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On February 24th, the Data Protection Commission (DPC) in Ireland published its Annual Report under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This marks the third report produced by the DPC since the implementation of GDPR on May 25th, 2018. Some of the key highlights from this report which outlines the work completed by the Data Protection Commission throughout 2021 are: 10,888 queries…

Over the past 18 months, 25% of Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Ireland have experienced a cyber attack. Whilst cyber security awareness has increased overall, worryingly 40% of SMEs are still not prepared for a cyber security incident or breach. With cyber criminals becoming increasingly aggressive and innovative in their attack methods, it is now more important than ever for SMEs to become…

The latest ransomware attack on the Coombe Hospital has added to the growing number of cyber attacks hitting organisations around the globe this week. A separate incident involving a serious vulnerability (known as Log4Shell) in the widely used Apache Log4j logging utility has resulted in over 1.8 million attempts to exploit the vulnerability since it hit the public domain last week. If left…

Log4Shell, dubbed as the most critical vulnerability discovered in the last decade, was disclosed on Friday 10th December and has quickly become weaponized by malicious hackers. The Zero-day vulnerability, which was uncovered in an open source logging tool, poses a serious risk to the security and integrity of data and has received a rating of 10 on the CVSS scale.  If exploited, the vulnerability…

Secora Consulting is pleased to announce the appointment of Sean Crowley as Director of Advisory Services. Sean joins Secora from BSI where he spent six years in a number of senior roles, most recently as Practice Manager in the Consulting Services division. Prior to this, Sean spent almost a decade in the Financial Services sector in a number of roles including Security, Audit and Electronic…

Cyber-attacks have been significantly increasing in recent years and are predicted to cost $6 trillion by the end of 2021. The stark reality is that start-ups and small businesses are the most susceptible group to these cyber-attacks due to resource and financial constraints. The increasing frequency and severity of cyber-attacks means that it is more important than ever that you do what you can…

Passwords and security foibles are a tale as old as time. One of our first records of this comes from the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. In the story, Ali Baba, a poor woodcutter, overhears a group of thieves as they approach a cave sealed with a massive stone. He listens closely, and discovers that the thieves utter a password before entering; “open sesame”. Ali Baba proceeds to use…

Organisations within the financial services sector are at a high risk of cyber security attacks. This is primarily due to the large amount of highly sensitive, personally identifiable data collected, managed and stored on their systems.  The financial services sector arguably holds the most personally identifiable information (PII) than any other sector. From sensitive customer information, credit…

Cyber attacks are on the rise and are quickly becoming more consistent and sophisticated. Whether you run a small business or a large multinational organisation, cyber security cannot be ignored. No organisation is too small, too large or too insignificant to escape the attention of cyber criminals.   In this ever evolving cyber threat landscape, the key to becoming cyber secure is to first…