serious about protecting their networks and digital infrastructure, translating into higher demand for the companies in our theme in the years to come. Moreover, going by the performance of the few companies that have already reported results, investors are expecting strong numbers from cybersecurity players this earnings season.
Within our theme, Fortinet, a company that provides cybersecurity-related hardware such as firewalls and software, has been the strongest performer, rising by about 102% year-to-date on account of stronger than expected quarterly results and its ongoing pivot to the cloud. On the other side, the stock price for Qualys, a company that provides cloud security, compliance, and related services, remains down by about 14% this year, as its guidance for this fiscal year was weaker than expected. Other stocks in our theme include CrowdStrike CRWD , which is up 25% year-to-date, and Zscaler ZS which is up around 24%.
[6/8/2021] Cyber Security Stocks To Watch After Colonial Pipeline And JBS Hacks
Our theme of Cyber Security Stocks remains down by about 1% year-to-date, significantly underperforming the S&P 500 which has gained about 13% over the same period. However, the theme has picked up a bit since our last update in mid-May, when it was down by 6%. The underperformance versus the broader indices is likely due to the fact that most of the stocks in the theme are high-growth, high-multiple names that have been out of favor in the current market, as investors rotate into value and cyclical stocks to play the post-Covid boom in the U.S. economy. However, theres good reason for investors with a long-term view to increase their exposure to cybersecurity stocks. Companies and governments are getting more serious about protecting their networks and infrastructure, following multiple high-profile cybersecurity incidents in recent months, including the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline, the SolarWinds SWI hack, and the recent cyber attack on JBS - the worlds largest meat supplier. The increasing shift from on-premise to cloud-based information systems should also make companies prioritize security. Moreover, IT spending by corporates, in general, is likely to pick up from this year, after they scaled back on spending in 2020 due to Covid-19. This should bode well for companies that provide software, hardware, and services that help protect computer systems and networks.
Within our theme, Fortinet FTNT a company that provides cybersecurity-related hardware and software, has been the strongest performer, rising by about 49% year-to-date on account of stronger than expected quarterly results and its pivot to the cloud. On the other side, the stock price for Qualys QLYS a company that provides cloud security, compliance, and related services, remains down by about 18% this year, as its guidance for this fiscal year was weaker than expected.
[5/17/2021]
Our theme of Cyber Security Stocks has declined by about -6% year-to-date, significantly underperforming the S&P 500 which has gained about 11% over the same period. However, the sector is likely to come back into focus for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there was a major cyber attack on the computer systems of the Colonial Pipeline forcing a shutdown of a pipeline that controls roughly half the gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel flowing along the U.S. East Coast. This marks the second major attack on core U.S. infrastructure in six months, coming on the heels of the Solar Winds hack which was reported last December. Secondly, last week, President Joe Biden signed an executive order aimed at bolstering the federal governments cybersecurity defenses, with a host of plans to implement stronger cybersecurity standards. The recent events are likely to cause companies and the U.S. government re-assess threats and potentially increase cybersecurity-related budgets. This should bode well for companies that provide software, hardware, and services that help protect computer systems and networks.
Within our theme, Fortinet, a company that provides cybersecurity-related hardware and software, has been the strongest performer, rising by about 37% year-to-date driven by stronger than expected earnings in recent quarters. On the other side, the stock price for Qualys a company that provides cloud security, compliance, and related services, remains down by about 18% this year, as its outlook for this fiscal year was lighter than analysts expected.
[4/14/2021] Hows Our Cybersecurity Theme Faring?
Our indicative portfolio of Cyber Security Stocks has declined by about -1% year-to-date, underperforming the S&P 500 which has gained about 10% over the same period. However, the theme remains up by over 130% since the end of 2019, significantly outperforming the broader markets. The recent sell-off comes as investors book profits on remote working and SaaS stocks that rallied big through the pandemic. However, this could present a good opportunity for investors to enter the cybersecurity space. Global IT spending is expected to pick up this year after a muted 2020, rising by about 8.4% to $4.1 trillion per Gartner IT . Cybersecurity is likely to be a major focus area for most companies given the increasing shift to distributed workplaces and cloud-based applications and some high-profile security breaches in recent months. Within our theme, Fortinet, a company that provides cybersecurity-related hardware and software, has been the strongest performer, rising by about 34% year-to-date driven by stronger than expected earnings. On the other side, Mimecast Limited, a company that develops cloud security and risk management services for email and corporate data, was the weakest performer declining -28% so far this year, as some of its products were impacted by a security breach in January.
[3/11/2021] Time To Buy Cybersecurity Stocks?
Our indicative portfolio of Cyber Security Stocks has declined by about 8% year-to-date, driven by the broader sell-off in technology and high growth stocks. The theme has also underperformed the Nasdaq-100, which is down by about 4% over the same period. However, we think this could be a good time to enter these stocks. Governments and corporations are likely to prioritize digital security spending following some recent high-profile cyber attacks. In December, there was a sizable data breach on U.S. Federal government computer systems, tied to network management software vendor SolarWinds. More recently, Verkada, a company that provides cloud-based security camera services to a host of institutions and companies including Tesla TSLA , was hacked. Within our theme, Fortinet, a company that provides cybersecurity-related hardware and software, has been the strongest performer, rising by about 21% year-to-date. On the other side, Mimecast Limited, a company that develops cloud security and risk management services for email and corporate data, was the weakest performer declining 25% so far this year.
[2/22/2021] Cybersecurity Stocks To Watch After SolarWinds Attack
Our indicative theme of Cybersecurity Stocks has returned over 150% since the end of 2019, compared to gains of about 21% on the S&P 500 over the same period. The theme is up by about 5% year-to-date. Cybersecurity companies typically provide software, hardware, and services that help protect computer systems and networks from data theft and potential disruption of services. The sector saw renewed interest late last year, following news of a large cyber-attack on IT infrastructure and network management software vendor SolarWinds, causing increasing concerns that software tools used daily by organizations and governments could be vulnerable. More broadly, following Covid-19, economic activity is increasingly moving online with businesses also becoming more distributed on account of the work from home trend. This should cause companies to prioritize their cybersecurity spending. Within our theme, Zscaler and CrowdStrike have been the strongest performers, with their stock prices rising by almost 5x each since the end of 2019. On the other hand, Qualys has underperformed, declining by about 16% over the same period.
