The Public Sector Security portal covers the various security and safety solutions for protecting local government, local authorities, state and district departments, councils and boroughs, and other Public Sector organisations from fraud, crime and anti-social behaviour.
Local government and public sector security - breaking news 
Passwords are past their sell-by-date
Stephen Howes, CEO of GrIDsure, has commented on the latest research from Richard Boyd at the Georgia Tech Research Institute highlighting the weaknesses of passwords:
“The report from the Georgia Tech Research Institute correctly confirms that passwords are past their sell-by-date. However, I find it bewildering that the Institute is recommending passwords should become longer and more complicated. This goes against every other trend that I have come across in my business and personal life towards making things more convenient and less complicated. Who is seriously going to remember the recommended 12 character strong password consisting of letters, numbers and symbols? It’s a recipe for frustration and you can guarantee that users will either forget these passwords or, more likely, just write them down.
Ultimately, no matter how long and complex you make a password, it can still easily be hacked or stolen by means such as shoulder-surfing or malware (key-logging, screen scrap... [ more ]
Misconfigured networks are the easiest IT resource hackers exploit
Tufin Technologies's annual Hacking Habits survey aims to better understand how trends in the hacking community impact corporate security teams. Responses from security professionals attending the DEF CON18 conference in Las Vegas last month revealed that 73% came across a misconfigured network more than three quarters of the time – which, according to 76% of the sample, was the easiest IT resource to exploit.
Reuven Harrison, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder with the security lifecycle management specialist, was surprised to find that 58% of respondents also viewed network misconfiguration as being caused by IT staffers not knowing what to look for when assessing the status of their network configurations. He said the survey is notable because more than half the survey respondents actually work in corporate IT. “The really big question coming out of the survey,” says Harrison, “is how to manage the risk that organizations run dealing with the complexity that is part and pa... [ more ]
Latest public sector security articles
Passwords are past their sell-by-date
Misconfigured networks are the easiest IT resource hackers exploit
The Return of Ransomware and Do-it-Yourself Botnets
Hikvision mobile surveillance solution deployed on 3,600 buses in Ningbo, China
Hikvision cameras keep watch on World Expo 2010 in Shanghai
Data protection laws are too relaxed and require revision
The challenge of protecting multiple and increasingly disparate end user environments
New Mobile CCTV service for Northern Ireland
...[view more articles on public sector security]...
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