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The post 3 Reasons To Kickstart A Career As An Ethical Hacker appeared first on Hack Ware News.

The pioneer programme will commence with the support from Singapore’s very own Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA) and the Cyber Security Agency (CSA) with aims to accelerate start-ups in cybersecurity sectors.

Under the programme, the cybersecurity entrepreneurs have access to a three month stint at a start-up hub, named Innovation Cybersecurity Ecosystem at Block 71 (ICE71). In that hub, the hopefuls will learn pre-accelerator boot camp, accelerator training programme and landing pad for start-ups with Europe-based cybersecurity accelerator Cylon.

“Government support for cyber security is critical to grow Singapore’s regional expertise and cyber security startups like Horangi will benefit from these programs,” said Paul Hadjy, CEO at Horangi Cyber Security (Horangi).

Hadjy told Hackwarenews team that the state top-down approach is essential in supporting the embryonic state of cybersecurity development in Singapore.

In his opinion, the barrier for growth in the cybersecurity security often pointed down to the shortage of talents in the field. Thus, the accelerator programme will allow the startups to gain access to funding as well as the right mentorship to groom talents and expertise.

Besides the lack of talents, Hadjy highlighted that many Southeast-Asia based firms have downplayed the values of cyber security in their overall corporate strategy.

“Many ASEAN companies view cyber security as an IT task and not an overarching business risk,” opined Hadjy.

This oversight causes many decision-makers to set ineffective budget targets for cyber security spending, which in turn leads to myopic, ineffective spending. However, he noted that corporate companies are gradually changing their mindset on the importance of cyber-security.

“Today, organizations in Singapore and other regions are shifting towards a more holistic view of cyber security; where it has become a pressing concern that affects business processes across all enterprises.” concluded Hadjy.

Going forward, he believed that enterprises should engage a third party cyber security company in helping them to analyse their profile and identify system vulnerabilities. Then, the outcome of the analysis can be used to formulate plan to protect key data and assets from breaches.

The post Horangi praises Singapore’s initiative on new cybersecurity accelerator programme appeared first on Hack Ware News.

So far as 2018 progresses, the year seems rather promising with the exception of recurrence of “Black Monday” on 5 February 2018 which witnessed the biggest Dow Jones drop of all time over the stock markets. Cryptocurrency also went with the dive since achieving historical high late last year.

For the cybersecurity sector, no boom and bust cycle yet as the year entered the second month. However, US-headquartered security technology firm, A10 Networks highlighted to Hackwarenews on the cyber threats trend ahead for 2018.

Bigger, bolder and costlier cyber-attacks expected in 2018

Song Tang Yih, vice president Asia Pacific of A10 Networks told Hackwarenews that cyber-attacks in 2018, will be bigger, bolder and much costlier for victims.

“For 2017, spending on cybersecurity reached USD86 billion which was a humongous amount,” said Song.

Furthermore, he noted that the average data breach cost in 2017 accounted to around USD 4 million, while the annual cyber-attack cost ballooned to USD 400 billion alone. Using these past data, Song expected an increasing volumes of cyber-attacks in 2018, as hackers used more sophisticated approaches such as “Reaper malware” to breach vulnerabilities in systems for financial benefits.

More state-sponsored attacks expected

Some of these cyber-attacks were believed to be state-sponsored in nature at a bid to obtain hard currency as voiced out by Jonathan Tan, regional vice president, ASEAN and Pakistan of A10 Networks.

“There is no good time or bad time, where the hackers will rest. In fact, more so during the bad time, hackers will hack for finance gains.” commented Tan.

Some of the cyber-attacks were believed by Tan to be inspired by regional tensions among countries which eventually conducted cyberwars to breach each other systems. To Tan, Singapore is in the forefront of this battle due to the connectivity among its various governmental services and its ambition of becoming an IT-savvy Smart Nation.

Telco Operators on the hit list

Beside government networks, Tan expected Telecommunication (telecom) operator to be next victims due to its role in serving as the conduit for businesses. In his opinion, the hackers will seek to exploit Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) or Internet of Things (IOT) vulnerabilities.

Cameras and surveillance system run via the telecom network will also be another vulnerable spots for attacks to compromises corporates securities or simply to bring the whole network down to the attackers’ advantages.