See our Cybersecurity Stocks theme for a complete list of the companies in our theme and a look at their recent performance.
[5/22/2020] Cybersecurity Stocks
Cybersecurity stocks have rallied sharply this year, with our indicative theme of six cybersecurity stocks that include Palo Alto Networks PANW (NYSE: PANW), Zscaler (NASDAQ NDAQ : ZS), and others up by about 28% year-to-date, on an equally weighted basis. While cybersecurity is a relatively diverse and complex sector, we believe there could be two broad trends driving the surge. Firstly, with the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic, more people have been working from home, and this has required companies to better secure corporate IT infrastructure, driving up demand for cybersecurity tools. Secondly, most of these companies offer their services on a subscription basis, with recurring revenue streams that could make them a stable bet during times of uncertainty. Its also very likely that the crisis will cause a structural shift in the way businesses operate, benefiting these stocks well past the pandemic. Our theme of Cyber Security Stocks outlines some of the key names in the cybersecurity space and how they have performed in recent years. A part of the analysis is summarized below.
Zscaler ($10 billion market cap, $303 million FY19 revenue), offers two tools, namely Zscaler Private Access which provides secure access to internally managed applications, that are hosted internally in data centers or in private or public clouds, and Zscaler Internet Access, which enables users to connect to externally managed applications such as Microsofts MSFT Office 365 and Salesforce. The stock has surged by 60% this year, as an increasingly distributed workforce drives demand for the companys secure access solutions.
Palo Alto Networks ($23 billion market cap, $2.9 billion revenue) is a cybersecurity company best known for its firewalls, which are network security devices that scan for malicious traffic. The company has been increasingly focusing on cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) security tools. While the stock is down slightly year-to-date, partly due to slowing revenue growth, the company could be a good long-term bet as businesses increasingly move online.
CrowdStrike ($17 billion, $481 million revenue) offers a cloud-delivered endpoint protection platform, which relies on lightweight software running on the customers servers or laptops. These applications, in turn, send data to a cloud-based security system that analyses threats. The stock is up by over 60% year-to-date, as the coronavirus pandemic has expanded the companys addressable market meaningfully.
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Why Cyber Security Stocks Have Rallied Over The Last Month - Forbes
Eset Internet Security review: Hard to recommend – IT PRO
Esets security products have long been popular among the tech cognoscenti. Whether you go for the antivirus-only NOD32 package or this more fully-featured suite, Eset has a reputation for top-notch security without intrusive pop-ups and interruptions, and minimal impact on the performance of your PC.
It isnt cheap, though. Many security suites can be had at deeply discounted prices from Amazon and other retailers but with Eset your only option is to pay full price at the companys own website. That works out to 32 to protect a single PC for one year: is the software really good enough to warrant the outlay?
Eset Internet Security goes well beyond the basics of virus protection. As well as scanning local files, it blocks dodgy websites and links and, if youre running a local email program like Outlook or Thunderbird, it will also scan for infected attachments, phishing links and spam.
Theres a clever secure browsing mode, too, which provides extra peace of mind when youre shopping or banking online: specific sites can be set to automatically open in a new secure window, with additional protection against keyloggers and the like. Its up to you whether you let extensions like password managers run in secure windows.
Another noteworthy feature is Esets Connected Home scanner, which probes your network and flags up any router vulnerabilities discovered, as well as alerting you whenever a new client connects. Most of the time this will be because youve bought a new phone, or shared your Wi-Fi password with a friend but it could be invaluable if an intruder does manage to sneak onto your network.
Unusually, Eset extends Windows built-in theft protections, adding the ability to capture camera pictures and screenshots from a stolen laptop, as well as simply locking and locating it.
In the first half of 2021, Eset Internet Security was included in independent reports by both AV-Comparatives.org and AV-Test.org. Across both labs tests it came away with an average protection rating of 99.8%. Some other suites scored a flawless 100%, including Bitdefender, Kaspersky and Norton but Eset was close enough to perfection that were not inclined to quibble.
Whats more, none of those big names was able to match Esets perfect record for false positives: it sailed through extensive testing without wrongly flagging a single innocent item. Only F-Secure SAFE was able to equal that claim. Its a strong confirmation of Esets excellent malware-detecting capabilities.
Were not fans of the creepy robot that welcomes you to the software, and frankly we find the Eset interface unnecessarily cumbersome to get around. Its features are split across six main pages in an arrangement that doesnt seem particularly logical or intuitive.
Still, the technically minded will forgive that in exchange for hands-on controls such as the network protection troubleshooter, which lets you check up on what connections have been blocked and why, allowing you to unblock any items you think have been wrongly flagged something thats harder or impossible in most other suites.
Its also hard to complain about Esets impact on your system. The two testing labs measured an average performance hit of just 7.8% with the software installed. Thats well below the 12.5% caused by Windows built-in security tools indeed, it makes Eset one of the fastest security suites around.
Eset Internet Security has a lot going for it. Its an effective antivirus solution with impeccable accuracy and strong performance and it partners that core capability with a well-conceived set of additional features.
Weve just one reservation, and thats the price. 32 a year wont break the bank but its hardly competitive for a licence that only covers one PC. For comparison, Norton costs a third as much for single-device protection, and BullGuard will cover five PCs for half the cost. Regrettably, that makes Eset Internet Security hard to recommend.
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Eset Internet Security review: Hard to recommend - IT PRO
Anonymous on the Internet: Security updates for Tor Browser and Tails OS released – Market Research Telecast
The Linux distribution Tails, which is trimmed to preserve privacy and anonymity, and the anonymizing Tor Browser are now available for download in versions that are protected against possible attacks.
