Article posted: Feb 13, 2019
By Joakim Thorén, CEO
It's been more than a year since the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) insisted companies working with the U.S. comply with its data security guidelines. Specifically, suppliers, contractors and any vendor working with the DoD must follow the mandate, known as the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS).
Article posted: Feb 07, 2019
By Joakim Thorén, CEO
If you've been waiting for our next iteration of vSEC:CMS, your wait is over. Version 5.4 of our industry-leading identity and access management (IAM) solution is more powerful than ever and contains a slew of important upgrades and enhancements, some of which were suggested by our loyal user community.
Article posted: Jan 11, 2019
Q&A with Dan Isaaman, Dot Origin Co-Founder & Technology Director
For the latest installment of our partner and customer Q&A blog series, we spoke with Dan Isaaman, Co-Founder and Technology Director of Guildford, UK-based Dot Origin Ltd. Dot Origin, founded in 1997, is a leading distributor and developer of products and solutions that use smartcards and other hardware-based security technologies for applications including physical security, logical (IT/network) security, PKI, encryption, loyalty, process automation, payment, transport and many others. Dot Origin, which also has offices in the U.S., has direct relationships with many manufacturers and software vendors in the security industry including Versasec, ACS, Gemalto, G&D, HID, Identiv, MULTOS, NXP, and Thales, and it stocks, sells and supports their products through a network of resellers and sales channels. Our discussion with Dan focused on smartcards.
Article posted: Dec 20, 2018
By Anders Adolfsson, Technical Consultant
As many as 500 million guests of the Starwood Hotel chain may already be or soon will be cursing their choice of hotels. That's because they've received news in recent weeks their private information may have been hacked through Starwood's guest reservation database.
Article posted: Dec 06, 2018
By Jack Foster, VPN Geeks
With the increased allegations of privacy hacking, unauthorized data usage and access, and election interference, cybersecurity software is booming. Considering risks such as ransomware, illegal access of private data and weaponized IoT devices, users are looking for the best ways to protect their sensitive information.
But, the first step to knowing how to improve your data protection levels is to understand the top five myths about cybersecurity.
Article posted: Dec 03, 2018
By Martin Scholz, R&D Manager
Each of us has fingerprints that are unique, so it makes sense that we'd like to use them to secure our devices and identify us in other ways. The problem is, we're not even close to having fingerprint verification systems that can prove with high certainty exactly whose fingerprint is being verified. Even 1 error in 100 billion fingerprint verifications could be too many. Today many practical applications have a fingerprint verification error rate closer to 1 in 10 000. And with smart attacks, the false matches can be much more frequent than that.
Article posted: Nov 28, 2018
Q&A with Sven Hammar, Board Member, Versasec
In our latest round of Q&A blogs, we interviewed Versasec's newest board member, Sven Hammar, to gain his insights into the overall security landscape in Europe and abroad. In addition to being a strategic member of Versasec's board of directors, Sven is the Chief Product Officer and Founder of Apica Systems, an applications performance company which he founded in 2005. Here's what he had to say:
Article posted: Nov 15, 2018
By Joakim Thorén, CEO
From global companies to SMBs, the heart of the workforce today is mobile. In fact, by 2020, the mobile workforce is projected to comprise roughly three-quarters of U.S. employees, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.
While enterprises of all sizes want to maintain the strong two-factor authentication (2FA) they receive from traditional smart cards, most want options that do not involve adding hardware to their mobile devices.
Article posted: Nov 05, 2018
By Joakim Thorén, CEO
Just about six months after the implementation of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, we polled companies both in Europe and beyond to learn how the GDPR is impacting them. Among the most important findings: Many companies paid more than they'd anticipated, many non-EU companies are putting similar regulations in place in the belief that similar regulations are coming in their countries and educating users about remaining in compliance is a major concern.
Article posted: Oct 24, 2018
By Joakim Thorén, CEO
The Global Credential Management Solutions Market is growing quickly and projected to reach $1.8 Billion by 2025, signaling the times in which we live where data breaches, state-sponsored hackers and election tampering are daily occurrences. The research findings were compiled by Verified Market Research.
Article posted: Oct 23, 2018
By Joakim Thorén, CEO
A New MediaPRO study surveying more than 1,000 employees across the United States reveals 75% of respondents pose a security risk to their organizations. Reported in Dark Reading, the survey also unveiled management team members were more likely to fall for popular phishing schemes than entry-level or mid-level employees.
Article posted: Oct 16, 2018
By Joakim Thorén, CEO
It's official: Version 5.3 of vSEC:CMS, a powerful new iteration of our industry-leading identity and access management solution, is now available. This version includes support for additional popular Gemalto eTokens and smart cards, and offers a slew of additional important features, including the ability to speed new user validations and enable license and Operator Store issuance.
Article posted: Sep 24, 2018
By Anders Adolfsson, Technical Consultant, Versasec
We began our business in Stockholm more than 10 years ago, and it's remained an important geographic market for our identity and access management solutions. Through the years, we've built up an impressive business in government, defense and se...
Article posted: Sep 19, 2018
By Joakim Thorén, CEO
It seems like companies will never learn. Passwords continue to be the culprit of data breaches, especially temporary password-only security measures. ABC reported Westpac is the latest banking organization to suffer a temporary password only breach. And while data breaches are generated by outside hackers, the Westpac breach was caused by an employee, who accessed the temporary passwords and handed them over to a mortgage broker.
Article posted: Aug 23, 2018
By Joakim Thorén, CEO
While large enterprises across the US most certainly have sophisticated cybercrime fighting measures in place, the same is not true of many of the nation's small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
That's why the NIST Small Business Cybersecurity Act, S. 770, previously referred to as the Main Street Cybersecurity Act, was signed into law by President Trump last week. S. 770 charges the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a division of the commerce department, with helping the nation's smaller businesses better prepare for and address the potential of cybercrime through better education. The Act specifically states NIST is to help SMBs "identify, assess, manage and reduce their cybersecurity risks."
Article posted: Aug 06, 2018
By Joakim Thorén, CEO
Another day, another data breach, as social news aggregation platform Reddit just announced it was breached. With the GDPR regulations in effect, more organizations are quickly reporting breaches and investigating their causes to avoid stiff penalties. The latest breach affecting Reddit demonstrates the dangers of using SMS for two-factor authentication.
Article posted: Jul 29, 2018
By Joakim Thorén, CEO
We all know strong security requires more than just a user name and password and have long been proponents of the cost-effective nature of smart cards and security keys. Managing those keys and cards (both physical and digital) is the basis of our business, after all!
Article posted: Jul 25, 2018
By Adam Bostwick, Business Development
When Microsoft announced it would cease support for its Forefront Identity Manager (FIM), its identity and access card management system, and its successor product, Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM), we geared up to help those customers seamlessly migrate from FIM/MIM to the Versasec vSEC:CMS.
Article posted: Jul 24, 2018
By Joakim Thorén, CEO
This week we are kicking off our summer session of "Versasec University" ... but don't worry, there are no tests or grades. Rather, the University provides a good opportunity to gain critical guidance on working with our vSEC:CMS and Yubico's PIV (Privilege and Identification Card) token.
Article posted: Jul 18, 2018
By Joakim Thorén, CEO
Cisco's 2018 Annual Cybersecurity Report points out that mobile devices are the most difficult to protect. That's in large part because of increased use of Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) into the workplace. While organizations can save up to $350 per phone, per employee, by allowing the use of BYOD devices, there are inherent security challenges. When employees download apps from questionable gaming sites that are more likely to be breached, they leave a window for hackers to enter corporate servers and steal valuable organizational data.