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Cybersecurity 2020: The Trends SMBs will Need to Prepare For – CISO MAG

March 13, 2020 | Author: admin

The rapid evolution of cybersecurity remained a major issue for small businesses in 2019, being named the top concern for all businesses, regardless of their size. Along with an increase in the number of cybercrimes, the cost of recovering from an attack means keeping ahead of the curve is vital for SMBs going forward.

By Amie Thurlow

This is challenging enough for businesses operating on a small budget, but fast-paced changes in technology mean that security resources are increasingly being stretched in several directions. Rather than protecting a single, traditional office, security must now cover a whole range of devices used for IoT and mobile working.

Proactivity is now essential to an effective security strategy. By looking ahead to the trends of the next 12 months, SMBs can begin to identify the new challenges around cybersecurity that they will need to prepare for.

Increased spending

A trend that is set to continue from 2019 is increased cybersecurity spending. The International Data Corporation (IDC) expects spending on security solutions was estimated to reach $103 billion in 2019, a 9.4% increase on the previous year, with that trajectory continuing into 2020 and beyond. These figures are not exclusive to small business, but it does demonstrate how seriously cybersecurity is now being taken.

It may well not be possible for SMBs to increase their budget on that scale each year. However, the trend for regularly raising spending suggests that it would be prudent to conduct an audit of existing hardware, software and services, to make sure that current solutions are providing the best protection available on your budget. Increases in spending can then be focused on minimizing risk, by improving the security awareness of your workforce with training.

The continued growth of IoT

While the Internet of Things (IoT) has rapidly become a huge consideration, the reality is that this is just the start. Currently, the pace with which these new devices are being implemented continues to surpass the rate at which security solutions are being created to manage them.

While some IoT devices have benefits for the workplace, others might be causing more issues than they are solving. Take the time to carefully consider the introduction of new devices to your network, to make sure that the benefits they offer are worth the increase in security weak points that their inclusion creates.

5G wireless Internet

Over the next few years, the rollout of 5G wireless internet will bring faster internet speeds to peoples pockets. But as this is a new technology, dont be surprised to hear of a range of attacks as security weaknesses are exposed and then patched during the early years of its rollout.

It might not be a direct issue for your network in 2020, but with the mobile workforce set to continue its rapid growth in the coming years, staff could well start using early 5G networks on their personal devices to complete their work, putting sensitive documents at risk.

Awareness is the key to minimize this threat. If regular security training sessions are held, they are the ideal platform for highlighting the dangers and reminding staff to apply security patches as soon as they become available.

Automation and AI

An area of technological innovation that is set for dramatic growth in the coming years is automation and AI. A report titled Global Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity Market, 2019-2026 has projected that the market for AI in cybersecurity could reach US$38.2 billion by 2026, an almost US$30 billion increase on the 8.8 billion estimated in 2019.

Alongside entirely new threats, increased implementation of automation and artificial intelligence could begin to see traditional forms of attack such as phishing take on a new guise, becoming harder to detect. But it isnt all bad news. Automation also plays an important role in protecting against attacks, by improving threat detection and identifying vulnerabilities.

Any new technologies can be expensive to set up and can require additional training, but as the implementation of AI grows, costs will continue to fall, making AI solutions viable for SMBs who are looking to implement a modern security setup.

Conclusion

There can be no doubt that cybersecurity is going to continue becoming a greater consideration for companies of all sizes in the coming years. As rapidly as technology advances, so too do the resources that hackers have at their disposal. While SMBs may not have the financial muscle to immediately invest in the latest tools, they can still take large steps towards remaining secure by being proactive.

Keeping antivirus, VPNs, firewalls and endpoint security software up to date will protect against the latest vulnerabilities. But no matter which new threats emerge, the best way to reduce the risk of an attack remains looking after the simple things.

Research conducted by Apricorn in 2019 discovered that 63 percent of UK organizations considered human error the main cause of data breaches within their organization. This means that providing regular training, BYOD policies for mobile workers, and a holistic attitude to security best practices, remains one of the best ways to stay protected in the new year.

Views expressed in this article are personal. The facts, opinions, and language in the article do not reflect the views of CISO MAG and CISO MAG does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.

