This year marks the first ever (ISC)² EMEA Information Security Leadership Awards (ISLA), a chance for our community to recognise fellow information security and management professionals going the extra mile to enhance security across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Overall, we received a staggering number of impressive submissions, over 200, and these were shortlisted down to our finalists by our judges, members of the Europe, Middle East and Africa Advisory Council (EAC). Winners will be announced at our Secure Summit UK on 12 December 2017. In the meantime, we will be sharing their stories on the blog. Here is the sixth installment: Brencil Kaimba, Security Consultant at Serianu Limited (Kenya) Over the past twelve months, Brencil has been mentoring university and high

New guidelines, increased government oversight, and mounting stress in cybersecurity With the 4th quarter underway, we are starting to see lots of predictions about what the cybersecurity industry can expect to see come 2018. Thinking about the future makes it easy to forget about what is happening right now, though. Let’s take a look back at the news that happened this week to remind us of where we are, before we focus too much on where we’re going. Arguably the biggest industry-wide news of the week was the Senate Commerce Committee hearing, “Protecting Consumers in the Era of Major Breaches. If you listened to any of the testimony, it should come as no surprise that the Security and Exchange Commission

By Tony Chebli, Senior Manager, Information Security Department/Risk Management Division, Credit Libanais S.A.L Tony will be hosting the session ISO 27001 Between the Reality and the Myth at (ISC)² Secure Summit MENA in Dubai on the 21st and 22nd November 2017. It seems like yesterday, but actually it has been over 13 years, since I obtained my ISO 27001 Lead Auditor certification and started travelling from country to country around the Middle East, preaching the benefits of ISO 27001 certification and its importance to companies that are looking to secure their information assets.  I admit it was (and still is) very tough to convince organizations and their management to walk the difficult path towards ISO certification by adopting ISO 27001

By Lorna Trayan, Associate Partner Security at IBM Security Services Lorna will be hosting the session Security Threats and Trends - Middle East Region at (ISC)² Secure Summit MENA in Dubai on the 21st and 22nd November 2017. I’m one of those speakers that every year presents a topic that has the same title. I wonder if people at some point ask themselves ‘Is she presenting this topic again?!’. I started this in 2010 and have been repeating it every year since then. What’s this miraculous topic that never gets old you wonder? The topic is Security Trends and Threats in the Middle East. Now, as you can imagine (if you work in security or even if you’re remotely aware

James Bond has entertained millions for decades. While he’s engaged in many battles and comes out victorious, his name is not a good password. Hopefully end users can learn from Manaford’s poor password practices. As the Facebook, Google, and Twitter hearings came to a close, Mark Zuckerberg assured the public that company earnings take a back seat to security. In a public announcement Zuckerberg said, “We're investing so much in security that it will impact our profitability. Protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits." Hopefully the rest of the community follows suit. Looking at the other news of the week, it’s worth asking whether maximizing security over profits will someday be the top priority for organizations large