As can be seen from a blog post, sets the current Tor Browser 10.5.4 as a substructure on Firefox ESR version 78.13. In it, Mozilla has closed several security gaps classified as high. If attacks are successful, there is a high probability that attackers could execute malicious code on systems.
In addition, the developers have implemented NoScript in the 11.2.11 edition and fixed some bugs. Among other things, there should no longer be problems with passwords stored in the browser.
Tails also relies on the current edition of Tor Browser, write the developers in a post. In Tails 4.21 the secured mail client Thunderbird 78.12 is preinstalled. The developers also solved an issue that could cause persistent storage to be deleted when upgrading. An upgrade is possible from Tails 4.19.
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Anonymous on the Internet: Security updates for Tor Browser and Tails OS released - Market Research Telecast
Judging panel and shortlist for Global Security Influencer of the Year unveiled – IFSEC Global
Grant Lecky, Co-founder, Security Partners Forum
Grant Lecky MSc. CSyP, F.ISRM, AARPI, CBCP is the co-founder of the Security Partners Forum (SPF), a network of security professionals that fosters greater communication and collaboration between the public, private and not-for-profit sectors across the globe.
In addition to the SPF, Grant, also currently serves as an Expert Network Member (Risk & Resilience) at the World Economic Forum, as member of the global advisory council of the Institute of Strategic Risk Management (ISRM) and is a winner of numerous accolades including a spot on the Canadian Whos Who and the Bill Zalud Award through the IFPO and Security Magazine.
View Grants LinkedIn profile to find out about his other accolades and accomplishments.
Named to IFSECs Global influencers list 2018 and 2019 for Security Thought Leadership, Mark is a Business School Graduate, Certified Protection Professional and Fellow of The Security Institute (FSyI).
After graduating in Human Resources and International Business in 1996, he progressed to senior roles responsible for various security service business units across Canada. In 2009 he launched a consulting business focused on physical security for corporate clients and then served as Senior Manager, Corporate Security at Canadas largest telecommunications company until 2016. He transitioned from the corporate security role to create the security industry function for a security industry workforce management software company, TrackTik.
Mark volunteers as a Community Vice President with ASIS International and is the past Chair of its Security Services Community. He has also contributed to various standards impacting private security. On a part-time basis, he teaches in the Security and Police Studies program at the Universit of Montral. In 2020, Mark joined Robotic Assistance Devices whose focus is to deliver artificial intelligence-based solutions that empower organisations to solve complex security and service challenges while delivering immediate return on investment.
Abeer Khedr is the Information Security Director at the National Bank of Egypt with more than 20 years of experience in technology and information security fields. Abeer has been serving in her current role for 10 years where she has established the information security strategy and programme at the bank and designed an information security management system (ISMS) for the banks main data centre & call centre which got certified in 2016 & 2017. She has also developed an information security effectiveness measurement program to ensure continuous improvement and maturity in security processes. Prior to joining NBE, Abeer has been leading the security consulting and IT audit service lines at Deloitte Egypt serving different industries.
Abeer has been recently awarded among top 50 influential women in Egypt for community work related to the cyber security industry and named to Egypts 30 successful women list in the Egyptian Women Forum 2020. She was also named to the Global CISO 100 list for 2020. Abeer is actively involved in initiatives to support inclusion and diversity, where, amongst other work, she co-founded Women in Cyber Security Middle East (WiCSME) group in 2018 which has over 1100 women members from different countries in the region.
Pauline Norstrom is the strategic leader of a new AI innovation and strategic advisory firm Anekanta Consulting. Prior to this, her 20 years of security industry experience span across international leadership and governance of several security and safety technology businesses. Her focus is on the application of AI and disruptive technology across industries including defence, security and video surveillance, transportation, manufacturing, cybersecurity, AI, and IoT/Smart Cities.
Pauline is an honorary member and strategic advisor to the BSIA on the subject of AI and AFR, having previously Chaired the Association for a two-year term from 2014. She is also a fellow of the Institute of Directors and an AI advisor to the ERP/Digital Group. Pauline is a regular speaker and contributor on the subject of AI, video surveillance and cyber security and has also won a number of awards for her contribution to the security industry and appeared in IFSEC Globals Top 50 Most Influential People in Security and Fire in 2015.
Driven by a fascination for cutting-edge technology and a passion for providing exceptional customer service, Edwina Eddie Reynolds has spent over 25 years as a leading figure in the video security industry. As the founder and CEO of multiple established CCTV lighting companies, Reynolds is at the forefront of bringing innovative solutions to the surveillance market.
Without light, there is no clear, effective video. Motivated by this, Reynolds founded iluminar Inc. in 2009. In her current position as president and CEO of iluminar, Reynolds has led the company to develop award-winning solutions and to be the lighting solution partner for market leaders like Axis Communications, Milestone Systems, Sony, Arecont Vision, Digital Watchdog, Ameristar Fence Products and Johnson Controls.
In 2018, Reynolds was elected to the Security Industry Association (SIA) Executive Council and was also named the 2018 recipient of the inaugural SIA Progress Award, which honors individuals who have shown excellence in their advancement of opportunities and success for women in the security industry. Reynolds currently serves as a member of the SIA Women in Security Forum and also serves on the SIA RISE Diversity and Inclusion Subcommittee. She is also a member of the International Organization of Black Security Executives (IOBSE).
Named one of the Global Hot 150 Cybersecurity Companies to Watch In 2021 and one of the Top 5 Innovative Cybersecurity Companies in the Washington D.C. region, Fortalice Solutions is a boutique cybersecurity and intelligence services firm clients trust to provide discretion and superior service headquartered in Charlotte, NC with a global office in London and offices throughout the USA.
Payton began her career in banking technology where she quickly rose through the ranks to earn executive roles at both Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Regarded as an authority in her field, she was chosen to be the first female to serve as White House Chief Information Officer where she oversaw IT operations and security for President George W. Bush and his staff during a period of unprecedented technological change and cyber threat.
