Metadata, which gives background information on pieces of data, is typically hidden. It becomes a problem when accidentally revealed. Often tied to photography mishaps, it can be timestamps. It might be location. In some cases, it can be log analysis. Many tutorials exist to strip this information out. This is because it can reveal more than intended when it

WhatsApp has been in the news recently after changes to its privacy policy caused a surge of interest in rival messaging app Signal. Initial reports may have worried a lot of folks, leading to inevitable clarifications and corrections. But what, you may ask, actually happened? Is there a problem? Are you at risk? Or should you keep using your apps as you wer

Today’s cloud-native data management platforms can help businesses unlock the potential of their data. These modern data management and storage platforms are designed to deliver lean, high-performance architecture for agile application teams to ensure solid business outcomes, such as rapid time to market. Modern platforms, built for the cloud and in t

As discussed in an earlier piece, data should be treated as a valuable currency. But there is another aspect to data handling that needs to be considered: data as a liability. Having your data fall into the wrong hands can be incredibly damaging to you and your team, which is all the more reason to have a sound and secure data destruction policy for the las

Since it is highly unlikely that my wife will read a blog on data security, I think I can safely share that she is a snoop around birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. My wife cannot stand the suspense of not knowing what gift might be in store. The gift’s value is not relevant; it is the not knowing that kills her. My strategy is to hide her gifts i

There are two significant trends occurring right now that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone reading this post. First, businesses are gathering and leveraging more and more data to improve their core services. Second, more compliance and regulatory standards are popping up from governments and private organizations. As these businesses realize that collecting

Qatar is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Finances Online, Global Finance Magazine and others consider it to be the wealthiest nation. This is because the country has a small population of under 3 million but relies on oil for the majority of its exports and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). These two factors helped to push the country’s GDP measure

Doxing is rightfully regarded as a dangerous threat, potentially exposing personal information where it shouldn’t be. But, defenses derived from doxing may strengthen corporate cybersecurity at scale.  Doxing is the dark side to widespread data dispersal and discovery. Data is leveraged to harm individuals or organizations, often as retaliation f

CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) enables resource sharing that pulls data from a lot of different sources. Like any relatively open aspect of the internet, it can be a risk. Learn how to test your web applications to create a secure CORS policy. Origins and Key Concepts CORS began as a way to make application resource sharing easier and more effective.

I’ve spoken before about Zero Trust approaches to security, but for many of those starting on their journey, there isn’t an obvious place to start with the model. With this post, I wanted to share an example approach I’ve seen working that many organisations already have in place and can be easily rolled into a larger program of Zero Trust hardening: underst

Knowing who your users are today is more important than ever. This explains, in part, why integrating biometric usage into identity and access management (IAM) appears appealing. Throw in some artificial intelligence (AI) to help manage all these data points, and the future of biometrics looks pretty wild. The appeal of using biometrics for identity and acc

Data security means keeping data out of the wrong hands. This is especially important when storage media is no longer usable and needs to be decommissioned. The data must be truly destroyed, for both security and compliance.  The trouble is ‘deleting’ data doesn’t really delete data. It’s still possible to extract data from

Due to the increasing use of the cloud, organizations find themselves dealing with hybrid environments and nebulous workloads to secure. Containerization and cloud-stored data have provided the industry with a new challenge. And while you can try to make the provider of cloud data storage responsible for the security of the data, you will have a hard time tr

Data volume storage needs are growing exponentially across hybrid multicloud environments. Meanwhile, companies are being faced with a greater number of regulations to follow, as well as increased exposure to data ransomware, theft and misuse. Many regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation, highlight encryption as an example of appropriate

Security researchers observed sextortionists leveraging social engineering techniques to steal their victims’ personal information.SANS’ Internet Storm Center (ISC) discovered that sextortionists had begun creating profiles for young women on dating websites. They used those profiles and the stated interest of finding “good times” to