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Cybersecurity 2020: The Trends SMBs will Need to Prepare For - CISO MAG

Namecheap, EFF and the Dangerous Internet Wild West – CircleID

March 13, 2020 | Author: admin

This past week I had two items pop up on my alerts. The first was about Facebook suing domain registrar Namecheap for allowing domains that impersonate the social media company and can be used for scams. The second was a plea by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to join in its crusade to stop the sale of the .ORG domain. It took me a moment to realize these are linked.

Namecheap is known for its refusal, short of a court order, to crack down on bad actors who register domains used to spread malware, steal personal information, send spam and conduct cyberattacks. According to cyber monitoring firm SpamHaus, 25 percent of so-called botnet domain names were registered through Namecheap making it the third straight year it held the title as the company with the most abused domains.

The Facebook lawsuit shows why. In its lawsuit, Facebook cited 45 Namecheap domains, such as 'instagrambusinesshelp.com', that appear to be associated with the social media company but, Facebook says, can be used by bad actors to "trick people into believing they are legitimate and are often used for phishing, fraud and scams."

It's not the first time Namecheap has been called out for not making Internet safety a priority. Online pet adoption scams are on the rise. Criminals create websites that offer to ship dogs after a would-be owner pays fees, but it's a scam and the dog never is delivered. In an article entitled, "Namecheap, you are hurting the Internet!," the group Petscams.com, which manages a database of fraudulent websites that pose as pet adoption centers, points out that Namecheap has nearly four times as many scam websites as any other registrar.

This track record is why I would never use Namecheap for domains. After all, life is about the company you keep. Which gets us to EFF and .ORG. The group wants to stop the sale of .ORG to a private company. But like Namecheap, EFF's track record on Internet safety is dubious. This is the organization that is trying to overturn a federal law aimed to stop sex traffickers from using websites such as Backpage to advertise and conduct business.

But EFF and Namecheap have a lot more in common than I realized. In the last decade, Namecheap has contributed $390,000 to EFF to fight against restrictions that could prevent bad actors from using the Internet to engage in sex trafficking, conduct scams, and spread malware that can lead to identity theft, financial loss and ransomware. It's hard not to connect the dots. Namecheap pays EFF to work to block Internet safety legislation and initiatives; Namecheap makes money by being the go-to domain company for bad actors who create domain names that can be used for scams and malware and other potential illicit activity.

As someone who owned and operated domain names, I'm stunned that this business model is acceptable in 2020. This is the Internet equivalent of a medical testing lab building a business model around the spread of the coronavirus. Namecheap stands out as a domain company that refuses to cooperate when companies such as Facebook come to them with evidence that its domain customers are engaging in shady behavior.

And EFF has 390,000 reasons to help them.

But at what cost? According to Internet security company Emsisoft, the 2019 impact of ransomware went way beyond the estimated $7.5 billion price tag. Because of ransomware, emergency patients had to be redirected to other hospitals; medical records were inaccessible or permanently lost; surgical procedures were canceled; tests were postponed; and, 911 services were interrupted. This is the real impact of not stopping online criminals and other bad actors.

Keeping the Internet free and safe are not mutually exclusive. Just as shouting "fire" in a crowded theater isn't protected speech, criminals who use the Internet to scam people, coerce them into ransomware payments, engage in sex trafficking, and spread malware shouldn't be protected. You would think that Namecheap and EFF would understand the difference. And if they do understand the difference and still fight efforts to keep the Internet safe, that's disturbing.

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Namecheap, EFF and the Dangerous Internet Wild West - CircleID

EARN IT Act threatens end-to-end encryption – Naked Security

March 13, 2020 | Author: admin

While were all distracted by stockpiling latex gloves and toilet paper, theres a bill tiptoeing through the US Congress that could inflict the backdoor virus that law enforcement agencies have been trying to inflict on encryption for years.

At least, thats the interpretation of digital rights advocates who say that the proposed EARN IT Act could harm free speech and data security.

Sophos is in that camp. For years, Naked Security and Sophos have said #nobackdoors, agreeing with the Information Technology Industry Council that Weakening security with the aim of advancing security simply does not make sense.

The first public hearing on the proposed legislation took place on Wednesday. You can view the 2+ hours of testimony here.

Called the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act (EARN IT Act), the bill would require tech companies to meet safety requirements for children online before obtaining immunity from lawsuits. You can read the discussion draft here.

To kill that immunity, the bill would undercut Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) from certain apps and companies so that they could be held responsible for user-uploaded content. Section 230, considered the most important law protecting free speech online, states that websites arent liable for user-submitted content.