Payton is an industry trailblazer, holding US patent number 10735455 System for anonymously detecting and blocking threats. Her work has received multiple accolades, including the FBI Directors award for Public Service, Enterprising Woman of the Year, and named by IFSEC Global as #4 of the worlds top 50 cybersecurity professionals. She is included in the book of 100 Fascinating Females Fighting Cybercrime and by Security Magazine as one of the 25 Most Influential People in Security. She was also named William J. Clinton distinguished lecturer by the Clinton School of Public Service.
Payton is also a familiar media presence, whether as a reality television actor in Hunted on CBS, or as an expert commentator and cyber analyst for CNN International, BBC TV News and Radio, Sky4 News, The Daily Mail UK, Irish RTE Radio, CBSN, NBC News, MSNBC, Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Morning & Evening News, NPR, and the Wall Street Journal. She is an award winning author of Manipulated: Inside the Cyberwar to Hijack Elections and Distort the Truth and has co-authored two additional books focused on helping others learn how to protect their privacy online, both of which were hailed as must-reads by Jon Stewart of The Daily Show and Katie Couric.
Latha Reddy is the former Deputy National Security Adviser of India where she was responsible for cybersecurity and other critical internal and external security issues. She also served as a Commissioner on the Global Commission on Internet Governance. Ms. Reddy has extensive experience in foreign policy, having served in the Indian Foreign Service from 1975-2011, and in bilateral, regional and multilateral negotiations. In addition, she has expertise on security and strategic issues and has worked on strategic technology policies, particularly on cyber issues relating to cyber security policy, international cyber cooperation and Internet governance.
Ms. Reddy is involved with several organisations and think-tanks, both globally and in India. She is currently, among other positions, serving as a Distinguished Fellow in the EastWest Institute in the US and the Observer Research Foundation in India.
Mr. Mattice is President & Founder of the National Economic Security Alliance (NESA), a nonpartisan IRS designated 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused at educating policymakers at the Federal, State and Local level as well as business leaders and the general public on issues affecting the economic security of America.
He is also Managing Director of Mattice & Associates LLC, a management consulting firm focused on the fields of enterprise risk management, business risk intelligence programs, resiliency, information asset protection, cyber security, compliance, corporate security, management systems, and program evaluations. Mr. Mattice established the Executive Summit Series as a unique forum where leaders share their vision of the future and tackle the front of mind issues they face today. Additionally, he is a Leadership Council member for the National Small Business Association; a Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Risk Management; Distinguished Fellow at the Ponemon Institute and an Emeritus Senior Fellow at Auburn Universitys Center for Cyber and Homeland Security.
Amongst many other roles in the security industry, he was appointed as one of the key industry representatives on the National Industrial Security Program Presidential Task Force, which was established through a Presidential Decision Directive by President George H.W. Bush; the taskforces members also included the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Energy and the Director of the CIA. Mr. Mattice was also appointed to the Inaugural Advisory Board for the National Counterintelligence Center (which is now known as the National Counterintelligence and Security Center), appointed as a member of the Department of States Overseas Security Advisory Council, and asked to serve for several terms on the Steering Committee for the Global Congress on Combatting Counterfeiting and Piracy, established by INTERPOL and the World Customs Organization.
Brennan P. Baybeck, CISA, CISM, CRISC, CISSP, is VP & CISO leads a global team that addresses IT security risk management for one of the largest lines of business at Oracle. He is responsible for leading security, privacy and availability for customer facing services, including Oracles Security Services. He has more than 25 years of experience in IT security, governance, risk, audit and consulting, and has worked in various industries designing, implementing and operating enterprise-wide programs to address global security risks. He has held other leadership positions at Sun Microsystems, StorageTek and Qwest Communications, and served as an security risk consulting director at a global consulting company for several years.
Baybeck also has been actively involved with ISACA for more than 25 years, as ISACAs International Board Chair and a board Director for several years, and served many years as a chapter board leader. He currently serves as Past Board Chair for ISACA. He is a recipient of the Western Michigan Universitys Business Information Systems Outstanding Alumni Award in recognition of his distinguished service and accomplishments. The Colorado Technology Association also named Baybeck as the 2021 CISO of the Year.
Aristides Contreras is the founding President of COLADCA, focused on bringing together professionals from the Security and Risk management world for research and to rethink security with a model that requires best practices and unites the private sectors, public and the academy.
Aristides is Lawyer with a specialisation in Constitutional Criminal Procedure, is a an Officer retired in the Army and worked for several years in the Management of Integral Security at a national level in security contracts and for effective Risk Management. He is also a Certified Consultant and is Speaker and Autor in some publications of updating the regulations and procedures that minimise the occurrence of losses in organisations and improve risk management and security in countries of Latin Amrica.
Jason Brown is the National Security Director for Thales in Australia and New Zealand. He is responsible for international trade and security liaison with government, law enforcement and intelligence communities to develop cooperative arrangements to minimise risk to Thales and those in the community that it supports. He is also responsible to ensure compliance with international and Commonwealth requirements for trade control, national security and relevant federal and state laws. His further responsibility is to maintain the Thales Crisis Management arrangements including exercise program.
Before joining Thales in 2004 Jason had 27 years experience in Commonwealth Government and has served on several senior boards and committees in both the Public Sector and Private Institutions, including:
He is currently:
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Judging panel and shortlist for Global Security Influencer of the Year unveiled - IFSEC Global
Mississippi could receive billions to fix roads, water from infrastructure bill – Clarion Ledger
Jackson, Miss., Infrastructure issues nothing new to water hoarder
James and Jean Brooks won't even drink Jackson city water. As residents for decades, the recent city water crisis was nothing new.
Barbara Gauntt, Mississippi Clarion Ledger
Billions of dollars. That's how much federal funding Mississippi is set to receive as part of the recently passed infrastructure bill, according to information shared from the White House.