The Challenges of merging various Cloud platforms

In 2018, Song estimated more corporations and organisation to merge their private clouds with public clouds into multi-cloud environments for scalability purposes. The merging processes, however might provide more vulnerabilities for data breaches and the call for the protection of personal data online is more needed than ever.

The good news is that there are already some partnership and technology development set in motions to smooth out the merging of private and public cloud. For instance, software giants like Microsoft, Azure and Google have come together to provide uniform set of infrastructures and application program interface (API) for hybrid clouds to further improve efficiency.

Deceptive technology to act as sheepdog against cyber-attacks

Despite the various threats, security services providers like A10 Networks has something in their sleeves against cyber-attacks. One of the weapons will be using adaptive, deceptive and predictive security products to prevent cyber-attacks.

To certain extent, Tan even dubbed the deceptive and predictive technology into a “Top Five Technology” in 2018. As these know-hows give security operators the ability to predict a cyber-attack that is yet to happen.

“Deceptive and predictive technology allows the security firm to trick the hackers to stay ahead of them and protect systems,” concluded Tan.

In his opinion, the digital security will eventually become a basic human right issue as our world gets more interconnected and our dependence on safe communication become close to our needs for clean air, water and food.

The post Annus horribilis or Annus Mirabilis for cybersecurity in 2018 appeared first on Hack Ware News.

Sunny Neo, senior consultant of Centurion, told HackwareNews that there was still room for improvement in the cybersecurity mindset of Singapore-based companies.

“More than often, Singapore-based companies engaged our services for penetration testing at the last stage of their project development,” observed Neo.

The Early Bird Catches the Worm   

Relying on security testing only towards the end of the project completion phase often results in needing to rectify security flaws found at the last minute. This could possibly require re-designing, coding and quality testing all over again; all of which are timely and costly. In some instances, a delay in a new product launch would even cause an organisation to lose their competitive edge within their market.

To Neo, the best solution would be for organisations to incorporate cybersecurity throughout the different project milestones. This could include consultancy during the planning phase, secure design/code reviews during development, and finally vulnerability assessment and penetration testing.

Identifying and understanding possible risks earlier would allow security controls to be implemented concurrently with the system from the ground up. This would also save effort and cost for the organisation.

Secure by Design

“Secure by design, is what we want to achieve during project development,” opined Neo.

However, not many firms are able to fully attest to this statement, “secure by design”, especially among the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as compared to the larger, established financial institutions based in Singapore.

“SMEs have generally not picked up the cyber-security mindsets as compared to the banks,” Neo told HackwareNews.

In his opinion, apart from the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) in Singapore, cybersecurity regulations are fairly new – such as the recent cybersecurity bill proposed in 2017. Hence most industries are less mature than their counterparts in the financial industry when it comes to cybersecurity.

In contrast, banking and finance industries are heavily regulated and are required to comply with the Technology Risk Management (TRM) implemented by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). This has led to more awareness and better implementation on their part, including the development and publication of the Penetration Testing Guidelines for the Financial Industry in Singapore by The Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS).

Prevention is Better Than Cure

Neo often used the phrase, “Security is not a job but a lifestyle” – a value held by the Centurion Security consultants. They believe that cybersecurity-conscious firms and personnel constantly need to keep up with the latest trends and technology.

Questions like, “How can we breach this system, before they are actually being breached” must be asked to make sure that they remain on top of their game.

Solving the Talent Shortage

In this aspect, Centurion wants to do its part by conducting training and workshops, targeted at software developers and project managers to provide updates on the latest buzz in the cybersecurity ecosystem. Firm believers in contributing back to their industry, they are involved in various activities with this goal in mind.

Keen on sharing knowledge, Centurion often speaks at events within the cybersecurity community. Most notably, Centurion’s Principal Consultant, Ryan Baxendale, presented on “Microservices and FaaS for Offensive Security” at the 2017 DEF CON Conference – the world’s longest running and largest underground hacking conference, in Las Vegas.

Beyond that several Centurion consultants are also Adjunct Lecturers teaching at several polytechnics in Singapore, exposing students to real-world cybersecurity issues. Recently, the company is also sponsoring students to attend the upcoming security conference “Infosec in the City”.

After all, Neo believes that cyber-security is one big community where participants share tools and learn new techniques to grow together. This mindset was also in line with Centurion’s core values of educating, doing research, and offering bespoke consultancy services to organisations ranging from SMEs, to MNC across different sectors and even to different government entities.