Heres how the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) frames the importance of Section 230:

Section 230 enforces the common-sense principle that if you say something illegal online, you should be the one held responsible, not the website or platform where you said it (with some important exceptions).

EARN IT is a bipartisan effort, having been introduced by Republican Lindsey Graham, Democrat Richard Blumenthal and other legislators whove used the specter of online child exploitation to argue for the weakening of encryption. This comes as no surprise: in December 2019, while grilling Facebook and Apple, Graham and other senators threatened to regulate encryption unless the companies give law enforcement access to encrypted user data, pointing to child abuse as one reason.

What Graham threatened at the time:

Youre going to find a way to do this or were going to go do it for you. Were not going to live in a world where a bunch of child abusers have a safe haven to practice their craft. Period. End of discussion.

One of the problems of the EARN IT bill: the proposed legislation offers no meaningful solutions to the problem of child exploitation, as the EFF says:

It doesnt help organizations that support victims. It doesnt equip law enforcement agencies with resources to investigate claims of child exploitation or training in how to use online platforms to catch perpetrators. Rather, the bills authors have shrewdly used defending children as the pretense for an attack on our free speech and security online.

If passed, the legislation will create a National Commission on Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention tasked with developing best practices for owners of Internet platforms to prevent, reduce, and respond to child exploitation online. But, as the EFF maintains, Best practices would essentially translate into legal requirements:

If a platform failed to adhere to them, it would lose essential legal protections for free speech.

The best practices approach came after pushback over the bills predicted effects on privacy and free speech pushback that caused its authors to roll out the new structure. The best practices would be subject to approval or veto by the Attorney General (currently William Barr, whos issued a public call for backdoors), the Secretary of Homeland Security (ditto), and the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The bill doesnt explicitly mention encryption. It doesnt have to: policy experts say that the guidelines set up by the proposed legislation would require companies to provide lawful access: a phrase that could well encompass backdoors.

CNET talked to Lindsey Barrett, a staff attorney at Georgetown Laws Institute for Public Representation Communications and Technology Clinic who said that the way that the bill is structured is a clear indication that its meant to target encryption:

When youre talking about a bill that is structured for the attorney general to give his opinion and have decisive influence over what the best practices are, it does not take a rocket scientist to concur that this is designed to target encryption.

If the bill passes, the choice for tech companies comes down to either weakening their own encryption and endangering the privacy and security of all their users, or foregoing Section 230 protections and potentially facing liability in a wave of lawsuits.

Kate Ruane, a senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, had this to say to CNET:

The removal of Section 230 liability essentially makes the best practices a requirement. The cost of doing business without those immunities is too high.

Tellingly, one of the bills lead sponsors, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, told the Washington Post that hes unwilling to include a measure that would stipulate that encryption is off-limits in the proposed commissions guidelines. This is what he told the newspaper:

I doubt I am the best qualified person to decide what best practices should be. Better-qualified people to make these decisions will be represented on the commission. So, to ban or require one best practice or another [beforehand] I just think leads us down a very perilous road.

The EARN IT Act joins an ongoing string of legal assaults against the CDAs Section 230. Most recently, in January 2019, the US Supreme Court refused to consider a case against defamatory reviews on Yelp.

Weve also seen actions taken against Section 230-protected sites such as those dedicated to revenge porn, for one.

In March 2018, we also saw the passage of H.R. 1865, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) bill, which makes online prostitution ads a federal crime and which amended Section 230.

In response to the overwhelming vote to pass the bill it sailed through on a 97-2 vote, over the protests of free-speech advocates, constitutional law experts and sex trafficking victims Craigslist shut down its personals section.

Besides the proposed bill containing no tools to actually stop online child abuse, it would actually make it much harder to prosecute pedophiles, according to an analysis from The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. As explained by Riana Pfefferkorn, Associate Director of Surveillance and Cybersecurity, as it now stands, online providers proactively, and voluntarily, scan for child abuse images by comparing their hash values to known abusive content.

Apple does it with iCloud content, Facebook has used hashing to stop millions of nude childrens images, and Google released a free artificial intelligence tool to help stamp out abusive material, among other voluntary efforts by major online platforms.

The key word is voluntarily, Pfefferkorn says. Those platforms are all private companies, as opposed to government agencies, which are required by Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search to get warrants before they search our digital content, including our email, chat discussions, and cloud storage.

