What’s happening this week in the always interesting world of IT security:
Wimpy passwords, be gone!
The days of common passwords — think the dreaded “password” or the always popular “123456” — are no more as far as Microsoft Corp. is concerned. As reported in Security Week, the Redmond, Wash-based company will ban these passwords from its Microsoft Account and cloud-based Azure AD system. Microsoft has analyzed password data from past breaches and compiled a banned list in an effort to encourage security best practices in the enterprise.
Blame it on Rio
With the 2016 Summer Olympics just months away, Brazil’s IT readiness to host the Rio event is still up in the air. According to a recent BitSight Technologies report, the South American country remains a huge risk when it comes to cybersecurity.
Analyzing the random sample of 250 companies per country from the Brazil along with the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Germany, and China, researchers revealed that Brazil-based firms have the lowest aggregate security rating — and the country ranks among the poorest performance-wise when it comes to preventing and mitigating botnet attacks and threats.
The complete report can be found on the BitSight website.
Deloitte teams up with Polytechnique Montreal to fight cybercrime
Professional services firm Deloitte is working with Polytechnique Montréal to revamp Polytechnique’s cybersecurity courses, according to a recent release.
With a focus on IT security training, the education partnership involved a review of the Quebec-based school’s certificate programs, resulting in “comprehensive overhauls” to 29 courses and the addition of 14 new ones — making for an entirely new curriculum.
“Polytechnique has been concerned for quite some time about the growing and increasingly complex needs of organizations when it comes to cybersecurity,” explained Gervais Ouellet, Polytechnique’s Coordinator of Certificates in Cybersecurity in a statement. “After meeting representatives of several major organizations to identify their needs…starting this fall we will be offering leading-edge and even more concrete training aimed at anyone who wants to ensure that their company or organization is protected against the new breed of online criminals, or is seeking ways of solving such crimes.”
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