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WHY DO YOU NEED A CISO IN THE BOARDROOM?

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Many companies are beginning to realize the significant role of a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) in business decisions, especially with the increase in network security mishaps. Besides dealing with daily threats, organizations are struggling to meet the ever-changing security regulations. However, for CISOs to perform at their top level, they must be equipped not only with the technical expertise and leadership skills. Still, they must understand every section of a company’s security model from a business perspective. 

While this is something that can easily be explained, the skills needed for this role can only be attained through years of experience and a recommended training designed specifically for chief information security officers

Who is a CISO? What is the role of a CISO? 

A CISO is an executive in charge of Business Information Security, specializing in the management of technical security issues. The primary role of CISO is to oversee and ensure that the business unit of an organization recognizes that information security is an integral part of every business. Also, the executive helps in implementing and translating security policies and procedures. Other roles of CISOs includes: 

  • Analyzes immediate threats in real-time and triages when an organization is under attack.  
  • Prevents fraud by ensuring that no internal staff steals or misuse a company’s data. 
  • Ensures that all staff knows more about the governance risk and compliance, providing investigation and forensics. 
  • Evaluates and ensures that only authorized people get access to classified information. 

What are the duties and responsibilities of CISO? 

The following are the general duties and job responsibilities of a CISO, depending on the size of the organization: 

  • Evaluates, develops a rapport, and advises other executives on how to address security threats while working on a risk management program for an actionable plan. 
  • Performs a risk assessment plan that can reveal vulnerable areas within the organization. 
  • Performs asset assessment plan to classify organization assets based on their criticality and business level.
  • Strategically develops a security roadmap consisting of budget size and prioritized initiatives. 
  • Ensuring that the organization complies with security policies and procedures.  
  • Develops, maintains, and updates security training and awareness plan. 
  • Prepares and communicates a response to security incidents. 
  • Examines the security architecture of the company for new projects and applications.
  • Managing the organization’s compliance and governance as per the regulations in the country. 

How to effectively discuss security as a competitive advantage and positive element for the organization to embrace: 

What makes a good CISO?  

Here are a few key attributes of a CISO: 

Leadership 

A good CISO is friendly, can communicate, and is approachable. Thier leadership skills become evident in areas like developing, planning, and managing thier team of security experts, establishing a positive working condition. They take the lead in supervising all security-related operations. They must have the ability to listen and make risk-based business-oriented decisions. 

Excellent security knowledge 

For a CISO to be effective, they must understand and be able to interpret complex and analytical security problems and can provide a practical solution. They must be able to communicate and explain technical details understandable to other executives. They can also tolerate risk, owing to his high social engineering skill. They are highly patient, as changing everything in an organization takes patience and endurance. 

Excellent business knowledge 

CISOs security knowledge must balance with the business goals of the organization in a way that security risk can be managed without disrupting business operations. This will require a high level of knowledge to understand business operations required to secure the organization’s data. 

If you are an aspiring CISO then this session is for you: 

About Certified CISO Certification 

EC-Council’s Certified CISO program provides first of its kind security training to produce top-level security executives, focusing majorly on the application of technical knowledge. Bringing together all the components required for C-Level positions, the CCISO program combines audit management, governance, IS controls, human capital management, strategic program development, and the financial expertise vital to leading a highly successful IS program. 

FAQs

What are the qualifications for a CISO role?

What is the difference between CIO and CISO?

What is the average salary of a CISO?

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5 TIPS TO SELECT THE BEST ETHICAL HACKING TOOLS

Reading Time: 4 minutes


Ethical hacking has become a popular career choice these days. While there are many factors contributing to its growthone major reason is the wide availability of hacking tools that make the job easier to manage. You can easily start your career as a junior ethical hacker if you understand the basic use of these hacking toolsThe software also makes it possible to report security incidents. An ethical hacker who has taken a comprehensive online hacking course can suggest relevant ethical hacking tools and practices which organizations can apply to prevent cyberattacks.  

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Letunderstand ethical hacking tools and important tips you should know before selecting the right ones for yourself or your organization.

Why Do We Need Ethical Hacking Tools? 

When you hear the words ethical hacking tools, you probably think about ominous computer infection ruses, where malicious hackers break into weak systems to hijack valuable information. While this is not too farfetched, there is more to hacking tools than just that.  

Hacking tools help organizations pinpoint potential flaws in internet security and avoid data breaches.  

Ethical hackers utilize hacking tools and software to penetrate networks & systems and identify weaknesses before cyberattackers can exploit them. All these are performed ethically, with the clients consent, since the hacking is done for the clients benefit. Hacking software helps make an organizations applications and systems more secure.   

Qualities of Good Ethical Hacking Tools

You should always use certain tools and software that will improve the efficiency of your daily tasks as an ethical hacker. The right tools and proper knowledge will take you a long way in your career. But choosing hacking software is not an easy task. The wrong choice will not only put you in trouble in the long run but will also ruin your reputation.  

Essential qualities of ethical hacking tools include

Accuracy

Accurate vulnerability identification is vital to efficiency and scalability since most security teams donhave the information, time, and resources to manually authenticate all the security weaknesses highlighted by ethical hacking software 

So, if you want to conduct tests like physical security assessments or even social engineering tests, you may unintentionally overlook vulnerabilities because the security testing tool youre using isnt extremely smart. Always ensure you choose tools with proof-based scanning technology. This quality is useful for confirming that the identified vulnerabilities are real and not just false positives and negatives. 

