Live on Cyber

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cyber Security Framework 2.0 will make waves in the cyber world, for all the right reasons.  The integration of a novel 6th function—Governance—and a spotlight on cybersecurity supply chain risk management are transformational.  With action-guided Implementation Examples, an exclusive Improvement Category, and a spotlight on policy refineme...

When we leave our digital front doors unlocked, what do we expect will happen?  With 300,000+ cybersecurity roles unfilled nationwide, we're fighting a losing battle against well-funded, highly skilled cybercrime operations. The Biden-Harris Administration's ground-breaking National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy (NCWES) aims to combat the onslaught - it's not just about fillin...

IBM's eye-opening Annual Cost of a Data Breach Report reveals a disturbing trend. Companies often choose to burden their customers with the financial fallout of cybercrime, rather than bolstering their cybersecurity. As #cybercriminals leverage #AI to heighten their attacks and laws increasingly mandate #cybersecurity controls, the risk of ignoring these digital defenses is spiraling. In this...

Join Dr. Stan Stahl and Julie Morris as they delve into the critical issue of China's alleged cyber espionage activities against the US, including breaches of Department of State and Department of Commerce email systems, and the targeting of high-ranking officials. This seemingly routine espionage by nation-states poses a significant threat to businesses and individuals alike. They advocate fo...

In this episode of "Live on Cyber," hosts Dr. Stan Stahl and Julie Morris delve into the alarming issue of personal tax information being sold and sent to tech giants Google and Meta by companies like H&R Block, TaxAct, and Extra Layer. We explore the role of GDPR, the California Privacy Rights Act, and other privacy laws in protecting consumer data, the urgent need for stricter regu...

Stan and Julie take a deep dive into the intricate interplay between encryption and privacy in our ever-evolving digital landscape. Taking the  Signal app as an example, they grapple with the conundrum faced by  we the people  when as we strive to give law enforcement the technology tools they need to prevent crime while we strive to protect our individual privacy rights. Join Stan and Julie as th...

Suffering the loss of personal information from a cyber breach is bad. It’s even worse when your information was stolen because someone had installed surveillance software on your phone, software that hid itself from you so you didn’t even know it was there. That’s what happened to the innocent victims of a widely used phone surveillance app called LetMeSpy where a hacker stole victims’ messages,...

Cybercrime is out of control. If you don't believe us just look at the MOVEit disaster. Join Stan and Julie for a no-holds-barred discussion of how the market encourages poor security and the things we the people can do about it.  We're talking market forces, consumer pressure, and the need for sensible regulations. We're talking making "Security by Design" and "Security...

Dr. Stan Stahl, fresh from Portugal, offers an intriguing comparison: Douro Valley vineyards and cybersecurity. He unpacks their shared complexities and team dynamics. We delve into the recent "MoveIt" breach, a supply chain attack reminding us of the criticality of security protocols such as credit freezing and vendor assessment. We conclude with a call for a technological landscape mar...

In this episode of Live on Cyber, Julie Morris is joined by Wendy Betts, CISSP, CCSP who shares her journey into cybersecurity and discusses the workforce gap in the industry. She emphasizes the need for a wider path for talent in cybersecurity and challenges the traditional requirements of a bachelor's degree, advocating for a focus on passion and drive instead, and the implementation of appr...

Join Julie in an insightful discussion with Kimberly Pease, CISSP, Partner and Chief Operating Officer at Maryman & Associates, as they explore the world of cybersecurity forensics. Gain practical insights into incident response, protecting valuable information, and effective measures to enhance cybersecurity practices in this engaging episode of "Live on Cyber." Stay tuned for more...

Discover the alarming truth about the unauthorized collection and sale of your private physical health, mental health, genetics, and fitness data. This event sheds light on the concerning practices of profiling and targeted marketing, as well as the potential weaponization of personal data without consent. This episode is an enlightening discussion that lasts 90 minutes, featuring expert insights...