Should the bill pass in theUnited StatesHouse of Representatives and become law, Mississippi will receive nearly $4.5 billion in infrastructure funding over the next five years, according to a fact sheet published by the Biden administration.
In addition to the $4.5 billion, Mississippi is eligible to apply for additional funds to complete projectsofficials saywould provide "substantial economic benefits" to the state.
Of Mississippi's two Republican senators, Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker, only Wicker voted for the package. In a statement afterward, Hyde-Smith acknowledged the plan would benefit Mississippi.
Mississippi's needs are apparent; the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the state a D+ grade on its infrastructure report card.
"To be able to provide safe drinking water, a sustainable infrastructure, a resilient infrastructure, and, might I add, an equitable infrastructure has to be a part of our plan to build back better," Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba told Biden Wednesday.
More than three-fourths of the allocatedmoney, about $3.5 billion, will go to fixing roads and bridges. There are more than 5,840 miles of highway and 1,386 bridges in Mississippi that are in poor condition, according to information from the Federal Transit Authority.
The next biggest slice will go to water system repairs in the state. Mississippi is in line to receive $429 million to improve and repair water systems across the entire state. That money will be divided among different cities and water systems, according to the bill's text.
READ MORE: Federal infrastructure money 'only hope' for fixing Jackson sewer and water woes
About $223 million will go towardexpanding public transit in the state. Non-white Mississippians are almost three times as likely to use public transit, according toBiden administration officials. About four out of every 10 public transit vehicle is over due for replacement.
The other significant chunks of funding will go to expanding internet access and to improving the state's airports.
Mississippi will receive a minimum of $100 million to increasing broadband coverage across the state. The federal governmentestimates about 531,000 people lack internet access, and that nearly a quarter of Mississippi households don't have an internet subscription, according to a press release.
The state's airports will get $99 million to make general infrastructure improvements.
The rest of the money will be allocated to wildfire prevention, beefing up cyber security and to building a network of electric vehicle charging stations across the state.
Lee O. Sanderlin is an investigative and political reporter covering the state of Mississippi. Got a story tip? You can call him at 601-559-3857, send it to LSanderlin@gannett.com or message him on Twitter@LeeOSanderlin.
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Mississippi could receive billions to fix roads, water from infrastructure bill - Clarion Ledger
Norton 360 Standard review: Superb virus protection with VPN and cloud backup thrown in – Expert Reviews
As the name implies, Norton 360 is designed to provide all-round protection against malware and other threats. The message is slightly muddied by the existence of multiple editions of the software but the major protection features are the same across all of them.
The Standard suite, reviewed here, covers a single PC, while the Deluxe and Premium packages cover five and ten devices respectively and add parental controls and dark web monitoring to alert you if your personal information has been compromised online.
All of these can be bought online at competitive prices. A Standard licence costs 13 on Amazon while the Deluxe edition is 19. Is the venerable Norton brand still a good choice for your online security?
Norton 360 has two standout features that set it apart from most rivals. The first is an integrated backup module which, in the Standard edition, comes with 10GB of bundled cloud storage.
Opt for the Deluxe edition and that goes up to 50GB, while the Premium edition ups that to 75GB. Its a bit of a shame that this only backs up files and folders it cant make an image of your entire system for disaster recovery but its still a great plus point for the price.
On top of that, Norton 360 includes a fully functional VPN. It isnt a terrifically advanced service. It wont automatically turn on when you connect to a particular network, nor suspend your connection if the VPN link fails. Even so, with no data limits and servers in 31 countries to choose from, its a great benefit.
Aside from that, all the expected features are covered. The software scans local files and websites on access to ensure nothing nasty can get onto your PC, while a separate webcam protection module keeps you in control of which programs get to access your camera hardware.
Theres a custom firewall, too although its buried in the settings where busy users may never find it and an integrated version of Nortons free password manager, allowing you to retrieve unlimited credentials on Chrome, Firefox or Edge, as well as Android and iOS.
In all, its a solid feature set. Wed be happier if it included some sort of active folder protection, just in case a ransomware threat manages to slip past Nortons scanners but, as discussed below, thats a very unlikely eventuality.
READ NEXT: Our guide to the best antivirus software
Norton 360 is regularly tested by two independent security specialists AV-Comparatives.org in Innsbruck and AV-Test.org in Magdeburg. Were happy to report that Norton romped through the most recent series of tests, carried out in the first half of 2021, with a perfect 100% protection score from both labs against both widespread and brand new zero-day threats.
The news isnt all good, though. While Norton blocked every threat that was thrown at it, it also racked up an embarrassing tally of 22 false positives. Thats worse than almost any other security suite weve tested. F-Secure SAFE and Eset Internet Security both achieved a perfect zero here and even Windows Defender only raised a false alarm on five occasions. Its not hard to unblock wrongly flagged items, but you shouldnt have to second-guess your security software.
Norton 360 is split across two completely different interfaces the My Norton overview page, which offers one-click access to the various 360 modules, and the main Device Security control panel, from which your local protection settings are managed. This arrangement feels unnecessarily complicated but you wont have to deal with it often once youre past the initial setup.
Like all security software, Norton also has a certain impact on the performance of your PC. Across a range of different tests, the two independent labs reported an average slowdown of 9%.
Thats not brilliant but its better than Windows 10s built-in antivirus service, which came out at 12.5%. If top speed is your priority, however, F-Secure SAFE and McAfee Total Protection both nosed ahead, with impact ratings below 7%.
Norton 360 provides unbeatable protection and some truly worthwhile extra features for a price thats very hard to quibble with. Before you invest, just be sure youre comfortable with that high false-positive rate.
You should be aware too that, after your first year of protection is up, the renewal fee rockets to 65 so be sure to cancel and buy a new licence, rather than letting your subscription roll over.
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Norton 360 Standard review: Superb virus protection with VPN and cloud backup thrown in - Expert Reviews
Why penetration testing needs to be part of your IoT security – Security Boulevard
Penetration testing is critical to assessing the overall strength of your companys defense against cyber criminals targeting IoT devices.