The reason that private companies like Facebook can, and do, do exactly that is that they are not the government, theyre private actors, so the Fourth Amendment doesnt apply to them.

Turning the private companies that provide those communications into agents of the state would, ironically, result in courts suppression of evidence of the child sexual exploitation crimes targeted by the bill, she said.

That means the EARN IT Act would backfire for its core purpose, while violating the constitutional rights of online service providers and users alike.

Besides the EFF, the EARN IT bill is facing opposition from civil rights groups that include the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Prosperity, Access Now, Mozilla, the Center for Democracy & Technology, Fight for the Future, the Wikimedia Foundation, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, the Consumer Technology Association, the Internet Association, and the Computer & Communications Industry Association.

Earlier this month, Sen. Ron Wyden, who introduced the CDAs Section 230, said in a statement that the disastrous legislation is a Trojan horse that will give President Trump and Attorney General Barr the power to control online speech and require government access to every aspect of Americans lives.

Read my full statement on the disastrous EARN IT Act, which will give Bill Barr and Donald Trump more control over twitter.com/i/web/status/1

Wydens statement didnt specifically mention encryption, but his office told Ars Technica that when [the senator] discusses weakening security and requiring government access to every aspect of Americans lives, that is referring to encryption.

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EARN IT Act threatens end-to-end encryption - Naked Security

The EARN IT Bill Is the Government’s Plan to Scan Every Message Online – EFF

March 13, 2020 | Author: admin

Imagine an Internet where the law required every message sent to be read by government-approved scanning software. Companies that handle such messages wouldnt be allowed to securely encrypt them, or theyd lose legal protections that allow them to operate.

Take Action

Stop the Graham-Blumenthal Attack on Encryption

Thats what the Senate Judiciary Committee has proposed and hopes to pass into law. The so-called EARN IT bill, sponsored by Senators Lindsay Graham (R-GA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), will strip Section 230 protections away from any website that doesnt follow a list of best practices, meaning those sites can be sued into bankruptcy. The best practices list will be created by a government commission, headed by Attorney General Barr, who has made it very clear he would like to ban encryption, and guarantee law enforcement legal access to any digital message.

The EARN IT bill had its first hearing today, and its supporters strategy is clear. Because they didnt put the word encryption in the bill, theyre going to insist it doesnt affect encryption.

This bill says nothing about encryption, co-sponsor Sen. Blumenthal said at todays hearing. Have you found a word in this bill about encryption? he asked one witness.

Its true that the bills authors avoided using that word. But they did propose legislation that enables an all-out assault on encryption. It would create a 19-person commission thats completely controlled by the Attorney General and law enforcement agencies. And, at the hearing, a Vice-President at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) made it clear [PDF] what he wants the best practices to be. NCMEC believes online services should be made to screen their messages for material that NCMEC considers abusive; use screening technology approved by NCMEC and law enforcement; report what they find in the messages to NCMEC; and be held legally responsible for the content of messages sent by others.

You cant have an Internet where messages are screened en masse, and also have end-to-end encryption any more than you can create backdoors that can only be used by the good guys. The two are mutually exclusive. Concepts like client-side scanning arent a clever route around this; such scanning is just another way to break end-to-end encryption. Either the message remains private to everyone but its recipients, or its available to others.

The 19-person draft commission isnt any better than the 15-person commission envisioned in an early draft of the bill. Its completely dominated by law enforcement and allied groups like NCMEC. Not only will those groups have a majority of votes on the commission, but the bill gives Attorney General Barr the power to veto or approve the list of best practices. Even if other commission members do disagree with law enforcement, Barrs veto power will put him in a position to strongarm them.

The Commission wont be a body that seriously considers policy; it will be a vehicle for creating a law enforcement wish list. Barr has made clear, over and over again, that breaking encryption is at the top of that wish list. Once its broken, authoritarian regimes around the world will rejoice, as they have the ability to add their own types of mandatory scanning, not just for child sexual abuse material but for self-expression that those governments want to suppress.

The privacy and security of all users will suffer if U.S. law enforcement is able to achieve its dream of breaking encryption. Senators should reject the EARN IT bill.

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Stop the Graham-Blumenthal Attack on Encryption

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The EARN IT Bill Is the Government's Plan to Scan Every Message Online - EFF

Apples WWDC 2020 is on in a purely digital way – Pickr

March 13, 2020 | Author: admin

Apple wont be assembling people in a room while coronavirus is an issue, but it will run its Worldwide Developers Conference in the online world.

