Cyber Security Keynote Speaker National TV Montage
The average security keynote speaker is technical in nature (Zzz), which sometimes means they can be dry and boring. Death by PowerPoint! This is not good for your event. In fact, it can be disastrous for a meeting planner’s career or an organization’s entire conference. You want a keynote speaker who will interact with your audience, make them laugh, help them to understand where the worlds of human behavior, technology and the Internet converge, so that they walk out of the presentation with greater insight into securing the information that defines them.
Ideally, the perfect cybersecurity keynote speaker for your event will blend content, laughter, entertainment and cutting-edge data with the specific outcome necessary to change your audience’s behavior. That won’t just make you the hero, it will make the event a home run for the attendees, which is what it’s all about anyway. Take a quick look of this video to see what an engaging security keynote looks like (on stage).
We all enjoy the luxury of checking off our to-do lists from the comforts of home. Why make a stop by the bank when you can just log in and make that transfer from your laptop? Who wants to go by the mall when you can find the exact size and color of that new jacket you want with just a little browsing on your iPad? One click and it’s on its way to your doorstep. All you have to do is make sure that little padlock is showing and you know you can securely share your personal information, right?
Until recently, I felt that sense of security, too. I’ve taken (more than) reasonable steps to secure my information, so I pretty much order online whenever I want without giving it a second thought.
Gregg Steinhafel, who has been Target’s Chief Executive Officer since 2008, has resigned months after one of the largest data breaches in history made Target stock value and sales plummet. He also resigned from the board of directors, although he will remain on in an advisory capacity. This is a major benchmark in data breach fallout, as Steinhafel, a 35-year veteran of the company, is the first CEO of a major corporation to lose his job over a breach of customer data. And given how lax most retailers are about their security (they spend, on average, only 6% of revenues, vs. 15% for banks), he won’t be the last.
My guess is that you feel pretty comfortable banking online, at least from your computer, if not yet on your mobile device. I do too, despite all of the hackers out there trying to intercept our bank account numbers and passwords. Most of us are at ease because of the little lock symbol that appears before the URL when we visit our bank (or Gmail, Yahoo, and so forth). That lock symbol means that our communication is encrypted (digitally scrambled) by a standard called OpenSSL. Over time, SSL has proven to be relatively safe.
Just this week, however, it was discovered that OpenSSL was hacked using a vulnerability known as the Heartbleed Bug. Jeremy Bowers, as interviewed on NPR, put eloquently (emphasis mine):
What happens when a spy agency spies on the Congressional body that was created to keep spying in check in the first place? What are the implications of the CIA spying on the Senate?
That is exactly what Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asserts has happened. In a scathing address to the Senate, Feinstein, who has been a strong advocate of the intelligence community in the past, accused the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of violating “the separation of powers principles embodied in the United States Constitution including the Speech and Debate clause”.
This accusation stems from an agreement between the committee and the agency to allow committee aides to review millions of confidential documents related to the post 9/11 Bush administration detention program for handling terror suspects. In the process of reviewing these documents, staffers came across an internal review of the agency’s practices. When the CIA became aware of this, Feinstein claims they searched the network — including the committee’s internal network — and removed the documents.
I’ll keep this one about the target breach really short and simple. It’s really just a follow up to the blog I wrote about whether Target and other retailers should invest the money to adopt new technology to preventatively fight fraud. In that blog I asked the question: “Is it worth $100 million to implement chip and PIN technology?” And my answer was a resounding, “YES!”
Just in case anyone needs any more evidence, take a look at Target’s earnings report that was released in February. Target reports that its net earnings were down $520 million in the fourth quarter, down 46 percent from the same period a year earlier. In a huge understatement, Gregg W. Steinhafel, Target’s chief executive, said, “Results softened meaningfully following our December announcement of a data breach.”
Today I served as the keynote identity theft speaker for the Fort Worth Speakers Foundation, here in balmy Texas (well, compared to Montana, where I spoke last week). After the main presentation, I fielded a range of questions on all topics. One woman asked me this: “At what point is fraud committed as a by product of the Target breach no longer Target’s fault?” The question was highly intelligent and the answer is very revealing.
When word got out about the massive security breach that occurred at Target in December of 2013, and which could wind up being the largest in U.S. history, many speculated that shoppers would dramatically change their habits. After all, nearly 1 out of 3 Americans were affected.
But a recent poll conducted by the Associated Press shows that our intentions don’t necessarily match our actions. The AP-GfK Poll, which was conducted in January and involved interviews with 1,060 adults, shows that the majority of Americans polled say they fear becoming victims of theft after the breach.
Biometrics are like passwords that you leave everywhere (fingerprints, facial recognition, voice patterns), except that unlike passwords, you can’t change them when they’re lost or stolen. It’s easy to change your password, a bit harder to get a new retina. Like passwords, risk goes up as they are stored globally (in the cloud) versus locally (on a physical device).
In addition to the biometrics mentioned above that most of us have come to accept as commonplace, there are many other methods in use or under exploration:
So you’ve had a rough day at the office. You plop down on your couch with a cold beverage nearby, ready to let the day go. You have twenty minutes until your chicken pot pie dings, and the thought of chicken reminds you of, well… Angry Birds. Harmless fun. NOT!
While you may be enjoying a mindless game, somewhere far off in cyber land others are just beginning to work very hard. WHO THEY ARE: advertising companies and intelligence agencies alike. WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO YOU: gathering all of the most personal data off of your mobile device: everything from your name, age, sex, location, and perhaps even your political alignment or sexual orientation—and lots more!
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We all enjoy the luxury of checking off our to-do lists from the comforts of home. Why make a stop by the bank when you can just log in and make that transfer from your laptop? Who wants to go by the mall when you can find the exact size and color of that new jacket you want with just a little browsing on your iPad? One click and it’s on its way to your doorstep. All you have to do is make sure that little padlock is showing and you know you can securely share your personal information, right?
I’ll keep this one about the target breach really short and simple. It’s really just a follow up to the 
Today I served as the keynote identity theft speaker for the Fort Worth Speakers Foundation, here in balmy Texas (well, compared to Montana, where I spoke last week). After the main presentation, I fielded a range of questions on all topics. One woman asked me this: “At what point is fraud committed as a by product of the Target breach no longer Target’s fault?” The question was highly intelligent and the answer is very revealing.
NSA Angry Birds are Stalking You
