IT Insights Blog — Security Pro

Seven years after launching an investigation into allegations of sexual assault brought against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Swedish Director of Public Prosecution Marianne Ny retired the field earlier today, formally closing her investigation. After being holed up at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since June 19, 2012, Assange now has the freedom to, well, not exactly walk out a free man.

Let's face it: Almost none of us would knowingly show up to a gunfight. Both fighting and guns are unpredictable. You never know how a fight is going to go, and guns have an intimidating tendency to inflict lethal wounds, even if the shooter isn't necessarily intending to kill. On the other hand, if there were no conceivable way to avoid showing up for a gunfight, you'd want to bring your own gun, right? It would be singularly unwise to, as the saying goes, show up to a gunfight with a knife.

As someone who has had his identity stolen, I’m a big fan of cybersecurity. Please don’t accuse me of physically abusing a deceased equine. I know I’ve written on this topic a number of times before, but it’s important. Besides, beating a dead horse is an idiom that means “to continue in an endeavor that is a waste of time since the outcome has already been decided.” The outcome of the cybersecurity war is still very much in question.

In these turbulent times, a company without well trained security professionals is like the 2017 NBA All-Star Game — an onslaught of attackers and zero defense.

Hey, remember the data breach, announced last year, that compromised 500 million user Yahoo! user accounts? Remember how Yahoo! followed that up by announcing a second, separate incident that involved 1 billion compromised accounts? In case either of those slipped your mind, on Wednesday Yahoo! announced that they “may have” experienced yet another data breach. Naturally enough, perhaps, Yahoo! laid these nefarious deeds at the doorstep of state-sponsored hackers. They didn’t name any particular countries, but cybersecurity experts are pointing the finger of blame at either China or Russia.