IoT devices are ubiquitous in our daily liveswhether its at home with connected home automation devices, or at work with connected factories, hospitals, and even connected cars. According to Gartner, there were over 20 billion IoT devices in 2020. As businesses globally over the past decade have transformed their processes with more embedded IoT-driven intelligence, these billions of connected devices have also become a soft target for cyber criminals. Nokias Threat Intelligence Lab reported in 2020 that IoT devices are now responsible for 32.72% of all infections observed in mobile and Wi-Fi networksup from 16.17% in 2019.
With millions of exposed endpoints, cyber criminals not only leverage compromised devices to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, but they also present a sustained national security threat. So its no surprise that even the FBI has taken notice and provided continued guidance on how to practice secure IoT practices to defend against cyber criminals targeting unsecure IoT devices. We have consistently noted that inadequate security capabilities, lack of real-time vulnerability patching, and lack of consumer awareness are key drivers for repeated attacks on IoT devices.
The Center for Internet Security, Inc. (CIS) has recommended best practices for securing IT systems and data. For large organizations it is key to implement organizational CIS controls to focus on people and processesand drive change, executing an integrated plan to improve the organizational risk posture. CIS Control 20: Penetration Testing and Red Team Exercisesis a well-definedmethod to implementorganizationalcontrols.These tests allowcyber securityexperts to detect vulnerabilitiesand assess the overall strength of an organizations defense by simulating the actions of an attacker. Often attackers targetsoftwaredeployment vulnerabilitiessuch as configurations,policy management, and gaps ininteractionsamong multiple threatdetectiontools to exploit securitygaps.
First, IoT devices can have several types of interfacesweb-based interfaces for consumers, or object interfaces for governance as codetype of application such as control systems. Hence input validation, command injection, and code injection should be a primary focus of penetration testing of IoT devices.
Second, the network infrastructure interconnecting IoT objects can often be vulnerable andfor IoT devices on a single network, malicious attacks need only a single exploit to be successful. It is important to use both automated tools and manual penetration testing methods to do complete specialized penetration testing on the network infrastructure, associated cryptographic schemes, and communication protocols.
Finally, it is critical to scan proprietary programs which representthe entire system architecture. Eighty-four percent of proprietary programs contain at least one open source vulnerability according to the sixth Open Source Security and Risk Analysis (OSSRA) report produced bySynopsys. This represents immense heterogeneity and complexity in the codebaseshence it is important for experienced penetration testing professionals to use intelligent gray box testing to have excellent coverage on test types required for a comprehensive penetration test.
It is key to build acomprehensive securitydefense posture with governance by code, policy management, and coaching team members to secure the entiresoftware development life cycle (SDLC).As software releases become more frequent and more complex, penetration testing is an easy process for security professionals to periodically test their defenses, identify gaps, and drive remediation with the product development teams.By conducting sophisticatedpenetration testing that includes diverseattackvectors such as wireless, client-based, and web application attacks, organizations can get deeperinsightsinto the business risks ofthese various vulnerabilities, enabling them to configure an appropriate defense posture that is suitedtotheir ecosystem.
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Why penetration testing needs to be part of your IoT security - Security Boulevard
Internet Operations Management Is Well Suited To Military Networks – Breaking Defense
U.S. Marines with the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force 19.2 Crisis Response Command Element prepare field condition crisis response center networks in Kuwait. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Robert Gavaldon)
As data proliferates and attack surfaces expand, the Defense Department continues to have a fundamental need to discover, understand, track, and manage its data and intellectual property that is exposed on the internet.
The House Armed Services Committee noted the need to manage this process in an integrated end-to-end fashion in its markup of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021.
The Department of Defense (DoD) lacks a similar comprehensive understanding of the internet-connected assets and attack surface across the DoD enterprise; the committee notes in this regard that the DoD only recently discovered that it has twice as many managed connections to the internet as it thought it didconnections established and maintained by components that were not protected like the other sanctioned Internet Access Points managed by the Defense Information Systems Agency.
Despite strides made by Joint Force Headquarters-Departments of Defense Information Network (JFHQ-DODIN) in improving its enterprise-wide visibility of DoD networks, DoD networks are controlled by individual components, with JFHQ-DODIN deriving most of its situational awareness from component reporting. The committee believes that it is critical that JFHQ-DODIN achieve real-time visibility over all DoD networks.
This complexity makes DoD networks particularly ripe for the application of whats known as Internet Operations management (IOM). IOM capabilities enable organizations to:
When we kind of look at Internet Operations Management from the perspective of military networks, its easy to see the applicability of IOM, not just for the military but also for federal agencies, large government networks, and commercial customers, said Joseph Lin, vice president of product management for Cortex, Palo Alto Networks. All of them have these fundamental problems.
An IOM platform aggregates all of this data into a single, secure data lake, using machine learning algorithms and data analytics to discover anomalies and derive insights. Decisionmakers can then use this information to make, enforce, and verify IT and security policies and orders in an actionable, scalable, and automated way across the entire enterprise.
What is a data lake? Lin explains.
At a very basic level, a data lake is an environment holding an enormous amount of data, as well as highly heterogeneous data, that is brought together, integrated, and made mutually interpretable so that the data is able to relate to one another. At the end of the day, youre not just collecting data for datas sake, but are collecting it so that you can run analytics on top of that data. You can use machine learning in order to derive insights from the multitude of data that youre able to collect from your entire system.
IOM Is Well Suited to Military Networks
Military networks are, generally speaking, very large. They can be highly federated in nature, which makes managing all of their internet-facing assets that much more difficult.
Because of the large, distributed, highly federated nature, and sometimes expeditionary nature of military networks, management/command and control of their internet-facing assets is difficult and complex.
They are inefficient and insecure in other ways, as wellspecifically in six areas.
IOM Addresses Those Issues
It is those inefficiencies that lead to insecurities that are driving the need for enterprise-wide security enforcement among militaries around the world.
