Mitigate Identity-Related Breaches in the Era of Digital Transformation

Business Continuity Awareness Week 2018 - Impact of your business continuity program on Cyber Resiliency. Every division inside IBM has a fully functional Business Continuity program focused on identifying what's critical to IBM's internal operations and making sure these business processes remain operational at time of disaster

One of the most-heard complaints from security experts is that often they find their work repetitive ("The CFO's laptop has been compromised... again!"), which results in the desire of trying something "new", meaning "leave for another company." Another common complaint is that the work is very compartmentalized, and there are few occasions in which the various security specialists can enjoy working as a team. One activity that can help build a team while improving the security skills of the people involved is participating in Capture the Flag (CTF) hacking competitions. In 2003 at the University of California at Santa Barbara, one of the world's largest attack-defense CTF competitions began and has grown year-after-year, pushing the limits of the players and providing opportunities for better learning. In addition, hacking competitions are a great opportunity for recruiting new talent: CTF participants are highly skilled, well-motivated, and hard-working, which are great traits for a future employee.

Dr. James Stanger, CompTIA's Chief Technology Evangelist, has consulted with corporations, governments and learning institutions worldwide about cybersecurity, open source, network administration and help desk management for over 20 years. Organizations he has worked with include RSA, IBM, NTT Japan, Symantec, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), the US Department of Defense (DoD), the United Arab Emirates Cultural Division, the US Department of State, Meisei University, and General Dynamics.

Reports of network intrusions have spiked in recent years resulting in millions in financial loses, theft of intellectual property, and exposure of customer information. The groups responsible for these attacks are organized and can persist in your organization’s systems and endpoints without detection for 6 months on average – sometimes years. The approach many organizations take to prevent these attacks is to simply layer on increasing numbers of defensive solutions – clearly a better approach is needed.