In this special episode of Live on Cyber, Julie Morris interviews Heather Spilsbury, the Chief Operating Officer of 50/50 Women on Boards. Explore the inspiring journey of 5050 Women on Boards, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing women in corporate board service. Learn how the organization prioritizes safeguarding digital assets and data protection, and gain insights into practical cybersecurity me...

Join Dr. Stan and Julie this week as they take a deep dive into the origin and purpose of SecureTheVillage, born out of a need to enhance cybersecurity practices among small and mid-sized organizations.  Stan and Julie outline the pressing need for improved cybersecurity practices and discuss SecureTheVillage's approach towards combating cybercrime, one that is built on community cooperation and a...

This week Stan and Julie announce some exciting news. SecureTheVillage is a recipient of an inaugural grant of the Center for Internet Security’s Alan Paller Laureate Program. The grant will be used to launch a Cybersecurity Pilot Program to measurably improve the cybersecurity practices of small to mid-sized organizations in the greater Los Angeles area.  Join Stan and Julie as they look back on...

While Julie’s away, Stan and his guest SecureTheVillage Board Member Alexa McCulloch , riff on the security of our health and wellness information. Whether it’s the data on your Fitbit or the search terms you enter on a hospital’s website, a lot of our private health and wellness information isn’t protected by HIPAA … and even what is, may still end up in the hands of the data brokers. This week’s...

This week  Stan and Julie riff on a key component of the National Cybersecurity Strategy: Secure by design. Secure by default. How it’s a long-term strategy. How we don’t have time to wait. Someday security will be built into our computers and applications the way safety is built into cars. But not now. Not yet. Now we’re back in the 1930s without seatbelts, without collapsible steering wheels, wi...

This week Stan and Julie riff on the cybersecurity and privacy things individuals can control. Application developers can issue an update but it’s of no value unless the user installs it. The update - and the vulnerability it protects against - is outside the user’s control. Updating that program is within the user’s control. Stan and Julie discuss this and other ways users can make them less hack...

This week’s news brought another story that our private health information is far less private than we might think.  Join Stan and Julie as they riff on how the use of third-party tracking code on hospital websites ends up with our personal health information in the databases of Alphabet, Meta, and an unknown number of data brokers who buy and sell our extremely sensitive private information for t...

John F. Kennedy said that a crisis represents both danger and opportunity. And so it is with the rush to embed large language models into everything.  What a great opportunity for Stan and Julie to riff on the complex challenges of the cyber-incunabula. An example: In the old days - like last year - we warned people to look for spelling errors as a sign of a phishing attack. What was once good adv...

TikTok has been all over the news this week as their CEO testified to a hostile Congress amid increasingly loud calls to ban it.  What a great opportunity for Stan and Julie to riff on the complex challenges of the cyber-incunabula.  The opportunity TikTok gives the Chinese government to spy on Americans, even people who don’t use it. TikTok’s opportunity to deliver misinformation and disinformati...

Ben Franklin famously said, “Distrust and caution are the parents of security.” Join Stan and Julie as they riff on distrust and caution. In Ben’s time, among the residents in his town of Philadelphia. Among the alliances required to unite the colonies in our war of Independence, while weeding out the spies amongst them. And as Ben also said, “Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few;...

The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) released its annual Internet crime report last week. Not surprisingly the report continued to show continued growth in cybercrime .  Join Stan and Julie as they riff on the IC3 report. What it says. What it means … both to the nation’s economy and to its victims. And how cybercrime is an inevitable unintended consequence of the cyber-incunabula, just l...

The White House released its National Cybersecurity Strategy this week. The most controversial part of the strategy revolves around the needs for shifting liability for software products and services.   Glenn Gerstell, the former general counsel of the National Security Agency, described it as follows. “In the rush to market you can’t cut corners on safety. That’s why builders of apartme...

SecureTheVillage is on a mission to make Los Angeles the cyber-safest city in America. Join Stan and Julie as they riff on SecureTheVillage’s big hairy audacious goal . Why it’s needed … from the Boardroom to the living room … and how SecureTheVillage is organizing the village to accomplish it. This episode is somewhat more personal than most as Stan shares parts of his own life’s journey that bro...