Relevancy

Ethical hacking tools use the same practices deployed by professionals. During an online hacking course, you will learn about the new technologies, threats, and methodologies being used by hackers. Considering this, the tool of your choice should be updated to the latest version with all the new threats, testing criteria, and preferences in its feed. 

Scalability

Your data inevitably increases with an increase in workload. More business means that certain inputs and outputs become higher in volume. The same applies to ethical hacking tools. So as an ethical hacker, you should always choose software that can keep up with this rapid pace. Any hacking tool that cannot scale up to meet your demands isnt worth your consideration.  

Scalability is important for determining how much load tool can handle. The ability to perform optimally even with a higher volume of data exchange, users, and customers increases an ethical hacking tools market value. 

Ease of Use and Efficiency

Not all ethical hackers are seasoned professionals. Some are freshers who are hired as juniors. The tool that you select should be usable by everyone.  

There are many basic hacking tools for beginners that are easy to use and provide results with the same efficiency. Usability testing is significant because it confirms the ease of use of software applications across multiple boundaries.  

Single Focus

No single tool can test everything. Most hacking tools focus on specific tasks. You may need multiple tools to get what you want, but each feature should be well suited for the purpose you need it for.  

Ensure that you are using the right tool for each activity. For example, you need tools such as pwdump3 to crack passwords. It would be best if you also had tools like Acunetix for web application security testing. You should always research to figure out which tool you should be using.  

During the initial stage of your career, it is important to make sure that your course has a special focus on these tools. An online hacking course like Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) will let you explore different aspects of manual and automated processes and many other tools of the trade.  

Learn All About Ethical Hacking with Certified Ethical Hacker v11

EC-CouncilCertified Ethical Hacker program is the most widely recognized and demanded certification in this industry. The program is designed by industry leaders to help create a new batch of cybersecurity experts. Apart from learning all about basic and advanced hacking tools for beginners, the courses also focus on new case studies and technologies like IoT, Blockchain, Cloud Security, etc. CEH teaches you about the latest commercial-grade hacking technologies, methodologies, and techniques leveraged by hackers and information security experts to legitimately hack an organization. 

More Than 10,000 Vacancies Are Open for Ethical Hackers!

Learn Ethical Hacking and Earn Up to $93,000

Faqs

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HOW WILL THE CLOUD STRENGTHEN BUSINESS CONTINUITY?

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Cloud-based computing and the whole notion of SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) is becoming the most critical expertise for this era. Due to this,business continuity experts should be seeking what this development means for them and its potential impact.

According to a survey, 73% of organizations fall victim to natural disasters and human-made disasters, including malicious hacking and malware. This negatively impacts business operations. It isn’t just enough to back up your data with traditional software packages; you need the cloud.

EC-Council Disaster Recovery Professional (EDRP) certification certifies IT professionals, cybersecurity experts, BC/DR experts, CISOs, IT directors, and other cybersecurity enthusiasts in the field of business continuity and disaster recovery. Having an EDRP certification is a logical ‘next step’ for those who want to further their career in the field of business continuity and disaster recovery.

What exactly is the cloud?

The cloud means different things for different occasions. Cloud computing is a word used to generally define data centers accessible to several people via the internet, delivered on-demand basis to users. Put simply;cloud computing describes the process of storing and retrieving programs and data through the internet rather than using your system’s hard drive. The cloud is a metaphoric description of the internet.

Different forms of cloud computing services exist, including infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS). Internet users can benefit a lot from using cloud-based services. These benefits include reduced spending on IT and IT infrastructure, speedy implementation, flexible pricing, and elevated scalability.

What are business continuity planning and disaster recovery?

Disaster recovery and business continuity planning are procedures that assist organizations in preparing for natural and human-made disasters or incidents. These incidents could be a hurricane, tornado, or merely a power outage. The role of an EDRP in this scenario can range from supervising the business continuity and disaster recovery plan to offering input and backing, to executing the plan during an incident or emergency.

While no degree of preparation can avert an incident, however, when a disaster, capable of completely halting the complete business operations occurs, having a disaster recovery program and a business continuity plan can mitigate the attack and keep the business running again.

What is the difference between disaster recovery & business continuity?

Although disaster recovery programs and business continuity plans appear similar, they are not the same thing. Disaster recovery programs are procedures that enable an organization to get all its critical IT infrastructure and business operations running after a disruptive event.

The event may be as catastrophic as an earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, terrorist attacks, or something as minute as a computer virus, supply chain partner problems, or power outage. Most business executives often tend to overlook their cybersecurity disaster recovery programs since disasters are seemingly improbable.

On the other hand, a business continuity plan is a more inclusive process that ensures that the entire organization is fully functioning following a catastrophic event. The aim is to ensure that the organization continues to make money, regardless of the size of the incident. This ensures that HR can easily access vital information about their works, so that customer service representatives can access their CRM applications, and the marketing department can gain authentication to their stored graphics.

While these two concepts are not the same, they are often used interchangeably. The label BC/DR is the umbrella term for these concepts due to their shared considerations. To learn more about BC/DR, visit our webpage on EDRP courses.

Who is responsible for the business continuity plan?

Disaster recovery professionals (DRP) are often responsible for the creation and sustenance of a business continuity plan. They work directly with significant business units to know their business procedures, detect, and assess their risks, and offer technologies or software that will assist in managing and mitigating these potential risks.