The post In Cybersecurity, Think Centurion appeared first on Hack Ware News.

Before the end of 2017, Horangi has proven its worth and closed a USD3.1 million Series A Round, headed by Monk’s Hill Ventures, a venture capital firm known for investing into high growth early stage tech startups in Southeast Asia.

Besides Monk’s Hill Ventures, Horangi has gotten the backing of another four venture firms namely, Right Click Capital, 500 Startups, Hub Ventures Fund and 6Degrees Ventures. These angel investors are no means funding out of philanthropy but rather on the competitiveness posed by Horangi’s presence in the cyber security sector.

“Horangi brings a level of expertise and much needed capability in its products to the market, particularly in Asia where this is lacking,” said Lim Kuo-Yi, managing partner of Monk’s Hill Ventures.

Lim’s judgment was well-founded as since its inception in early 2016, the fledgling cybersecurity company had built up a beefy portfolio of 50 clients across various sectors.  Horangi even attracted interests of U.S. based multi-national corporation (MNCs) which prefer the Singapore-based cybersecurity firm as their security providers over others.

Despite fielding a small team, Horangi packed a punch with over 25 years of expertise in cybersecurity through its team members, which detected over 100,000 system vulnerability issues and spanned over 6 global offices across North America and Asia-Pacific.

Apparently, Horangi’s company vision has also struck a chord among the investors, seeking to provide a safer cyberspace for all.

“Our vision is to provide an affordable full-stack cybersecurity solution for our users globally, allowing them to quickly understand and deploy the right course of action.” stated Hadj.

So far, the company offers three core products namely, Scanner, Hunter, and Storyfier, which integrate seamlessly to provide customers with a full-stack cybersecurity solution previously available only to Fortune 500 companies.

In addition, Horangi provides in-house cyber security consulting to clients to identify system vulnerabilities.

Hackwarenews team sent its congratulation note to Horangi on its latest investment funding. Going forward, the team expects more cyber-security in the Asia Pacific region to receive windfall investments, following the trend seen in start-up nation, Israel where cyber-security firms became the top recipient of funding in 2017.

The post Horangi ends 2017 with a huge War Chest appeared first on Hack Ware News.

“It was cool to see some of the other companies doing cyber-security in the region as there are not that many.” said Hadjy, referring to the recent turnout for the CyberConnect 360 event held in Singapore.

To Hadjy, he believed that more can be done to chase the success from the event and address the very real cyber threats posted to the corporate world. For instances, financial firms have increasingly became the top target for hacking as they control large amount of money and credit information of clients.

Despite the risks, not many financial related institutions were able to ward off hostile cyber-attack from outside the company. As such, a number of high profile data breaches have surfaced out in the news lately.

Horangi: The Tiger that does not sleep

The aftermath of such breaches then often opened up the victim, in most of the cases, a company to the possibility of very expensive litigation which in the first place can be prevented.

“It is extremely important that a company be able to identify any possible holes within their enterprise network and to be able to fix them before they would be the target of a coordinated attack.” opined Hadjy.

It was often said that human remained the weakest link in the corporate data protection, however proper training can be used to enhance their mindsets and raises their cyber-security awareness.

The next weakest link in line then lies in the email systems which are vulnerable to phishing, ransomware and malware. And most often a weak password is all it needed for hackers to find a breakthrough to a highly secured system.

Reflecting this sentiment, Hadjy told Hackwarenews that every company should know whether or not its computer network that are connected to the Internet are as secured as possible.

Then, this big picture will list the various weak spots in the system which might be vulnerable to cyber attacker for exploitation to gain greater access to company data.

In filling this gap, Horangi has offered a three-part system that scans, detects security issues and prepares reports based on the data collected. Moreover, the three-part system is capable of doing a complete and thorough analysis of a client’s computer network and all of its workstations looking for possible security risks.

“With Horangi, they (the clients) would be able to know whether or not they would be ready and help them identify any deficiencies before they become a problem.” commented Hadjy.

After the review, the client will be able to come up with a plan to mitigate the risks and to hopefully prevent any type of security breach from occurring in the future.

As Horangi’s motto goes, “there is no off switch on a tiger”, and the word “Horangi” is actually derived from Korean language meaning, tiger. Similarly in the cyber world, there is no off day as well, as threats are constantly round the clock. So probably, we do need a sleepless tiger to ward off endless cyber-attacks for data integrity.

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