Panda Security Insight

Reading Byron Acohido´s blog post  as well as the post on PandaLabs about the incredible rise of financially motivated malware, I thought about the impact this epidemic would have on the financial industry and how it could not happen at a worse time.  Banks of all sizes are dealing with a complex regulatory compliance environment, high profile data breaches and an uncertain economy that has caused many to place IT budgets on the back burner, to say nothing of security budgets.  The financial sector is facing enormous pressure at a time when even the most established firms are now looking for ways to survive.

Read more…

Tweet This Post 

Malware, Uncategorized, security antivirus, business, Byron Acohido, Collective Intelligence, cybercrime, detection, economy, IT, Malware, Panda, PandaLabs, security

I read this morning in Michael Krisgram’s blog, the US congressman that has twitted (by the way, we should use as an indicator of business success the acceptance of company names as verbs …) confidential information about his route while travelling through Iraq recently.  Krisgram wonders whether the massive adoption of  Twitter may become a security/confidentiality issue for governments going forward.  In the corporate world, we are asking ourselves if this avalanche of business information communicated by employees which are not official speakers may have consequences through the leakage of sensitive information to the market that may even put companies’ strategies at risk.

Read more…

Tweet This Post 

Raising of awareness, Twitter, Uncategorized blog, business, communication, confidenciality, information, Iraq, Michael Krisgram, security, Twitter, US

It was reported yesterday that information relating to the monthly Barometer published by the Spanish CIS (Centro de Investigaciones sociológicas) was leaked.  The Chairman of this Government organization has initiated an investigation to clear if there has been a security breach.  The blogger that published the information in advance has apologized for all inconveniences caused and explained that he did not have any access to privileged information.  He explained that he just “guessed” the URL where the report had been posted because they always follow the same structure.

Read more…

Tweet This Post 

Raising of awareness, Uncategorized blogger, CIS, information, Panda, personal data, security, web

Last week we organized the First Security Blogger Summit in Madrid. I liked the idea from the start because we would be bringing together really interesting people (including Bruce Schneier). I’m glad to see it wasn’t just me who liked it, but also the 200 people (not including Panda personnel who didn’t want to miss it, of course…) who turned up to listen to the speakers: renowned names in the field of IT security and figures whose opinions carry considerable weight in our industry.

Many of those who attended have already published their opinions on some of the issues discussed (Enrique Dans, Security by Default, Error 500, Jorge Hierro, Periodista Digital or ADSLZone). We have also published our own conclusions along with some of the ideas put forward during the event.

At lunch one of the topics that I discussed with JulioAlonso, José Cerdán and Byron Acohido, was how bloggers are changing the media landscape and allowing all of us to be much better informed about the topics that interests us the most. One point that came up during the discussion was that while blogs allow us to have more detailed and up-to-the-minute information on our favorite topics, they also have a secondary effect:  we tend to narrow the information down far more and limit it to whatever our areas of interest are.

Read more…

Tweet This Post 

Blogs, Uncategorized ADSLZone, blog, Bruce Schneier, Byron Acohido, Enrique Dans, Error 500, information, Jorge Hierro, José Cerdán, Julio Alonso, media, Panda, Periodista Digital, security, Security Blogger Summit, Security by Default

For some time now, I have been thinking about creating my own blog. Like many of you, I spend much of my time online: shopping, managing my affairs, reading the opinions of others, browsing… I must admit, I use the Internet for practically everything. Moreover, it is at the heart of the company I manage. So as you can see, the Internet is really a big part of my life.

So I’ve now decided to take the plunge and have my own blog, Panda Insight, separate from other Panda blogs (Panda Research and PandaLabs). I believe that blogs are a step towards ending the traditional type of unilateral communication -from companies to the market- which we have seen for many years. Similarly, they are coherent with the changes that we are implementing in Panda about how we communicate to the market: we want to switch from “one-to-one”/ “one-to-many” to “many-to-many” as it represents a more direct, credible and scalable form of communication. I wholeheartedly believe that blogs represent a tremendously enriching type of communication, both for authors and readers. With this blog, I hope to make my own small contribution.

I want to thank those that have encouraged me to pursue this initiative and want to make special mention, aside from the Panda Communication team, to Wences and Enrique Dans. Enrique gave me some good advice recently over lunch: “If you try to write about what you know, you have no future as a blogger. You have to write with your feet, write about what you see, about what you stumble upon.” Not having experience yet, it is hard to tell, but it makes sense to me. I will follow Enrique’s advice and write with my “feet” about what I see, what interests me (and I’m sure you will share some of these interests) and I will do it as frequently as I can, but at least once a week.

Let’s see where this blog takes us from here on…

Tweet This Post 

Uncategorized blog, blogosphere, Enrique Dans, internet, Juan Santana, Panda, Panda Research, PandaLabs, Wences