The COVID-19 coronavirus is killing events and sporting events regularly, including mass gatherings, but it wont stop those who go online.

In the online world, theres no risk of catching a physical virus. While you still want to have some form of internet security on your computer to protect you from the nasties, you can talk and shake digital hands with anyone you meet without the fear of catching something, making online gatherings a thing of the now, especially while were being told real events wont happen for similar reasons.

To that end, Apple will be holding its typically in-person Worldwide Developers Conference WWDC online this year in June, instead of at a hall in San Jose.

The approach keeps the show going into its 31st year, and will allow developers from across the world, as well as consumers in general, the chance to check out whats new from Apple across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and likely bits and pieces of Apple hardware that could be announced.

Apple hasnt said exactly how this will happen, though the company has said that WWDC 2020 will take on an entirely new online format, so were hoping for more than just a webcam. Its worth noting that back in the day, Apple created not just QuickTime for video, but QuickTime VR for 360 degree video, which was the forerunner to how virtual reality videos are created today in the niche that plays them. QuickTime VR hasnt been active for quite some time, but its possible that Apple is working on something a little more innovative than a mere web conference, and we could be seeing that in use in the online WWDC 2020 environment.

We are delivering WWDC 2020 this June in an innovative way to millions of developers around the world, bringing the entire developer community together with a new experience, said Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing at Apple.

The current health situation has required that we create a new WWDC 2020 format that delivers a full program with an online keynote and sessions, offering a great learning experience for our entire developer community, all around the world, he said. We will be sharing all of the details in the weeks ahead.

Based on this, if youre an Apple developer, you need not make travel plans for WWDC in June for a change, and should be able to experience some of those changes in an online way from the comfort of your own home.

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Apples WWDC 2020 is on in a purely digital way - Pickr

The pitfalls of being an influencer: What parents should know and do – We Live Security

March 13, 2020 | Author: admin

Does your child dream of becoming a YouTube or Instagram celebrity? The influencer lifestyle is not as picture-perfect as it may seem.

The rise of the internet has led to the rise of the social media influencer, altering the aspirations of children around the world. A recent survey of 2,000 parents of 11 to 16-year-olds shows that doctors (18%) are still number one on the dream job list, but they are closely followed by social media influencers (17%) and, more specifically, YouTubers (14%).

Being an online celebrity might look glamorous, but what are the risks? The digital world can hide a range of dangers, and its important that both children and their parents are aware of the threats.

Many young influencers, who base their self-worth on the likes and shares they receive, struggle if the interest of the online crowd fades. Basing self-esteem on public acknowledgement from strangers at an early age is risky this is especially true considering that feedback on the internet can often be even more aggressive as anonymity is heightened and the commentator can hide behind their screen.

Any person in the social media limelight will inevitably have to face online hate. Comment sections flooded with hateful messages are an emotional drag while actual threats are frightening for anyone, no matter their age.

Parents can help their children by moderating comments and reporting inappropriate behavior to administrators, but this is not feasible when large numbers of people are involved.

Kim Kardashian is one of the most influential figures on social media someone who likes to post and share everything from her private life. During one of her visits to Paris this backfired in the worst possible way when she was robbed at gun point, with criminals stealing jewelry worth US$8 million. It later came to light that the heist was organized based simply on following Kims whereabouts on social media posts. This example of oversharing should be a warning to anyone, especially to young influencers who will do almost anything to please their followers.

Parental guidance at the start a childs digital life is essential. It helps set healthy boundaries between public and private life on social media. Remember anything posted online will stay there forever.

Nowadays we spend so much time in the digital world that we often feel like its the real world, and so young children tend to overlook the simple fact that followers are not real friends. Anonymous online crowds will not be there when they need a break from the latest social media craze or be their confidant in difficult times. Real friends and family cannot be replaced and should not be neglected in favor of a digital life.

To learn more about dangers faced by children online as well as about how not only technology can help, head over to the to the Safer Kids Online platform.

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The pitfalls of being an influencer: What parents should know and do - We Live Security

25 tips for navigating the internet today – Alton Telegraph

March 13, 2020 | Author: admin

25 tips for navigating the internet today

The internet continues to become more complex, and the changing social norms and constant scam threats can exhaust even canny users. Stacker compiled a list of 25 tips you can use each day to stay safe, avoid scams, and keep your personal information personalalong with some security specifics and search tips. The best tips from public agencies and portals like USA.gov, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Grants.gov, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, and the FBIwere combined;the...