Whether your company wants to take up cloud-based disaster recovery programs or cloud-based business continuity solutions, it is more logical to collaborate with business continuity and disaster recovery service provider. A DRP has the needed knowledge to perform a correct business impact analysis, vulnerability assessments, formulate policies, and plans that are most suitable for the organization.

To learn more about the business continuity plan and the role of a DRP, sign up for our EDRP certification program.

How do cloud-based systems support business continuity?

Since cloud computing services profoundly depend on hardware virtualization tools, it helps organizations to speedily back up their sensitive information and data, operating systems, and applications to the cloud. With quicker uploads and downloads of significant computing features, comes quicker recovery times and business continuity for the organization.

1. Readily Accessible

When it comes to business continuity planning, most organizations perceive SaaS as the available option. Most organizations can benefit from cloud-based business continuity programs, even in remote locations. Members of your IT department can select the suitable services that meet their unique business demands with a wide variety of services that cloud computing offers.

2. Robust Response

When an incident occurs or in an emergency, it is easy to restore and recover your data from the cloud. This ensures business continuity due to the robust response from your cloud computing services. Likewise, traditional business continuity and disaster recovery plans can be burdensome. With cloud computing service, you can ask your service provider to replicate your file to a new location. An EDRP knows to evaluate the specifications of the SaaS provider to familiarize themselves with and get comfortable with the conveniences delivered.

3. Reduced Costs

Traditional BC/DC solutions are extremely expensive to manage. They usually involve purchasing and sustaining a comprehensive set of hardware that harmonizes or reflects the critical systems of a business, such as adequate storage to accommodate a broad duplicate of the entire organization’s business data.

However, cloud-based business continuity plans or strategies are affordable, lucrative, and economical for all business sizes. Business continuity planning that is cloud-based eliminates the requirement for costly remote production centers. Similarly, organizations are given the choice of tailoring their business continuity plan, since they can subscribe solely to necessary services. Companies can then decide to modify their subscription plans as they expand their business operations.
CLOUD AND DISASTER RECOVERY: THE 5 W’S
https://www.youtube.com/embed/g9nxiJG3G9M

How can potential risks be transferred to cloud providers?

When you use the services of unauthorized cloud providers, it could compromise your network or devices through data exfiltration and malware infections, since the enterprise cannot secure resources with which it is not conversant. Using unlicensed cloud providers might also compromise your network’s visibility and administration of business data and networks.

One of the major recognized potential risks for cloud computing, which affects not just the organization but also the cloud providers, includes compliance and jurisdictional risks, lack of data security and privacy, availability risks, unauthorized access.

1. Compliance And Jurisdictional Risks

Some industries are highly regulated, including banking, auditing, healthcare, and government organizations. Several business information security regulations and compliance are needed to safeguard specific data. Cloud providers are bound by these regulations and required to not only secure the data of their consumers but also to know how the data is defended, who has authorized access, and the location of the data. A company without suitable legal protections, suffer the consequences when there is a breach at the cloud.

2. Lack Of Data Security and Privacy

In a way, you place the entirety of your business in the hands of the cloud providers. You supply them with access to sensitive information, including mailing lists, payment data, user ID, and so on. Most people are unaware of who their cloud providers are, their integrity, the data access they have, and the type of security solution being used. Can you vouch for the reputation of your client?

3. Availability Risks

There is no complete uptime guarantee from any provider. When you depend on your cloud providers for essential business operations, then you entrust your business sustainability to your ISP and cloud providers. When you suffer a downtime, your cloud provider also suffers. Your cloud providers can also suffer downtime from DDoS and DoS attacks, SQL injection attacks, or even bad weather. Availability risks are less severe but still detrimental.

4. Unauthorized Access

Internal threats and external threats aggregate cloud computing risks. When you outsource your business tasks to other cloud vendors, not only should you be worried about your staff but also the staff of your vendors. Government intrusion risks also intensify when you use the services of cloud providers.

Why do you need disaster recovery certification courses?

From Hurricane Katrina to the WannaCry debacle and currently, to the COVID-19 pandemic, the business landscape has been battered by one form of disaster or the other. The frightening aspect of all this is that the rate of recurrence is growing aggressively in the past few years, owing to the mounting volumes of cyberattacks.

It is even more amazing when statistics demonstrate that, at most, 2 out of every 5 business lacks a solid disaster recovery and business continuity plan. Even out of those that do have this, only a handful test the plan regularly for flaws and relevance. This is what disaster recovery certification courses are created for.

EC-Council Disaster Recovery Professional (EDRP) certification is designed to educate and validate an applicant’s proficiency to strategize, plan, execute, and sustain viable business continuity and disaster recovery plan. Regardless of the size of your organization, you need an EDRP to stay relevant in this age. This dearth can be remedied by BC/DR experts who do not only recognize the significance of cloud services as a business continuity and disaster recovery plan but are also proficient to guarantee that your business incurs minimal costs when an incident occurs.

About EDRP Course: EC-Council Disaster Recovery Professional (EDRP)

EDRP courses offer IT professionals, cybersecurity professionals, BC/DR consultants, CISOs and IT Directors, and other cybersecurity enthusiasts, with a robust understanding of business continuity and disaster recovery ideologies such a, developing policies and procedures, formulating risk assessments, conducting business impact analysis, and executing an effective plan. EDRP has four training options designed for your convenience, including, iLearn (Self-Study)iWeek (Live Online)Master Class, and Training Partner (In Person) training. EDRP courses are updated with a restructured curriculum that attempts the BC/DR domain with the newest trends and technologies, best practices, and encompasses modern industry gaps. To begin your certification journey with EC-Council, click here.

