At the end of each calendar year you are bombarded with recaps, the best of last year and predictions for the upcoming year. Here at Shamrock Information Security HQ I decided to join into the tradition with this 12 days of Christmas recaps and prediction series.
And yes this was partially made possible because I stopped the regular “Niner noteworthy” series for a couple of months and had about 100 articles left with interesting topics that will, certainly in some cases, have had their impact, some others have a more lasting impact or even will need to have it’s effect in the coming year.
As you may have noticed, the regular “Niner noteworthy” series itself has been restarted as well with the week 50 addition. This will be continued in weeks 51 and 52, even during the recap series.
Thanks in part to Krystle Olson, who complimented me on the previous series which made me decide to start it up again. Krystle, I hope it will be as interesting and insightful to you and the other readers.
So, besides this one, what will be in store for the remaining 11 parts of this 12 part series you may wonder? I could have kept that a secret, one present every day for you to unwrap. However, a sneak peak is in order I think.
Day 2: Breaches and more breaches
This may become very old news very soon as every day, or at least every couple of days, a new security breach is reported. From the small once of a twitter account to the seemingly humongous ones with companies like Yahoo.
This day I will be looking at the somewhat more interesting once I have not written about yet. No and not the Yahoo breaches, I will preserve both of those for a more in-depth article.
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Day 3: The InterNOT of Things
It is actually not a big surprise that the internet of things (IOT) devices are as insecure as they are. What was somewhat of a shocker is that those devices now have become part of a series of major bot nets and are used for , until now unseen, massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
Today I’m looking at the impact of these attacks. There is more on this topic obviously, but that is a topic for an in-depth article.
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Day 4: Cryptography
This year has been marked as the year there were major discussions between technology companies and law enforcement on the breakability of cryptography and the usefulness of it for the privacy for us all. That cryptography itself is a pretty difficult topic and sometimes too difficult for some is highlighted in today’s instalment.
The crypto wars will certainly continue in 2017 so there is certainly more to come on this topic in the new year. One example of which you can already read about in the
week 51 addition
of the “Niner noteworthy” series.
Continue reading!
Day 5: Interesting facts
When browsing the technology sites looking for interesting topics, some of the articles fall into the “weird yet interesting” category. Today a summary of some of these and some others that fall outside the general scope usually reported on within information security news.
How can I get into an airport lounge without paying, is my fax machine secure, can I transfer data from one machine to another in an unusual way and how about the security and safety of nuclear installations? Read today’s instalment and you will get an answer to these questions and probably some more as well.
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Day 6: Social media and chat apps
On a day like today we are using our smartphones to wish everyone around the world a “happy new year”, mostly through free apps and online services. But how free are those apps and services actually?
Today I’m looking at some of the recent drawbacks of these services for our privacy and security.
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Day 7: Software security
According to F-Secure’s – Mikko Hypponen “all IT companies are software companies”. This will become more apparent next year with the continued growth of the InterNOT of things, smart cars and security vulnerabilities in all kinds of places you probably didn’t expect them.
Today I will be looking at some of the more interesting once I have spotted over the last couple of months.
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Day 8: Information Security titbits
Okay, some stuff doesn’t fall insight one of the other categories or simply there wasn’t enough news about it for it’s own section. So today is more a wrap-up set of articles ranging from the opinion on online vs. offline live, biometrics and the financial sector, security questions, accountability of companies on security breaches, how we all view our data security and how easy it is to guess valid creditcard numbers.
Besides that, today’s instalment gives a very nice overview on the day2day challenges information security professionals face.
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Day 9: Technology impact on privacy
Our technological lifestyle has it’s drawbacks, from fitness armbands to big advertising companies gaining access to health records and drones flying overhead with camera’s looking down.
Today I will be looking at several of these potential privacy and data protection nightmare scenario’s.
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Day 10: Legal privacy
Europe voted for the general data protection regulation in April of 2016, in February the EU/US privacyshield was agreed upon and next to that some other legalities happened which deserve some attention. On this day I will be looking at the legal aspects of data protection and what this could have in store for us in 2017.
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Day 11: Online surveillance
In 2016 not only did we see the British people vote for brexit, the British politicians also voted on the investigatory powers bill which in to British humor fashion quickly was aptly renamed to “snoopers charter”. This however is food for thought for a more in-depth article. However, there has been more happening around this topic over the last months.
Today I will be looking at some of the highlights related to online surveillance and give my insights on what may be in store for us all in 2017.
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Day 12: the “Niner” predictions for 2017
So after looking back for over a week, it is about time to look forward to the coming year. Although I have done that in the separate articles as well from time to time.
Today I will be presenting my own view on information security and privacy (data protection) for 2017. And yes at the end of the year I will certainly look back again to see which of these have materialised, which fell flat and which were partially true.
Continue reading!