Cybersecurity and IT operations are most effective when there is centralized visibility and operational control over the entire network. The DoD owns some of the worlds largest and most complex networks, with millions of IP addresses and endpoints in multi-tiered enclaves. Yet, they continue to lack enterprise-wide network visibility and rely on late-20th century technologies for tasks as straightforward as developing, disseminating, and enforcing new IT policies.
DoD organizations and service members deserve best-in-breed technologies and processes such as those found with IOM to centralize and manage their security and network- operations. The good news is that these technologies already exist commercially and are widely deployed across legacy networks, especially in the private sector and a handful of government agencies.
A major part of managing legacy network systems is that they are properly secured behind firewalls and not exposed on the public internet because of vulnerabilities associated with their software that are simply unpatched, or are no longer supported by their original manufacturer, said Lin. Because these vulnerabilities can be easily exploitable by adversaries, its that much more important to ensure that theyre properly secured.
What IOM enables owners of legacy systems to do is, first and foremost, ensure that theyre not exposed on the public internet, that theyre not discoverable by adversaries, and that theyre properly configured and secured.
Conclusion
DoD and wider U.S. government cyber defense, detection, response, and recovery capabilities are inadequate. This problem is most fundamentally due to the lack of centralized visibility and operational control over federal information technology.
In addition, there is a huge gap between the mandate to secure, defend, and monitor government-wide networks and the highly disparate technologies and processes in place. Solving this problem is not only possible, it is happening now with existing technologies and processes in the private sector and within some individual federal agencies.
IOM products like Palo Alto Networks Cortex suite of systems, including Cortex Xpanse and XSOAR, enable JFHQ-DODIN to meet the requirements detailed by the FY21 NDAA through the development of IOM procedures that provide JFHQ-DODIN real-time visibility over all DOD networks.
Situational awareness is a basic requirement in all forms of conflict, and with Cortex IOM Defense Department organization can continuously discover, manage, and monitor all globally deployed DoD internet assets through daily attack surface scanning and regular mapping.
Comprehensive awareness and visibility across all of its networks will let DoD network managers confidently answer questions as straightforward as, What are all of my IPs?, How many endpoints or servers do I have? and What is the software running on them? Without IOM, they would be hard pressed to do so.
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Internet Operations Management Is Well Suited To Military Networks - Breaking Defense
Content delivery networks hope you’ve never heard of them but if there’s an outage, it’s big news – ABC News
It may seem strange for a business to hope you've never heard of it.
But that's exactly what content delivery network (CDN) providers would like.
"If most people don't know that we're there, then we're delivering a great quality of service," Raymond Maisano,the local head of Cloudflare, a CDN and cyber securityprovider, tells The Business..
"Hopefullythey don't get to see how we deliver the service for us, that's a great result."
Every minute, Australians are accessing websites and apps operatedacross the world, without a second thought.
CDNs are one part of the system allowing that to happen. They speed up the experience for users, and are largely invisible until something goes wrong.
Outages are an unfortunate fact of online life, but when an outage takes down some of the most high-profile websites on the internet, it becomes big news.
In June, sites including The New York Times, The Guardian, Twitch, Reddit and the British government's homepage went down due to an outage at CDN provider Fastly.
Fastly said it was an "undiscovered software bug" triggered by a configuration change, and said 95 per cent of its network was operating as normal within 49 minutes.
Less than a fortnight later, several Australianbanks,Virgin Australiaand even the Reserve Bank of Australia were hit bya technical glitch at another provider, Akamai.
Akamai said it was caused by an outage in one of its distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection services, used by around 500 customers.
ABC News: Stephanie Chalmers
So while CDNs are constantly operating behind the scenes, it's only when they encounter an issue that the average person will start hearing about them.
The services CDNs provide essentially sit between a company's platform and the web page the user is looking at.
Paul Haskell-Dowland, the associatedean of computing and security at Edith Cowan University, uses the BBC website as an example.
"You might think that the BBC servers are likely to be, perhaps, in London in the UK, and so your traffic the request for the page and the page content hasto move from your computer here in Australia, all the way across the internetto London that's quite a big journey."
ABC News: Rachel Pupazzoni
Whileinternet speeds are dramatically faster than they used to be, multiplythat request by thousands of people trying to access the same page at the same time, maybe add in some video content, and things can slow down.
That's where CDNs come in. They provide a copy of the content theuser is trying to access, but in closer proximity.
To understand what happened, you need to know what a CDN is, and how crucial they are to the smooth running of the internet.
"Instead of going all the way to the UK on a server somewhere closer to where the consumer resides, we will have a copy of all of that content," Dr Haskell-Dowland says.
"You're actually downloading a copy from your nearest data centre, which could be in Perth, it could be in Sydney, or somewhere that's more geographically convenient."
This makes the process of accessing web content quicker and more efficient, and also means that if one data centre becomes overloaded, another can pick up the traffic.
The fact that the physical locationmattersmight come as a surprisein an era where we're used to hearing everything's kept in "the cloud".
But Macquarie Telecom Group chief executive David Tudehope says clouds need a physical home, too.
"Data lives in clouds. Clouds live in data centres," he explains.
ABC News: John Gunn
Similar networks of data centres are used to provide cyber security services.
For example, adistributed denial of service or DDoS attack involves thousands or even millions of computers attacking a website or system, to overwhelm it so it can't cope with any more traffic.
"One of the largest collections of systems that we saw in recent history had over 10 million devices corralled into this single network that could be used to attack devices," DrHaskell-Dowland says.
To counteract such attacks, cyber security providers use their network of data centres to move traffic around when it comes in in large volumes.
DrHaskell-Dowland explains that it involves "having lots of destinations that can handle the requests, effectively scaling up to deal with the attack providing the capability to deal with a large influx of traffic, which most small organisations simply can't cope with".
It's not just big businesses using CDNs, cyber security services or cloud computing systems and storage.
Small business are increasingly using websites and apps to interact withcustomers, particularly as the pandemic forces some to operate solely online during lockdowns.