5 TIPS FOR CHOOSING THE BEST ETHICAL HACKING COURSE

Reading Time: 4 minutes


According to a forecast by MarketsandMarkets, the cybersecurity industry is expected to grow to USD 248.6 billion by 2023 at a CAGR of 10.2% from 2018 to 2023 [1]. Cybersecurity Ventures has predicted that there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs by 2021 [2]. Gartner predicts that by 2021, the revenue sources of 65% of global infrastructure providers will shift to edge-related services supporting digital touchpoints [3]. Taken together, these statistics reveal a vast requirement for experienced cybersecurity professionals and trained learners in the IT security industry, making this the ideal time to consider a career in cybersecurity.

While there are many entryways into this sector, a certification course will boost your chances to make it big since it proves your credentials to your future employer, many of which mandate certifications as a requirement. To ease your selection process, we have come up with some helpful advice that will make the selection process of the best ethical hacking course ideal for elevating your information security career.

Top 5 Tips to Select the Best Ethical Hacking Course

There are various aspects to consider while selecting a program. First and foremost, settle on the field you want to pursue. Once that is fixed, you can look out for certificate programs that align to that career path. Create a checklist of the following points while picking your course.

  1. Choose what captures your interest

Ethical hacking is a broad term with several branches. Your interest may range between different phases of ethical hacking, network sniffing, social engineering, IoT hacking, cryptography, or others. You need a course that covers your interests in great detail. You’ll also have to verify the relevancy of the program and when it was last updated. After this, you should begin your search for an ethical hacking training program.

  1. Research: Look for perks

Research the cybersecurity subdomains that catch your interest. Connect with experienced cybersecurity professionals on social media forums and ask them about the right ethical hacking certification program. Check out online reviews about the programs that interest you. Market research will provide you with sufficient knowledge on the top cybersecurity courses, along with the market trends that will shape your career path in the future.

A good program should use relevant case studies for easy understanding. While researching for a course, ensure that you go through the course outline and its outcome. Always go with the program that offers industry exposure and work on implementing acquired skills as a part of any organization. The industry prefers professionals who have hands-on experience. Doesn’t matter if you are an expert or a beginner. Practical experience is a must for landing rewarding jobs in the future.

  1. Verify the market value of the course

The market value of your cybersecurity certification will give you an extra edge during the job landing process. An aspiring cybersecurity professional should always choose a program that includes the latest technologies like Internet of Things and Blockchain. Check whether organizations like ANSI recognize the training program.

For instance, Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) is recognized by the United States Army, Airforce, Navy, and Marine Corps, as well as the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Center (NCSC). Besides that, it is an NCSC Certified Training. The United States Department of Defense (DoD) considers CEH as one of the baseline programs required to join their Information Assurance (IA) workforce.

  1. Mode of training: Choose according to your convenience

If you are a working professional interested in pursuing a cybersecurity course, you’ll likely run into obstacles like fixed office timings or ongoing projects. To counter this issue, you should opt for a flexible learning program, with minimal restraints on timing and location, that best suits your university or work schedule. This way, you can take the course on weekends or while commuting to work or college.

EC-Council offers multiple training options that include self-study, live online, and in-person training.

  • iLearn(Self-Study): Provided in a streaming video format, iLearn delivers IT security hacking training courses that enable you to learn in a self-paced environment.
  • iWeek (Live Online): Students who opt for this live training program will get an instructor’s assistance, which can be more
  • MasterClass:Attendees get the opportunity to learn from different instructors around the world. These classes also provide you with a chance to collaborate with cybersecurity professionals.
  • Training Partner(In-Person): This option offers in-person training at hundreds of worldwide authorized training centers It gives you the advantage of learning CEH with your peers and gaining practical skills to solve real-world problems.
  • Education Partner (In-Person or Online): This option offers education courses through EC-Council Academia partnered institutions. The education partner program’s motive is to benefit students enrolled in a college or university.
  1. Consider the career prospects

Factors like income, job security, work stress, and training scope get clarified when understanding future market trends. Understanding the latest tools and trends will also create an impression among your employers. Your chosen certification program should prepare you to counter any challenge that you face in the future.

Begin Your Ethical Hacking Journey with CEH

Now that you know what to look for, it’s time to research and finalize the right course for you. When it comes to ethical hacking, EC-Council’s Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) is one of the most well-respected programs out there. It focuses on the latest tools and techniques that an aspiring cybersecurity professional should know and ensures that the trainee gets hands-on experience while learning in a real-time environment. It offers 3,000 tools and technologies used by threat actors and has around 350 subject matter experts involved in course development.

CEH v11 provides 24 hacking challenges across four levels of complexity that cover 10 attack vectors, including the OWASP Top 10, surrounding various vulnerabilities. It is globally recognized by organizations like Deloitte, IBM, EY, United States Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Veterans Affairs, and more.

Click here to learn more about CEH v11.

WHAT IS INCIDENT RESPONSE LIFE CYCLE?

Reading Time: 4 minutes


Incident response is a plan for methodically responding to a cybersecurity incident. Measures are taken to rapidly contain, mitigate, and learn from the harm if an event is nefarious.

