Security and privacy have been in the media a lot recently, be it exposés of national intelligence agencies intruding on privacy and undermining security, vulnerabilities in critical software, compromises of companies that we trusted with our data, or emerging technologies that may bring new risks.

PanopticonAlthough not all communications activity around the globe can be monitored at all times, certain nation states still capture wholesale communications data without

probable cause, to trawl and analyse, as well as undermine encryption and other legitimate technologies that may provide security and privacy.

Bugs on the looseVulnerabilities may exist in software for years before being publicly discovered. Be it Heartbleed, OpenSSL or a new vulnerability that causes the proverbial sky to fall, flaws are unavoidable; although we may try our best to engineer out, test or mitigate them. A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.

Data exposedData breaches rarely exploit unknown, or 0-day, vulnerabilities.

Companies need to remain vigilant, ensuring systems are configured and codes correctly tested and patched regularly. eBay suffered one of the largest data losses this year and, worldwide, the average number of records exposed per incident is on the rise.

INFORMATION SECURITY

Internet of thingsFrom fridges that can connect to the internet, to light bulbs with Wi-Fi, the internet of things (IoT) offers us the dream, or nightmare, of our homes, bodies and places of work being always connected, measured and responsive. BCS has established an IoT Community of Expertise to look at IoT implications.

www.bcs.org/security

Gareth Niblett, Chairman of the BCS Information Security Specialist Group, says there will always be errors - it’s how you deal with them.

Information Security Specialist Group (ISSG):www.bcs-issg.org.uk

Information Risk Management and Assurance Specialist Group:www.bcs.org/groups/irma

BCS Security Community of Expertise (SCoE):www.bcs.org/securitycommunity

FURTHER INFORMATION

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