25 tips for navigating the internet today

The internet continues to become more complex, and the changing social norms and constant scam threats can exhaust even canny users. Stacker compiled a list of 25 tips

Photo: LinkedIn Sales Navigator // Unsplash

25 tips for navigating the internet today

The internet continues to become more complex, and the changing social norms and constant scam threats can exhaust even canny users. Stacker compiled a list of 25 tips

25 tips for navigating the internet today

This slideshow goes through security and safety tips, as well as some best practices for staying happy and connected online. Its compiled from public agencies and portals like USA.gov, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Grants.gov, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, and the FBI.

This article was first published on theStacker.com

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25 tips for navigating the internet today - Alton Telegraph

Interos Raises $17.5M from Venrock and Kleiner Perkins to Grow Third-Party Risk Management Platform – GlobeNewswire

March 13, 2020 | Author: admin

ARLINGTON, Va., March 12, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Interos, the first and only multi-tier, multi-factor third-party risk management platform, today announced it has raised $17.5 million in a Series B funding round to accelerate data science and engineering growth, expand personnel and boost sales to drive commercial momentum for its leading risk management platform.

The funding comes after Interos tripled its headcount, increased annual recurring revenue by 700% and hiked SaaS subscription bookings by 693% in 2019. With the funding, Interos expects to capitalize on last years growth and more than double its personnel in 2020, hiring more staff to augment its proprietary software, which exposes critical risks in the global supply chain for leading private and public sector customers.

The round was led by first-time investor Venrock with participation from Kleiner Perkins.

After a strong 2019, this funding shows Interos has already secured major support in 2020 from the worlds most successful investors, said Jennifer Bisceglie, CEO and founder of Interos. Like our customers, investors see the value of the Interos platform, which is critical for global businesses in 2020. From events like the coronavirus to political unrest, companies need a platform that exposes risks and identifies how events affect suppliers around the world the moment they happen.

The latest funding underscores Interos strong 2019 and positions the company as a leader in third-party risk management. Risk leaders use the Interos platform to accelerate due diligence, eliminate environment, social and governance (ESG) risk and ensure the resilience of the worlds most complex supply chains.

Interos is one of the most compelling big data and AI companies Ive come across in the last decade, said Nick Beim, Venrock partner. Over the last 20 years, global supply chains have grown so rapidly and with so much opacity that most companies dont know who theyre working with or who theyre dependent on. Theres so much data to gather to fully understand those risks, and Interos helps companies address these urgent, strategic issues with a brand new set of capabilities.

Interos also recently added Phil Venables, a widely sought-after cybersecurity and risk expert to its board of directors. Venables distinguished career includes previously serving as Goldman Sachs first Chief Information Security Officer and Head of Technology Risk, and as its Chief Operational Risk Officer. Prior to his work at Goldman Sachs, Venables was the Chief Information Security Officer at Deutsche Bank. Venables serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council for Critical Infrastructure Protection, is co-chair of the Board of Sheltered Harbor, and is a member of the boards of the Center for Internet Security and the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. He is also an advisor to the cybersecurity efforts of the U.S. National Research Council and the Institute for Defense Analyses.

Interos has worked with the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA and Department of Energy critical infrastructure. Interos uses machine learning to build and maintain the worlds largest knowledge graph of over 50 million relationships to discover and monitor the entirety of a supplier ecosystem. Each month, Interos ingests over 85,000 information feeds, processing over 250 million risks a month. Interos instantly visualizes the most complex multi-tier relationships, updating and alerting to changes in risk along five factors: financial, operations, governance, geographic and cyber.

"In todays interconnected world, Interos is bringing clarity to the muddled, confusing nature of supplier relationships, said Ted Schlein, partner at Kleiner Perkins. By automating due diligence, leveraging sophisticated technology and exposing vital risks, Interos shines a light on an otherwise opaque global supply chain.

About InterosInteros protects customers brand and operations from risk in their extended supply chains and business relationships. The first AI-powered platform for eliminating multi-tier, multi-factor risk from 3rd, 4th to Nth tier parties, Interos automates discovery, detection, and response to financial, governance, geographic, cyber and operational risk. Designed by experts and leveraging the companys 15 years of experience in managing risk in the worlds most complicated supply chains, Interos provides real-time risk management for Fortune 500 brands in manufacturing, financial services, and aerospace and defense.