"There's a push for digitisation for small businessand for them to be more successful in the digital space, and with that comes a higher risk," Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA) chief executive Alexi Boyd says.
ABC News: John Gunn
To mitigate the increased risks, businesses are signing up to cloud storage and cyber security services.
But Macquarie Telecom's Mr Tudehope, whose business operates five data centres in Australia, with another in development, sayssmall businessesneed to be mindful of just ticking the box for default settings.
"When they click on the accept button for a cloud provider, where is that data being kept?" he asks.
"[If]they keep their data offshore, even if it wasn't a conscious choice, that data is now subject to the foreign laws of that country.
"It's subject to a foreign regulator, it'ssubject to foreign courts, none of which they realised when they clicked the 'I accept' button."
"COSBOA works with governmentand online services like Google, like Dropbox, like OneDrive to make it easy for small businesses to make sure that they can be protected, thatthe appropriate software is continually updated, that they know where their data is being stored," Ms Boyd says.
A global coalition says China's hacking campaigns must stop, but pointing the finger over January's Microsoft Exchange attack seems the only consequence for now.
The stakes are also high in terms of reputation.
While occasional outages might cause problems to major bank customers, for example, it may take prolonged inconvenience to prompt some people to switch banks, whereas less established businesses may risk losing customers if their services are unavailable.
And Ms Boyd says small operators are particularly vulnerable to cyber attacks and hacking attempts, as cyber criminals may see them as a way into bigger businesses, which have more sophisticated protections.
"They can be targeted because of who their clients are, or the way that they interact with big business," she says.
Given how widespread the impact ofoutages can be whether they're caused by technical issues as in the recent Fastly and Akamai cases, or by a cyber attack preventing them is a priority.
Cloudflare'sRaymond Maisano says CDN providers want to avoid having a "single point of failure" that can take services offline.
"Which is why we have so many points of presence around the world, so if something does happen, that we're able to pick up that volume or that load from one of our other points of presence," he says.
Cloudflare is also connected to theinternet archive, to access a past copy of a customer'swebsite and display that to users (instead of an error message) until a problem is resolved.
"For many customers, the brand is so important," MrMaisano says.
ABC News: Michael Barnett
For companies using the services, preventing outages might mean having more than one service provider, so that if one goes down, another can step in.
"In both of the recent outages, it only affected that individual provider, so hadthose companies been able to shift their content to a different CDN, or indeed had a backup process, then it would have been more likely that we wouldn't have seen the kind of widespread outage that we did," Dr Haskell-Dowland says.
"If you choose just one network, you're even more exposed," MrTudehope agrees.
"Whether it's your content delivery network or your telecom provideror your cloud provider, you've always got to think about having redundancy, having backups."
The frequency of attacks and the size of ransoms being demanded increasessignificantly over the past year.
However, that obviously comes at an additional cost, and last year a report from the Australian Cyber Security Centre found that nearly half of small businesses couldn't, or wouldn't, spend more than $500 a year on IT security.
While outages make headlines around the world, it's worth remembering that on the days we don't hear anything about CDNs and cyber security providers, they're most likely performing as they are designed, says DrHaskell-Dowland improvingbrowsing speeds andreliability.
"Thankfully, they don't happen very often," he says of outages.
"These platforms are inherently very reliable, theyrely upon a distributed network of devices that are delivering content in large, well-resourced data centres. So we hope, in the future, we won't see many of these instances."
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Content delivery networks hope you've never heard of them but if there's an outage, it's big news - ABC News
In Worrisome Development, Skimmers Hack Gas Pumps to Read Credit Cards – Times of San Diego
A skimmer circuit board found inside a gas pump in San Diego County. Courtesy San Diego County Agriculture, Weights and Measures
A former San Diego Police Officer, Larry Avrech, had gotten a heads up from another former cop about keys being sold on the Internet that could open up gas pumps. Their first question was, is this legal?
Their second question was, why would anyone want to open up a gas pump?
The images Avrech found online showed two gas pump replacement lock keys.
The answer comes from Brian Krebs, a former newspaper reporter who is an expert on computers and Internet security.
For decades, only a handful of master keys were needed to open the vast majority of pumps in America, Krebs said. That has changed, but I bet there are some older stations that havent yet updated their locks.
Its entirely possible and plausible, Krebs said, that the keys are being used to open pumps. The purpose, he said, is for thieves who use skimmers.
Skimmers are a cleverly disguised electronic technology that thieves attach to cash machines, gas pumps and self-service checkout stands to steal credit card data. Krebs, a former Washington Post reporter, explained that the types of skimmers range in sophistication.
In some cases, the thieves must return to the scene of the crime to retrieve the data. More sophisticated strategies use texting to send the data.
In San Diego County, skimmer devices are spot checked as part of 700 inspections of gas stations done annually by San Diego Countys Agriculture Weights and Measures office. Typically, the locations chosen to place skimmers are close to freeways, have easy in-and-out access to a road, do not have a store or kiosk associated with it, and shut down for the night.
Gig Conaughton, communications specialist for the department, said this year inspectors found six skimmers, all of which were removed by the U.S. Secret Service. Conaugton said he couldnt provide the exact locations because there is still an ongoing, active investigation. But he was able to say the inspectors found the skimmers split at two locations in Santee and National City.
The Secret Service is involved because it is part of the U.S. Treasury Department. It is also active in pursuing credit card fraud.
If local inspectors find a skimmer, they will open and inspect 100% of the pumps at that station, said Conaughton, adding that we prioritize surveying stations with lower security or that have a history of skimmer finds.
For the credit or debit card holder, experts say its another reason to monitor your card usage as often as possible.
So is anyone pursuing the key sellers on the Internet? Not really. As Conaughton explained, there are no laws or regulations prohibiting the sale or copying of generic gas station keys.
JW August is a San Diego-based broadcast and digital journalist.
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In Worrisome Development, Skimmers Hack Gas Pumps to Read Credit Cards - Times of San Diego