Cybersecurity was huge in 2016. From ransomware to weaponized Internet of Things (IoT) devices to foreign hacking of elections – last year saw it all. But many of these threats aren’t new and will never really go away. Over the last 25 years, one of the most valuable things I’ve learned in attending conferences and talking to cybersecurity experts around the world is that one of the greatest weapons we have to prevent cyber attacks is our own mindset.
Netizen Blog and News
The Netizen team sharing expertise, insights and useful information in cybersecurity, compliance, and software assurance.
recent posts
- The Difference Between Passing a SOC 2 Audit and Maintaining a SOC 2 Program
- Netizen: Monday Security Brief (6/15/2026)
- How Living-Off-the-Land Attacks Bypass Traditional Security Controls
- June 2026 Patch Tuesday: Microsoft Addresses 200 Flaws, Including BitLocker and HTTP/2 Zero-Days
- Netizen: Monday Security Brief (6/8/2026)
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If you ask kids right now what they want to be when they grow up, you probably won’t hear “hacker.” But hackers are absolutely essential to protecting cyberspace from computer criminals. We need to teach kids how to hack.
Hackers are computer security experts who want to make systems more secure. Hacking requires curiosity, computer security skills, and a special mindset for figuring out what criminals will do before they actually do it. Make no mistake: there are those who exploit cyberspace to their own ends. But those are not hackers. They are criminals.
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When I was a CTO running a data center, I used to ask my ops team to do the shotgun test. They had to imagine our worst enemy came into the data center with a shotgun with one slug. What could they destroy to do the most damage? (I didn’t realize until recently that this was a modified version of Netflix’s Chaos Monkey testing approach.)
Lately I’ve wondered what the cybersecurity equivalent of the shotgun test is. How could you even do such a test? The fact is, without an understanding of your weaknesses, it isn’t possible to see what your worst enemy would do to you.
Creating a balanced security portfolio
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A bot named Mayhem was created by a Pittsburgh-based company to use artificial intelligence to detect and defend against attacks.
(TNS) — Museums are often catalogues of the past.
But a new exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History will showcase the possible future of cybersecurity.
Mayhem, a cybersecurity bot that uses artificial intelligence to detect and defend against attacks, was put on display Tuesday on the first floor of the Washington museum’s innovation wing. Mayhem was built and designed by Pittsburgh-based ForAllSecure.
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Cybersecurity has transformed what is actually a people problem with a technology component into its exact opposite.
It’s almost impossible these days to avoid media coverage of Russia’s role in hacking the 2016 election. So it was in 2015, when news broke that Chinese hackers had breached the United States Office of Personnel Management. Likewise for big cyberattacks in 2014 (Sony Pictures, Home Depot) and the year before that (Target). For the public, it’s usually these kinds of incidents that come to mind when they hear the term “cybersecurity.” They are complex and costly, and cast doubt on the trustworthiness of our major institutions — from government to banks to the electric grid. Read More…
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The nation’s colleges and universities are scrambling to add courses to prepare students to fill the huge number of cybersecurity jobs that have arisen due to exponential growth in hacking worldwide.
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Our nation is under attack. Every day, thousands of entities – private enterprises, public institutions and individual citizens—have their computer networks breached, their systems hacked and their data stolen, degraded or destroyed. Such critical infrastructure impacts the cyber-sanctity of our banking system and electric power grid, each vital to our national security. We believe systemically developing more skilled cybersecurity defenders is the essential link needed to protect our nation from ‘bad actors’’ who would exploit our vital systems.
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Researchers find a telling relationship between who gives online privacy and cybersecurity advice and the number of internet-based security incidents experienced by the recipient of the advice.
Advice on the internet flows freely. With so much information available, how does one know what to believe?
For example, there is still significant confusion regarding the now defunct FCC regulation requiring ISPs to get permission from their customers before they collect web-browsing data. So who do we trust to give good advice about being safe and private on the internet?
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In its latest report that investigates the role of automation in cybersecurity settings, ABI Research finds that there are seven vital automated IT security applications that will function as the stepping stones necessary to advance cybersecurity in the new world of artificial intelligence. The automated processes will aid critical IT security functions that range from assisting security personnel to streamlining security alerts to system optimization.
“While it will most likely be a valuable addition to IT teams’ arsenals, automation can be a double-edged sword if not handled properly,” says Dimitrios Pavlakis, Industry Analyst at ABI Research. “We expect automated processes to first address key issues like TLS/SSL, or Transport Layer Security/Secure Socket Layer, certification and privilege management prior to tackling critical functions like incident response.”
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Faced with a growing shortage of workers, the cybersecurity industry needs to figure out how to attract a new wave of talent.
Nearly one third of organizations are not able to fill their cybersecurity positions, according to a recent survey by the cybersecurity nonprofit ISACA. For another 25 percent, the process takes six months.
The largest generation in the U.S. workforce now, according to Pew Research, is millennials, those coming of age in the early 21st century. Millennials are projected to comprise half of the working population in the next three years.
Netizen Blog and News 