However, not every cybersecurity incident requires an investigation as they are not always serious. Certain events such as a single login failure by an employee on site does not need an in-depth investigation as it is not a major issue. However, it is important to keep a record of all these instances for future investigations.

Learning about the incident response life cycle and its framework will help you and your organization understand the accessibility of sensitive information, thereby allowing you to prevent breaches and mitigate threats by educating others and identifying vulnerabilities.

What Is Incident Response Life Cycle?

The incident response life cycle is the step-by-step process of a company to detect and respond to a service interruption or security threat. It is imperative to have an incident response plan in place to ensure data protection, avoid a breach of information, and protect the organization from being infiltrated.

Incident Response Plan Steps

It is always necessary to be prepared for a data breach incident as these days it has become a very common phenomenon. Incident response can be stressful when a vital asset is involved and you know that there is a potential danger. Incident response measures help in effective containment and recovery in these intense, high-pressure conditions. Response time is important for damage prevention; so, it is best to formulate certain incident response plan steps.

There are 2 institutes whose incident response management steps have become industry standards: NIST and SANS.

NIST Incident Response Process

NIST is an acronym for the National Standards and Technology Institute. It is a government agency that functions in various technical domains like cybersecurity and is popular for its incident reaction measures, the steps of which are:

  1. Preparation: Develop and implement necessary methods to protect critical infrastructure.
  2. Detection and analysis: To keep a regular check on systems, information assets, data, and operations, and manage security risks successfully.
  3. Containment, eradication, and recovery: To restore affected systems in minimal time.
  4. Post-incident activity: To take the necessary steps to avoid such incidents.

SANS Incident Response Process

The SANS Institute is a private organization founded in 1989 which offers information security research and education. It is the largest security training and certification provider in the world, and holds the largest collection of cybersecurity studies.

Its incident response plan is as follows:

  1. Preparation: An organization’s security policy is reviewed and codified, a risk assessment is carried out, sensitive assets are identified, critical security incidents are established, and a Computer Security Incident Response Team is formed (CSIRT).
  2. Identification: IT systems track and identify deviations from standard activities and see if they constitute real safety incidents. Gather additional information when an occurrence is detected, assess its form and severity, and log everything.
  3. Containment: Perform short-term containment by isolating the portion of the network that is under threat. Then, the focus is on long-term containment, which requires temporary adjustments to allow systems to be used in production while rebuilding clean systems.
  4. Eradication: Remove malware from all infected devices, acknowledge the root cause of the attack, and take steps in the future to avoid similar attacks.
  5. Recovery: To avoid further attacks, put the affected production systems back online. To ensure that they are back to normal operation, test, check, and track the affected systems.
  6. Lessons learned: Conduct a retrospective of the incident no later than two weeks from the conclusion of the incident. Prepare the full incident documentation, further investigate the incident, understand what was done to contain it, and whether anything could be enhanced in the incident response phase.

What Is the Difference Between NIST and SANS?

The framework and steps of both NIST and SANS are similar to each other in most ways barring a few differences:

  • NIST is a voluntary framework for all the companies seeking to reduce their overall security risks and threats, whereas SANS is for organizations who want priority-based results on their security response. They are mostly found in the IoT domain.
  • As mentioned earlier, the incident response steps of both the frameworks are also mostly similar barring one step which is containment, eradication, and recovery. NIST views the process of containment, eradication, and recovery as a single step having multiple components whereas SANS views them as independent steps.

What Is Incident Response Management?

Incident Response Management is an organized strategy to handle and manage the aftermath of a data breach or cyberattack, often referred to as an IT/computer/security incident. The goal is to manage the situation in a manner that limits damage and reduces the recovery time and cost.

A well-trained incident response team is the key to identifying and mitigating these threats, and companies are always on the lookout for well-qualified candidates. Becoming a certified professional in this field will increase your employability as employers seek folks who can handle these responsibilities from the get-go. Organizations often train in-house talent with certification programs as well, thus saving their time and boosting the company’s overall security profile in the process.

The Certified Incident Handler (ECIH) program of EC-Council has been designed in cooperation with experts worldwide in cybersecurity and incident handling and response. ECIH is a comprehensive incident management program at the professional level that imparts the expertise and information organizations need to mitigate the effects from both a financial and reputational viewpoint when managing any incident.

CLOUD FORENSICS: IS IT IMPORTANT TO YOUR CYBERSECURITY PLAN?

Reading Time: 4 minutes


Perfect security is an outcome that every organization and cybersecurity professional aims to achieve. Unfortunately, our reality is full of headlines that show us the exact opposite. You might be wondering, do all of them relate back to cloud forensics? To help put things into perspective, take a look at what a recent report by Netrix showed us — 39% of healthcare organizations suffered ransomware attacks in the cloud in 2020. In fact, the report goes on to say that due to a cloud breach, one in four healthcare organizations was fined for non-compliance and 1 in 10 was sued.

Cloud computing is a widely accepted technology that provides data centre resources to the user on a pay-per-use basis. A forensic analyst, in this context, should know where and how the data is stored or processed. When it comes to cloud deployment, the task of monitoring user activity is becoming a necessity. Additionally, presenting digital forensic in case of legal actions requires implementing a cloud forensics framework in the new or existing data centres.

