CPU Meltdown

2017 was a year of more cybersecurity vulnerability, more spending and public relations, more defenses, and again more breaches.

2017 saw a number of big breaches including:

• Equifax: Lost 143 million U.S. consumers’ personal data after it failed to patch a web portal
• Yahoo: Every single account was hacked, 3 billion in all — including Tumbler, Flicker, and Fantasy
• Uber: Concealed a breach of 57 million drivers and riders

2018 is only a few days old and we are already starting off the year with a security “Meltdown Attacks”, also known as the Intel chip crisis. As the computer industry is scrambling to patch security vulnerabilities in the Intel and AMD chips that powers a large part of the worlds PC computer, phones and data center computers. If this security instability sets the tone for what to expect in 2018, we need to rethink our protection.

As companies around the world are implementing new technologies, using data to innovate and grow in an increasingly interconnected world and are more reliant on cyber capabilities, they must also recognize and manage associated exposure. To compete in the digital world, companies must protect themselves from cyber insecurities and become more resilient to such threats.

Companies will need to address five key topics:

1. Poor passwords
2. Lack of patching
3. Outdated anti-virus software
4. Lack of monitoring
5. Using vulnerable and outdated systems

The use of poor passwords and reusing the same password across multiple login’s is all too common and is one of the biggest risks to users within an organization. Monitoring on an organizational level is considered industry best practice. The biggest change in security will come when individuals are able to monitor their own utilities. Until we all play an active role in security, we will continue to witness insecurities and breaches as we move further into 2018.