In continuation of the serialization of his new book, the National Crime Buster Operational Handbook, JOHN ODEY ADUMA has watched with unparalleled embarrassment and shame, how the West African State of Nigeria, having been overrun and overwhelmed by the activities of the non-state actors who now roam Nigeria freely like conquistadors, is engaged in a knee-jerk reaction relying on the Kangaroo strategy, instead of using the Cheetah strategy, jumping kadogo, kadogo aimlessly, and all over the place like a headless chicken flapping its wings just because of the recent threats by these non-state actors to capture Taliban Muhammadu Buhari and Mujahid Nasir El-Rufai, closing schools, colleges and other institutions in the UNITY CITY to the delight and cackling of these non-state actors as these are exactly what they want – to create a situation of unparalleled fear and panic amongst the citizenry.
Mr Aduma thus, warns the Government and the Nigerian people against such frenzy, panicky and hysteria in the words of Winston Churchill, British statesman and former Prime Minister: “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
JOHN ODEY ADUMA, PUBLISHER, VIGILANCE - THE WORLD'S LEADING SECURITY MAGAZINE
The Royal Navy today unveiled a unique testbed ship to support trials of the latest tech and autonomous systems.
The 42m, 270-tonne vessel arrived in Portsmouth this week and is named after former Royal Navy sailor and Nobel Prize winner Patrick Blackett.
It will be used by the navy’s experimentation and innovation experts NavyX who have been driving innovation across the service and testing new technology, kit and concepts, passing them quickly to the frontline.
In phishing tests conducted on business emails, more than half of the subject lines clicked imitated Human Resources communications.
London, UK (25th July 2022) - KnowBe4, the provider of the world’s largest security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, has released the most frequently clicked phishing methods, including the top email subjects clicked on in phishing tests. Half of those that were clicked on had subject lines related to Human Resources, including vacation policy updates, dress code changes, and upcoming performance reviews. The other top category was IT requests, including password verifications needed immediately.
Global research reveals 84% of organizations experienced an identity-related security breach in the past 18 months
Three quarters of organizations will fall short of protecting privileged identities because they won’t get the support they need
Identity security is a priority for security teams, but 63% believe it is not well understood by executive leaders
Redwood City, CA: Delinea has announced findings from a global survey of 2,100 IT Security Decision Makers (ITSDMs) which reveals that 60% of respondents believe their overall security strategy does not keep pace with the threat landscape, and that they are either lagging behind (20%), treading water (13%), or merely running to keep up (27%). Conducted in more than 20 countries, the research polled attitudes towards identity security and the protection of privileged identities.
The report also highlights differences between the perceived and actual effectiveness of security strategies. While 40% of respondents believe they have the right strategy in place, 84% of organizations reported that they have experienced an identity-related breach or an attack using stolen credentials during the previous year and a half.
Identity security is a priority, yet board buy-in is critical
Promisingly, many organizations are hungry to make a change, particularly when it comes to protecting identities. In fact, 90% of respondents state that their organizations fully recognize the importance of identity security in enabling them to achieve their business goals, and 87% say that it is one of the most important security priorities for the next 12 months.
However, three quarters (75%) of IT and security professionals also believe that they’ll fall short of protecting privileged identities because they won’t get the support they need. This is largely due to a lack of budget and executive alignment, with 63% of respondents saying that their company’s board still doesn’t fully understand identity security and the role it plays in enabling better business operations.
“While the importance of identity security is acknowledged by business leaders, most security teams will not receive the backing and budget they need to put vital security controls and solutions in place to reduce major risks,” said Joseph Carson, Chief Security Scientist and Advisory CISO at Delinea. “This means that the majority of organizations will continue to fall short of protecting privileges, leaving them vulnerable to cybercriminals looking to discover privileged accounts and abuse them.”
Lack of policies puts machine identities at great risk
The research reveals that, despite good intentions, companies have a long way to go to protect privileged identities and access. Less than half of the organizations surveyed have implemented ongoing security policies and processes for privileged access management, such as password rotation or approvals, time-based or context-based security, or privileged behavior monitoring such as recording and auditing. Even more worryingly, more than half (52%) of all respondents allow privileged users to access sensitive systems and data without requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA).
The report brings to light another dangerous oversight. Privileged identities include humans, such as domain and local administrators, as well as non-humans, such as service accounts, application accounts, code, and other types of machine identities that connect and share privileged information automatically. However, only 44% of organizations manage and secure machine identities, while the majority leave them exposed and vulnerable to attack.
Carson added, “Cyber criminals look for the weakest link and overlooking ‘non-human’ identities—particularly when these are growing at a faster pace than human users—greatly increases the risk of privilege-based identity attacks. When attackers target machine and application identities they can easily hide, moving around the network to determine the best place to strike and cause the most damage. Organizations need to ensure machine identities are included in their security strategies and follow best practices when it comes to protecting all their IT ‘superuser‘ accounts which, if compromised, could bring the entire business to a halt.”
To expose official corruption in Nigeria, re-orientate the psyche of Nigerians and usher in the Nigerian renaissance
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About Vigilance
Vigilance is the brain child of a group of veteran journalists and international scholars who have worked in the mainstream media and distinguished themselves nationally and internationally before veering into security practice.
