Tag Archive for: expect

Make security fixes or expect more waves of identity fraud, Illinois lawmakers are warned | State & Regional

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For years, experts including Talcove have warned states that massive amounts of stolen personal information, obtained in recent years through various computer hacks, could allow thieves to trick unemployment agencies into sending benefits to the wrong people. Incidents of this so-called impostor fraud exploded during the pandemic.

Talcove said a vendor could stop the flood of bad claims for about $1 million a year, using the kinds of systems the private sector has employed for years. He recommended the state seek competitive bids among qualified firms, including his own.

IDES has said it’s working toward better security but worries tighter defenses may block out people who legitimately qualify for cash.

Talcove said security can be tightened without hurting legitimate claimants.

“With the technology that exists, you can have it. You can get a package delivered by Amazon in a trustworthy manner. You can make a transaction on a bank account and be safe,” he told lawmakers. “You can have the same thing with government programs.”

Illinois has yet to release figures on how much money was stolen, but Talcove said he suspects it’s at least $1 billion.

Talcove warned that instructions on how to steal from states are available for sale on unindexed, encrypted parts of the internet called the “dark web,” including a kit about stealing from IDES that costs $15.

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Singapore’s migration to cloud continues, and expect more SaaS once we secure it, says GovTech • The Register

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Singapore wants to change the role of industry to co-develop digital projects alongside government and leave behind the days of wholesale outsourcing, or so says GovTech, the city-state’s digital services arm.

“It would be relevant to understand the changing role that industry plays in supporting the government in the digitalisation journey,” said conversation moderator Shirley Wong in an online briefing today. “The government is not insourcing all projects with their engineering capabilities built up, as demand is very huge.”

She added:

GovTech’s director of procurement, Yu Ling Mah, encouraged companies interested in partnering to upskill their employees on cloud, data science, AI, ML, Agile, and secure cyber practices to win bids from the organisation.

Wong and Mah also emphasised that companies should not take on entire projects, but instead leverage central platforms built by GovTech to reduce overall effort.

In 2018, Singapore laid out a five-year plan [PDF] to migrate 70 per cent of its less sensitive government IT systems from on-premises infrastructure to the commercial cloud. A canned statement from GovTech last week said that close to 600 systems had been migrated to date.

Mah said the migration was on target.

As for SaaS, Mah said it was part of her workplan for 2021. “Beyond moving past applications to be hosted on the cloud, the next phase is a lot of adoption of the SaaS that agencies are looking at. We are reviewing some of our procurement approaches in terms of how best this can be done because the SaaS offerings out there may not be able to meet all our security requirements.”

Mah is looking at aggregation of demand on common needs of SaaS, adding: “I think you’ll probably see some things on this phase maybe this year, and the move toward SaaS is picking up too.”

The government is expected to spend S$3.8bn (US$2.8bn) this year on ICT, up from S$3.5bn (US$2.6bn) in 2020. Of this amount, S$2.7bn…

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Expect The Best, But Prepare For The Worst: 5 Practical Steps To Take Before A Ransomware Attack – Technology

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United States:

Expect The Best, But Prepare For The Worst: 5 Practical Steps To Take Before A Ransomware Attack

24 April 2021


Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP


To print this article, all you need is to be registered or login on Mondaq.com.

Last month, we wrote about steps to take after experiencing a
ransomware event. This month, as ransomware events continue to
grow in number and severity, we now share the following five
practical tips to implement before a ransomware event.
These tips should help you bolster your defenses and reduce the
havoc a ransomware attack can have on your business. 

1. Obtain Cyber Insurance

Obtain cyber insurance to protect yourself from potentially
devastating losses associated with a ransomware attack. In addition
to the financial peace of mind cyber insurance provides, your cyber
insurance carrier will be your first point of contact should your
business ever experience a ransomware attack. Your cyber insurance
carrier can connect you to the appropriate resources and experts to
assist you in responding to an attack. But please make sure that
you obtain adequate cyber insurance coverage, or else the
exceptionally high costs associated with a ransomware attack may
quickly make inadequate cyber insurance coverage feel like no cyber
insurance coverage at all. 

2. Use Off-Site Backups

Off-site backups are an effective way to recover from a
ransomware attack and restore operations if a ransomware attack
encrypts your on-site data. Ensure that your off-site…

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Biden will get tougher on Russia and boost election security. Here’s what to expect.

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with Tonya Riley

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President-elect Joe Biden is expected to dramatically shift how the government handles cybersecurity threats when he takes office in January. 

Those changes probably will include a top-level focus on election security after the White House virtually ignored the topic for the past four years and a far tougher stance on Russian hacking and disinformation campaigns than President Trump, who was often unwilling to publicly criticize Russia and President Vladimir Putin. 

“There are members of the Trump administration that prioritized cybersecurity, but Trump never has – and that will be different with Biden,” said Chris Painter, who served as the State Department’s top cybersecurity official during the Obama administration and for the first few months of the Trump administration. Trump frequently misstated basic facts about cybersecurity and seldom mentioned the topic publicly.  

Here are five key cybersecurity priorities for the Biden administration.



a person wearing a suit and tie standing in front of a crowd: President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris address the nation with victory speeches in Wilmington, Del. (Photo by Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

© Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris address the nation with victory speeches in Wilmington, Del. (Photo by Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

1. Seeking more funding for election security – which Republicans could start seeing as politically beneficial.

Democrats’ effort to deliver billions of dollars to make elections more secure against hacking and safer during the pandemic were stymied during the past four years by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Republicans who seemed to fear sparking Trump’s ire. The president seemed to view discussions about election security as delegitimizing his unexpected 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton and later spread unfounded rumors about widespread mail voting fraud. 

Republicans agreed to deliver more than $1 billion for election security and safety during the Trump administration, but that was only about one-fourth of what Democrats sought. 

Trump leaving office could clear the way for a far bigger package to fund a shift to paper ballots in states and counties that still lack them, increased mail voting and more…

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