For more information, visit http://www.interos.ai.

Contact

Highwire Public Relationsinteros@highwirepr.com

What Lies Beneath – Earth Island Journal

March 13, 2020 | Author: admin

Long story short: There is an extraordinary world beneath us. Places of severity we cant see and know little about. It is into these dark worlds, deep inside the earth, that author Robert Macfarlane journeys in search of knowledge in Underland.

In this sequel to his bestseller The Old Ways, nearly ten years in the making, Macfarlane explores our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind. Like the brilliant professor you had in college, and with an unsparing eye for detail, he explores the subterranean spaces of our 1.9 billion-year-old planet with storybook clarity. But his primary interest is the relationships that exist between landscape and the human heart.

The 425-page tome is divided into three sections: Seeing; Hiding; Haunting, and some of the chapters expose a lidar-like map of the underworld that is not an easy read. He guides us to millennial-old burial sites in Britain, a dark matter research station a half-mile below Yorkshire, which is dedicated to understanding the birth of the universe, and remote Arctic cave-art sites on Norways northern coasts.

Macfarlane examines not only the physical dimensions of this underworld, but also its manifestation in human imaginations in our mythologies and literature. In the underworld three tasks recur across cultures and epochs: to shelter what is precious, to yield what is valuable, and to dispose of what is harmful, he writes.

The blood of the book rises when he goes underground, at times moving along by squirm, the sense of the rock as a hand pressing down first on the skull, then the back, then the whole of the body, a moment spent briefly in its grip.

He joins spelunkers pinballing around caves, enjoying a camaraderie that doesnt require words. In other deep places, he joins thought-provoking scientists alive to the idea of living in the moment. If were not exploring, were not doing anything. Were just waiting, a physicist tells Macfarlane.

In the Epping Forest bordering London, fungal networks divaricate woodland soil, joining individual trees into intercommunicating forests, a cooperative system in which trees talk to one another. At the burial sites in the Mendip Hills of Somerset, where human bodies from the Neolithic era rest, Macfarlane ponders how we are often more tender to the dead than to the living. Traversing the catacombs beneath Paris, he reflects on Victor Hugos words in Les Miserables, Paris has another Paris under herself. Limestone quarrying began under the city in the twelfth century Paris was literally built from its own underland. But the City of Lights also needed to store its dead, so the underworld became Les Catacombs.

In the Slovenian Highlands MacFarlane ventures along a deep, mile-long cave system atop glacial ice, which served as ideal geology for guerilla war during World War II. Mountains were seen no longer as solid structures, but as honeycombs that could be opened, he writes. A good descent was rock fall that didnt hit you, gas that didnt asphyxiate, shoulder-to-the-wall holes that didnt trap you.

Deep time is the chronology of the Underland. The timespans in this realm can stretch millions of years. And yet, geology knows no such word as forever. Deep time runs forward as well as back. Its a dynamic earth cycle mineral becomes animal becomes rock and in deep time supplies calcium for new organisms to build their bodies.

But Underland isnt just about inspiring awe about places and histories unknown. It is, in essence, an exploration of the fragility of our existence on Earth. McFarland highlights in the book what he calls Anthropocene unburials: Reindeer buried in glacial ice a few lifetimes ago are now turning up replete with anthrax spores; an American Cold War missile base containing toxic chemicals, sealed under Greenlands ice 50 years ago, now moving up towards the surface; heatwaves in Britain causing the imprints of ancient burial barrows to come into view.

These unburials, he points out, reveal the terrible harm we are doing our world. What will survive of us is plastic, swine bones, and lead-207, the stable isotope at the end of the uranium-235 decay chain, he writes.

It may all seem a stretch, but there it is. Macfarlane could probably get a free beer in any bar in his native England telling any one of these stories.

Britain is ahead of many of its competitors in technology startups – The Economist

March 13, 2020 | Author: admin

Mar 12th 2020

AS A DERIVATIVES trader with Credit Suisse, Nikolay Storonsky was used to gambling, but his riskiest bet was to quit the markets in 2013 and set up Revolut, a fintech startup. It paid off. Last month Revolut raised $500m, becoming Europes most highly valued fintech company, with a valuation of $5.5bn.

