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Daily Archives: June 24, 2015

UK: Information Security Breaches Survey 2015

PWC: “We have been commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) to survey companies across the UK on cyber security incidents and emerging trends…The key observations from the 2015 survey were:

  • The number of security breaches has increased, the scale and cost has nearly doubled. Eleven percent of respondents changed the nature of their business as a result of their worst breach.
  • Not as many organisations increased their spending in information security, and fewer organisations than in previous years expect to spend more in the future.
  • Nearly 9 out of 10 large organisations surveyed now suffer some form of security breach – suggesting that these incidents are now a near certainty. Businesses should ensure they are managing the risk accordingly.
  • Despite the increase in staff awareness training, people are as likely to cause a breach as viruses and other types of malicious software.
  • When looking at drivers for information security expenditure, ‘Protecting customer information’ and ‘Protecting the organisation’s reputation’ account for over half of the responses.
  • The trend in outsourcing certain security functions and the use of ‘Cloud computing and storage’ continue to rise.”

Accounting-Based Downside Risk Cost of Capital and Macroeconomy

Konchitchki, Yaniv and Luo, Yan and Ma, Mary L. Z. and Wu, Feng, Accounting-Based Downside Risk, Cost of Capital, and the Macroeconomy (June 23, 2015). Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2622180 “We develop an earnings downside risk measure that captures the expectation for future downward operating performance. We hypothesize that this measure contains distinct information about… Continue Reading

Environmental Monitoring and Ecosystem Management in Oil Sands

Olszynski, Martin, Environmental Monitoring and Ecosystem Management in the Oil Sands: Spaceship Earth or Escort Tugboat? (June 22, 2015). McGill International Journal of Sustainable Development Law & Policy, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2014. Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2621795 “Spurred on by mounting international concern about the environmental impacts of the oil sands and determined to… Continue Reading

Intelligence Cmte’s investigation of interrogation techniques

The New Yorker – To expose torture, Dianne Feinstein fought the C.I.A. -and the White House, June 22, 2015. “Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic senator from California, is making a late career of not quite pleasing anyone. After five decades in politics, Feinstein, at eighty-one, is the oldest sitting member of the Senate, where a late… Continue Reading

Government Credentials on the Open Web

Follow up to Massive hack of federal personnel files included security-clearance database – related news – “Recorded Future identified the possible exposures of login credentials for 47 United States government agencies across 89 unique domains. As of early 2015, 12 of these agencies allowed some of their users access to computer networks with no form of two-factor… Continue Reading