Simon on: The importance of online security

News of the Carphone Warehouse and Ashley Madison hacking incidents has confirmed that online security is still coming up short - something that was further proved by a recent study, which found that the data scrambling systems used by millions of web servers are much weaker than they should be.

But continuous occurrences like these only highlight what the key message is here – make sure security is reviewed by people who know what they’re doing rather than just accepting that it’s okay.

This on-going issue of online security is unfortunately just an afterthought to almost everyone, from consumers to major companies and even whole industries.

I believe that one of the main factors in this problem is that companies tend to have a team of developers who are usually managed by people who just don’t know enough about security.

Of course something like ISO27001:2013 show which companies are taking data security more seriously. As we hear more about the breaching of businesses who handle our data, I think security standards such as these are a must have.

At the very least, I think it’s high time people take an informed interest in online security and make the conscious effort to actually protect their data properly by asking some basic questions of suppliers and systems.

Originally published in Conference News

Simon on: ITCM - Be responsible for event registration security

We’ve seen many major companies experience security breaches with the Ashley Madison hack even leading to suicides, so isn’t it time industries take a look at how it protects its customers’ data?

The events sector has seen an increase in the number of conference websites which requires its delegates to sign in, pay to attend, and book sessions, and while the companies behind the sites should be doing everything to keep data secure, some of the onus is on those registering.

When it comes to password choice, size really does matter, but websites still insist on implementing password limitations.

Read the whole article about the vicious password circle, as featured on ITCM, by clicking here.