Security News

Living Security, an Austin, Texas-based company that specializes in cybersecurity awareness training, on Tuesday announced that it raised $14 million in a Series B funding round. The round was led by Updata Partners, with participation from Silverton Partners, Active Capital, Rain Capital and SaaS Venture Partners.

After a year of fast growth, Living Security announced it has closed a $14 Million Series B round to continue its expansion beyond cybersecurity awareness training and further develop its human risk management platform. "During the last three years, Living Security revolutionized security awareness training programs that were boring, ineffective and implemented just to meet minimal compliance requirements," said Ashley Rose, CEO and co-founder of Living Security.

The 8 top trends cited will enable rapid reinvention, including the skills gap, cybersecurity mesh and identity-first security. At Tuesday's Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit, Gartner Research Vice President Peter Firstbrook discussed eight critical trends for security and risk-management leaders in his keynote address.

Insider Risk Management builds a framework around the new paradigm of "Risk tolerance," aiming to give security teams the visibility and context around data activity to protect that data, without putting rigid constraints on users. The answer is a new category of data security technology: Insider Risk Management.

Managing risk arising from remote work has largely been reactive, and risk managers have had to adapt to new digital threats that weren't necessarily as prevalent when work was done from a physical office. Risk managers need to think proactively about how working remotely impacts their organization's exposure to risk and how to mitigate potential breaches.

Enterprise third-party risk management programs have been around for a half-decade or longer, and at this point most large organizations run one. Many of these TPRM programs only provide a thin veneer of cybersecurity assurance.

Fusion Risk Management announced it has recorded several significant client wins among multinational and global investment banks to start the calendar year as the company continues to expand its footprint in the financial services sector. More than 20 top financial services providers have selected the Fusion Framework System to drive their operational resilience efforts in the past year.

Despite all of this, less than 20% of 2020 security budgets were spent on Insider Risk - and more than half of organizations don't have a formal Insider Risk response plan in place. Forrester predicts that 1 in 3 data breaches in 2021 will stem from insiders, and the Code42 2021 DER found that 6 out of 10 IT security leaders believe insider threats will increase, or increase significantly, over the next two years.

Survey respondents were asked to rate 36 macroeconomic, strategic and operational risks, including new risks that emerged this year related to the pandemic and social justice. "More than ever, 2020 demonstrated that organizations can no longer afford a reactive approach to risk management. Pandemic risk loomed on the horizon for a long time - it was a matter of 'when,' not 'if,'" said Jim DeLoach, a Protiviti managing director.

Find out what your company could risk by not getting cybersecurity audits. Steven Wertheim, president of SonMax Consultants, in his CPA Journal article Auditing for Cybersecurity Risk makes a strong case that auditing should be a part of every cybersecurity defense program.