By Brad Pierce, Structured Managing Director of Security, CISSP/CISA/PCIP -- Last week in the news were reports of more than a billion accounts being leaked online from just two sources (Facebook (533M) and LinkedIn (500M)). The data is still being validated, but the source seems to largely be public information that has been aggregated, bundled and sold. In this case, it is not passwords or private information but the combination of public information that is the concern. From the Facebook leak: “The exposed data includes personal information of over 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries, including over 32 million records on users in the US, 11 million on users in the UK, and 6 million on users in India,” according to Insider. “It includes their phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, bios, and — in some cases — email addresses.” From the Linkedin leak: "The leaked LinkedIn data set contains member IDs, full names, email addresses, phone numbers, genders, job titles, workplace information, and potentially other identifying data." These are identities. These are the kinds of data that can be combined in creative ways by resourceful adversaries. Whether this information turns out to be fresh or stale,…

Trust is Dead, Long Live Trust!


MFA & Zero Trust Business

By Brad Pierce, Structured Managing Director of Security, CISSP/CISA/PCIP -- Zero Trust is a philosophy, a journey. No one manufacturer or security product will get you where you’re going. It will take all of your technologies, and likely some new ones, to arrive at a Zero Trust architecture. Trust is dead, long live trust! Zero…

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Back to Basics – Inventory Documentation and Network Visibility


Calm Worker in Clouds

By Brad Pierce, Structured Managing Director of Security, CISSP/CISA/PCIP -- One of the first things you must do as a network or systems administrator is document. Oh, Documentation! The bane of IT professionals everywhere. In our harried work lives, it is a tedious, time-consuming process. Most people prefer to avoid documentation. But, when it is…

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