Cloud Computing Fundamentals

Cloud Computing and Forensics

Cloud forensics is a subset of digital forensics that requires a unique approach to investigate cloud environments. Cloud forensic stakeholders consist of private enterprises, government members, law enforcement, etc. Cloud forensic investigators are expected to know the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder to perform an investigation effectively. By knowing the background and roles of each stakeholder, cloud forensic investigators will be able to categorize the reports and allocation process based on legal, technical, and organizational understanding. While signing the contract, the classification helps in managing and defining the tasks with reference to the cloud.

As a cloud forensic investigator, the main challenge for you is to ensure the security of the digital evidence and make sure it is not tampered with by third parties. The evidence should be stored in an admissible manner so that it can be produced in a court of law. In the PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) cloud computing service model, users are dependent on the cloud service providers (CSPs). They do not have access to their logs due to a lack of control over hardware. The accessibility to the log files will be defined in the service policies. CSPs sometimes hide the logs from customers intentionally due to security reasons, whereas, in a few cases, the policies clearly obstruct offering log access service.

In comparison to the traditional forensic environment, maintaining a chain of custody is challenging in cloud technology. The internal security team in a traditional setting controls the forensic investigators, but they have no control over the ones hired by CSP to investigate. The risk factor is that if the appointed investigator by CSP is not trained to forensic standard levels, the chain of custody may fall in a court of law.

Every cloud service model shares a defined responsibility with the cloud service provider and comes with at least one challenge when conducting cloud forensic investigations. This relationship creates distinct challenges to cloud forensic investigators as it may complicate the collection of evidence from being admissible in a court of law. CSPs do not always support cloud forensic investigations if their responsibility is negligible. All these challenges require a certified and skilled cloud forensic investigator who can perform investigations effectively.

What Happens If Cloud Forensics Is Overlooked?

Tampered evidence is every cloud data forensics investigator’s biggest nightmare. Imagine spending hours collecting data with utter precision only to have someone else tamper with it on the cloud, leaving the data inadmissible in court. This is a possibility in most SaaS and PaaS cloud models that depend on cloud service providers, as they do not have access to physical hardware.

In a traditional scenario, the forensic investigator would assume complete control of the cloud infrastructure, allowing them to extract all the data they require. However, in certain cases, due to the lack of a clear chain of custody, the investigator might find themselves facing a scenario where the cloud service provider hides logs from the customer or states that the log data cannot be accessed.

In these cases, the cloud service provider might assist by extracting information themselves. Yet again, if the person is not sufficiently trained, the extracted data could prove inadmissible in court.

To avoid such a scenario, it is important that any person dealing with the extraction of data be trained in computer forensics.

EC-Council’s certification and training program, Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator (CHFI), covers cloud computing as a part of the program. The program is vendor-neutral and is designed by practicing computer forensic investigators from the industry. With 14 comprehensive modules and 39 labs, CHFI covers all the required job-ready skills to be an accomplished Computer Forensics Investigator.

PROTECT YOUR SECTOR: THE IMPORTANCE OF THREAT SHARING

Reading Time: 7 minutes

What Is Threat Sharing?

Essentially, threat intelligence is the compiled data that can be circulated with the aim of boosting protection against a particular attack on a current or evolving cyber threat. Security analysis offers vital insight around a threat behavior, including Indicators of Compromise (IoC), Indicators of Attack (IoA), the strategies used, and, theoretically, the attacker’s motives and personality, while going beyond IP addresses, hashes, and other key threat identifiers. Cybersecurity experts help clients quickly detect and avoid attacks, leveraging leadership skills within the threat information sharing network and through creating tools to communicate and use threat intelligence more effectively.

Cyberattacks have grown exponentially in terms of frequency and complexity, posing major obstacles for companies that must protect their data and infrastructure from powerful threat actors. Working as part of a criminal organization or on behalf of a nation-state, these perpetrators range from lone-wolf attackers to well-resourced and funded organizations acting in a coordinated way.

It’s true that many employees — especially in the public sector — remain ill-informed when it comes to data security. However, even the best-prepared business can fall victim to malware if they are not made aware of threats as they occur. Even if your company has excellent data protection protocols in place, zero-day exploits remain a huge problem.

Threat information sharing allows access to threat data that may otherwise be inaccessible to an enterprise. Organizations may strengthen their security posture through the use of common assets by proactively incorporating their partners’ expertise and skills. Allowing the identification of one entity to become the avoidance of another is a valuable strategy that can advance the overall defense of organizations that regularly exchange threat data.

What Are Threat Groups?

Advanced persistent threat (APT) groups, like all attackers, attempt to steal information, interrupt processes, or damage facilities. APT offenders, unlike most cyber criminals, need months or years to achieve their targets. They respond to cyber defenses and retarget the same victim on a daily basis.

What Is the Threat Intelligence Sharing Framework?

The aim of the Threat Intelligence Sharing Framework is to identify the existing processes for enabling the flow of threat information between and among all organizations engaged in the critical infrastructure protection and resilience mission, as well as to provide an overview of the main threat information-sharing entities that help with this. The aim is to help owners and administrators of vital facilities, as well as other organizations, better understand when and how to receive and exchange vulnerability information with information-sharing hubs.

The U.S. government has sought to enhance standardized knowledge exchange across various fields and cultures since the September 11, 2001 attacks. Despite the fact that this approach is targeted at the vital infrastructure sector, it acknowledges that knowledge exchange mechanisms are multidisciplinary.

This Framework does not present new legislation and focuses on current authorities, procedures, regulations, plans, and activities that identify the functions and obligations of Federal departments and agencies, as well as the other institutions in the critical infrastructure sector, which share vulnerability information.

