We are looking forward to an exciting year in privacy here in SA, with the anticipated passage of PoPI.

The comic illustrates the relative strength of passwords assuming basic knowledge of the system used to generate them.

Symantec backtracks, admits own network hacked Added on Jan 18, 2012 by Gregg Keizer, Computerworld Symantec backed away from earlier statements regarding the theft of source code of some of its flagship security products, now admitting that its own network was compromised.

The SA Postbank, part of the SA Post Office, became the target of cyber crime this month, losing R42 million when the system was accessed illegally and funds transferred into mule accounts

Top 25 Influencers in Security You Should Be Following by David Spark on December 6, 2011 227

At Tripwire we spend a lot of time trying to stay in tune with the security industry’s top influencers. In our effort to compile a list of people we thought were valuable to follow primarily on Twitter and on also their blogs, we thought we’d share the list with our readers. For each person we selected, we gave our reasons as to why we  [read more →]

More than one million households in the UK are believed to be harbouring criminals inside their family PC.

An article I read in the BBC News on the 5 December 2011.  A large-scale global study suggests 5-10% of all domestic computers are regularly linked to criminal networks called botnets.

The figures suggest that about 6% of the UK’s 19 million net-using households are enrolled in botnets.

Hijacked PCs could be sending spam, attacking websites or surrendering bank details to criminals.

Trapping spam

The data on the  [read more →]

A bill was passed in South African parliament on 22.11.2011 [search Twitter for #POIB or #blacktuesday] which will effectively make it a criminal offence to possess and publish classified information (I wonder if that includes those who are responsible for managing it?). While it hasn’t become law just yet (the bill must still be approved next year), journalists are spelling the end of freedom of speech in the country, which is indeed a very concerning thought.

There are many legal, moral  [read more →]

The 2011 SOUTH AFRICAN INFORMATION SECURITY THERMOMETER report is an independent national benchmarking exercise conducted with local companies by Wolfpack’s research team in Q4 of 2011.

Our intention was to measure the maturity of information security management practices across a range of medium to large companies from different industries. Our survey asked IT and information security decision-makers 50 challenging questions across 10 areas:

1. Organisation & Industry demographics
2. Information Security Governance
3. Information Security Risk
4. Information Security Compliance
5. IT and Information Security Budgets
6. Training & Awareness
7. Social Media &  [read more →]
   

There has been a fair amount of activity in the information security space these past few weeks. As a parent the first 2 topics are particularly personal to me. Firstly some sick twisted soul uploaded hard core pornography videos to the popular Sesame Street YouTube channel. Fortunately the switch was discovered within minutes and hopefully the impact was minimal.

Secondly a number of paedophile websites have been hammered apparently by Hacktivist group Anonymous. You can check out the article and  [read more →]

The IT world lost a true visionary yesterday.

http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/

A great quote I saw on Twitter this morning:

‘There may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented’