Posts by Ryan St. Hilaire :

If you look around any organization, it is clear that the number of endpoints and applications in use is growing exponentially. Data is being accessed from local and cloud-based storage through mobile devices that can be used as an access point to your most sensitive information.

Organizations that follow data security “best practices” may think they are prepared to prevent data breaches, but in 2014 we saw over 1 billion records compromised by some of the largest - and presumably best prepared - organizations. It only takes one single device or point of entry to potentially expose millions of records. Data breaches are happening at an accelerated pace and only those organizations who adopt a...

Insider threats are not new; 37% of organizations experienced cybercrime involving an insider in 2014. Among all incidents, insiders posed the biggest threat to the intentional theft or exposure of confidential records (76%) and consumer records (71%). Although some of these issues are associated with deliberate acts, it’s usually unintentional behaviour or negligence - disabling encryption, losing a device - that pose the greatest risk.

With the rapidly increasing interconnectivity of information, more endpoints than ever before are accessing the corporate network and the sensitive financial information therein. At the consumer perspective, the primary point of interaction has shifted from in-person to in-hand, as tablets and smartphones become the primary way financial services are conducted. While there have been incredible benefits from this technology transformation, sensitive data now resides beyond the bounds of traditional...

Almost 95% of IT security breaches can be attributed to some kind of human error. They say “to err is human,” and this definitely holds true for IT security. Thankfully, there are steps organizations can take to defend corporate data from employee mistakes. I recently wrote an article on Defending Corporate Data in Spite of Employees for Computer Technology Review, an article which explores just how and why employees...