The scope of this system is restricted to vulnerability intelligence exchange relating to man-made risks to critical infrastructure, covering both cyber and physical threats. Owners and operators in some industries, such as chemical, nuclear, healthcare, and public health, are required by law to report incidents to their regulators. These specifications are not discussed in this Framework.

The goal of this system is to improve the exchange of reliable, actionable, timely, and appropriate vulnerability information between and within the Federal Government, essential infrastructure owners and operators, and other agencies. Such sharing improves situational awareness, allows risk-informed decision-making, and thus improves the stability of vital infrastructure in the U.S.

Top Threat Types

Because of their limited scale and lack of valuable records, many people assume that small companies are rarely attacked by hackers. Some information stored on your systems, though, may be of interest to offenders. Here are the top five cyber threats you should be aware of right now.

  1. Ransomware: This is a form of malware (malicious software) that encrypts (scrambles) your data and then requests a ransom in return for a key to decrypt it. The majority of ransomware is distributed via malicious emails.
  2. Phishing: Phishing is an attempt to access confidential information by impersonating a reliable contact, such as a bank or an online service. Spear phishing is a highly focused effort to collect information from a person. Phishing emails will seem absolutely authentic to the target, with perfect language and real logos. Whaling is a form of spear phishing in which a bogus email from a CEO puts pressure on a CFO to make an immediate payment. It’s worth worrying about how to incorporate more protections to secure CEO and CFO identities from impersonation.
  3. Data leakage: Although office cyber protection can seem daunting, it is important to note that security nowadays stretches well beyond the office. Smart phones and tablets are becoming increasingly popular. Portable storage devices are a valuable method for data backup and transportation due to their universal availability and low cost. Because of these attributes, they are also a target for data pirates.
  4. Insider moles: When a company hires employees (full-time or contract), there’s always a risk they’ll spill data accidentally or maliciously. The implications of a record breach should not be underestimated.
  5. Hacking: Criminals can also make a killing by getting access to an organization’s IT systems from the outside. They’ve managed to get access to bank account records or credit card databases in the past. Intellectual property, on the other hand, is a valued commodity. Social engineering, which entails tricking workers into exposing usernames and passwords, is also a threat.

What Is CybOX?

Cyber Observable Speech (CybOX) is a structured language for communicating and transmitting some observable and notable occurrence or property in the cyber domain. This can be thought of as a more advanced way of using a Structured Query Language (SQL) to handle all Relational Database Transactions. All standard products based on Relational Databases may use the same SQL format, allowing information to be exchanged between various intelligence systems or products.

CybOX may assist in the sharing of high-fidelity data regarding cyber observables (such as stateful steps, complex incidents, and so on) between various cybersecurity systems. Threat assessment, ransomware characterization, tactical event detection, event recording, incident resolution, cyber forensics, and situational awareness are just some of the cybersecurity practices that CybOX may assist with.

Importance of Threat Sharing

In business, there is always a tendency to view your peers as competitors. That can be useful — after all, you are in competition with them — but when it comes to cybersecurity, this can have some unfortunate consequences.

If companies do not share their experiences of cyberattacks, they leave the rest of their sector open to attack. Not only are cyber criminals able to perform essentially the same attack on many companies in turn, but each company has to learn to respond to different threats on its own. This system hurts the profitability of sectors as a whole and is hugely inefficient.

In addition, even large companies cannot typically retain a knowledge base that is sufficient to protect all of the systems they use. If you employ systems from many different vendors in deeply interconnected ways, you cannot be expected to know everything about each part. This is one of the reasons why complex networks are getting harder to secure, but it also points to the importance of threat sharing.

The easiest way to share your experiences of cyberattacks is to use one of the many systems available for this. There are plenty of Information Sharing and Analysis Organizations (ISAO) which cover individual sectors and allow both companies and state agencies to pool their resources.

Other useful tools when it comes to information exchange are industry events and symposia. Whichever sector you are in, you probably send employees to trade shows, but perhaps you haven’t considered the advantages of these when it comes to cybersecurity. These events can promote knowledge sharing and exchange, and be the first step towards your industry, building a united front against cyber criminals.

What Is Malware Information Sharing Platform (MISP)?

Malware Information Sharing Platform (MISP) is an open-source platform developed by a team of developers from CIRCL, Belgian Security, NATO, and NCIRC that enables sharing, saving, and correlating of Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) of targeted attacks, threat intelligence, financial fraud information, vulnerability information, and even counter-terrorism information.

MISP supports defence departments in ingesting and reviewing vulnerability data on detected ransomware threats, as well as generating and storing data in a standardized format. MISP also assists in the development of network intrusion detection system (NIDS) guidelines and allows for the exchange of malware data with third parties. MISP, to put it another way, aims to develop a trust platform by storing vulnerability information locally and improving malware detection to enable information sharing among organizations.

Vulnerability vs. Sharing

There is a balance to be struck between protecting your own security and ensuring the resilience of your sector.

You should not, for instance, immediately publicize every minor attack that you experience. Not only does this undermine trust in your business, but it also represents a security threat in itself. According to a recent analysis published by Gary Stevens, CISO at HostingCanada.org, “You wouldn’t want your web host to announce every security hole in their operation immediately: doing that is an invitation for cyber criminals to take advantage of them.”

Because of this, your first priority during a cyberattack should be to avoid damage to your organization. Then, you can address the vulnerability that led to the attack. Then, and only then, should you share your experience.