Revoluts rise mirrors Britains unicorn scene. A unicorn is defined as a privately held startup valued at more than $1bn in a financing round, initial public offering or acquisition. According to Dealroom.co, a data-analytics firm, Britain has created 63 such companies in the past ten years. That is still far behind the giants, America and China, which have added 820 and 224 respectively, but it is more than twice as many as Germanys 29 and almost five times as many as Frances 13 (see chart).

More interesting than these numbers is a step-change in the rate of growth. Between 2009 and 2013, Britain averaged about two new unicorns a year. Since then the figure has quadrupled. Part of that may be down to overall market optimism in recent years around anything tech-related. But investors may also have worked out how to navigate the valley of death, in which promising innovations would either disappear without being commercialised, or end up being swallowed by dragons. That was the fate of DeepMind, an artificial-intelligence startup, when Google bought it in 2014.

A few British unicorns, such as Graphcore, which designs specialised chips for artificial intelligence, are pure tech companies. But for most, computing is not the product, even if tech is central to the process. Finance, making up nearly a third of Britains unicorns, is the biggest sector, with companies like Revolut, Monzo and OakNorth (all upstart banks) and TransferWise (a money-transfer service). Retail, with ten unicorns (such as, Deliveroo and Ocado, which deliver cooked and supermarket food, respectively) and health (such as Oxford Nanopore, a gene-sequencing company) are also success stories. Some, such as BrewDog, a beer-maker, have nothing to do with technology at all.

The financial crisis may have been partly responsible for the uptick in unicorn production, particularly in finance, because it pushed talent out of established City banks and into entrepreneurship. When Zar Amrolia and Alex Gerko, two maths PhDs at Deutsche Bank, realised the banks spending on compliance would dwarf that on research, they left. In 2015 they set up XTX markets, an algorithmic foreign-exchange company that is now the first non-bank to make the list of the ten largest currency houses by trading volume. Mr Storonsky decided to give up the trading floor to start Revolut because it just wasnt as fun as it used to be. In 2013 tech overtook finance as the preferred destination of MBA graduates from London Business School.

The government has tried to help as well. David Cameron, prime minister from 2010 to 2016, was keen to increase incentives and cut regulatory burdens for startups. The enterprise investment scheme (EIS), which was introduced in 1994 to give startup investors tax rebates and loss reliefs if investments fail, was extended from companies with fewer than 50 employees to those with fewer than 250, and from investments of 2m ($2.6m) to 10m. A new seed EIS offered larger tax relief for smaller companies. Nick Jenkins, founder of Moonpig, an online greeting-card firm, says the EIS incentives served as a catalyst, getting enough startups going to persuade venture-capital firms to pay attention to what was going on in Britain. In 2019 firms in London received $9.7bn in venture-capital funding, more than Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam and Madrid combined.

It was also Mr Cameron who called the referendum that led to Britains decision to leave the European Union. That dismayed many startups, since the EUs freedom-of-movement rules make it easy to attract workers from across the continent. TechUK, a trade body, has given a cautious welcome to the governments plans for a new, points-based system, announced last month and due to launch next year. Ministers hope it will maintain Britains attractiveness to the sorts of skilled workers that startups need. Tech firms also worry that vital data flows between Britain and Europe could be hampered if a trade deal is not negotiated by the end of the year.

There are other clouds on the horizon. Even before the covid-19 outbreak crashed the markets, investors had been cooling on unicorns, many of which have posted persistent losses as they have tried to boost customer numbers. Financial startups in particular could suddenly find life much harder if any of the big incumbent banks can manage to create similarly slick services or apps.

One question is how large British startups can become. In The Social Network, a film depicting the rise of Facebook, Sean Parker, Facebooks first president, tells the sites founder, Mark Zuckerberg, that a million dollars isnt coolyou know whats cool? The answer is a billion dollars. That was ten years ago. Today, quite a lot of British unicorns are billion-dollar cool. But Americas and Chinas home-grown champions are bigger still (AirBnB, for instance, was valued at $35bn in 2019; Didi Chuxing, a Chinese ride-hailing service, hit $62bn in the same year).

Britain has a long way to go before it can boast of any startups approaching that size. But the past five years have demonstrated that the country can indeed breed unicorns. The next challenge is to turn them into dragonsand to keep other dragons from gobbling them all up.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "Unicorn lead"

The rest is here:
Britain is ahead of many of its competitors in technology startups - The Economist

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