Sharing your experience need not just be of benefit to your competitors. In fact, if you build threat sharing into broader threat detection and avoidance systems, a post-mortem analysis of what went wrong can be a powerful learning experience for your own employees. Sharing this analysis with your peers not only protects them but also cements your reputation as a leader when it comes to security.

It may well be that once your competitors see how well you’ve responded to malware attacks, they seek to consult your company on these issues. This can be a lucrative source of extra income and turn a potentially disastrous attack into a business opportunity.

Conclusion

Cybersecurity, contrary to popular belief, is often not about avoiding attacks. Rather, the best organizations are those that recognize that it is inevitable to become the victim of an attack one day and are proactive in planning for this.

This can involve sharing compliance processes with other companies in your sector, or merely staying on top of your threat profile by checking for recent cyberattacks. Ultimately, your goal should be to turn every cybersecurity incident into an opportunity to improve your resilience through threat sharing.

Everyone benefits when you can share this knowledge with the wider community.

4 CRITICAL MYTHS ABOUT VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK SECURITY

Reading Time: 5 minutes

When we talk about network security tools, virtual private network tools are often suggested as the ultimate solution for remote operations. In the last five years, it has emerged as a popular tool used by individuals and businesses alike. But there are certain myths attached to VPNs that are not true, and it is essential to know about them.

If you or your organization are using a virtual private network (VPN) and think it will make your network 100% foolproof from hackers, think again. There is no such thing as an absolutely secure VPN network. It is helpful for various purposes, but no one should be dependent on it as an ultimate network security tool.

“It has been observed that most of the popular VPN service providers are not upgraded to protect IPv6 traffic.”Research by Queen Mary University

What is a VPN? – Gary explains

Is Your VPN Safe?

Reputable VPNs are safe to use. But as said earlier, VPNs should not be the only network security tool used to counter cybercriminals at an organizational level. VPNs can endanger data security, especially in countries where the government regulates the use of such tools or a private entity collects them for personal intents. A VPN can also track your activity, especially the ones that free or cheap.

To ensure that your VPN falls under legal clauses and doesn’t steal/sell your data, you should always invest in legal and high-quality software. The same applies to every network security device, tool, and hardware.

Below mentioned are a few common VPN myths that you should know about:

You Should Not Expect 100% Anonymity

VPNs guarantee end-user security for a certain yearly fee. The positive reviews for this software have made everyone believe that it will help in securing online identity. You should understand that there is no such thing as ‘anonymous’ when you are online. There is no way to verify if the service is truly anonymous, as promised by the VPN provider.

The only solution for this problem is to avoid investing in cheap VPNs. If you need a safe and secure VPN, make sure you are investing in the right product.

No Logging Policy

Though VPN security providers claim that they don’t track user activity and behavior, it is not entirely true. The VPN server cannot troubleshoot connections or restrict VPN accounts’ access based on their subscriptions in lack of logs. But this is not the only problem.

You should not trust VPNs that don’t ask for signup and gives you a direct connection facility. VPNs without logins are unreliable servers that can risk your web browsing privacy and responsible for data leaks.

So, while you cannot do anything about log files, you should at least check all the terms and conditions to understand what kind of logs they keep. A cheap VPN will also sell your data and browsing info to third parties, which is harmful. Invest in a high-quality VPN and always check for online reviews. For example, Surfshark’s no-logs policy explains what type of non-sensitive information is collected and why.

Verify privacy

Checking the policy about the VPN’s logs is not the only way to ensure the network’s privacy. Many a time, for the sake of marketing, the VPN providers mention the feature of privacy on their website, but it may not be the case. In general, your IP address, username, operating system, session start, and end timings are a few of the basic data recorded by the VPN.

When you buy a product or a service through a virtual security VPN, some data must be stored to make the purchase possible. So, guaranteeing absolute privacy is kind of impossible when you use a VPN for your day-to-day tasks. If you are putting your personal data out in the open, you should not expect that a VPN or the said website won’t store it somewhere.

A VPN Protects You from Everything Online

A virtual private network is powerful but has its limitations. You should not treat it as the ultimate solution for network security. VPN will not be able to help you in these cases:

  1. VPN can’t protect you if you give your personal information to scammers as they will access you if you visit malicious websites under the garb of anonymity.
  2. VPN is not a substitute for antivirus, so you can still face malware and trojan downloads if you click on malicious links.

VPNs used by organizations should train their employees to understand these conditions. VPNs help the best under defense-in-depth methodology, and if it fails, another security tool takes over to counter the hacker attack.

Apart from defense-in-depth and antivirus software, your organization also needs a network security officer. Their expertise includes proper configuration of a virtual secure network which improves privacy. It will help you counter network breaches and prevent incidents from occurring.

Learn Security VPN Configuration and Management with CND v2

Certified Network Defender (CND v2) from EC-Council is a highly acclaimed certification program. The course focuses on transforming network administrators from identifying, protecting, and responding to the threats on the network. CND v2 covers the “Secure VPN Configuration and Management,” where you will learn different techniques to secure its connection.

CND v2 is the first choice for many network and IT admins planning to transition into the role of a network security engineer or an equivalent. The certification is preferred by Fortune 500 companies while hiring a network defense professional. It is a skill-based, lab-centric comprehensive program based on job-task analysis and is also mapped to the NICE framework. The certified network defender will gain real-life experience on network defense, including VPN connection. Their technical prophecy ensures a secure network in your organization.