Weekly News Roundup September 7-11, 2020

Hello, readers! As I sit in my home office in Massachusetts looking out the window at a gray sky threatening rain, it’s hard not to face the reality that the end of summer is here, and when summer is over, school begins.

While many schools across the country are in session already, schools in Massachusetts have not yet opened. But this week families and school systems are preparing for next week’s return to school, which will look very different for millions of students. To that end, my school system hosted a meeting for parents whose children will be part of the remote learning program this year. I have to say I was impressed that multiple parents asked questions about the security of the devices students will be using. Perhaps it was news of a ransomware attack that postponed the opening of schools in Hartford, Connecticut, but I took it as evidence that cybersecurity is top of mind for many school systems.

But cybersecurity concerns extend beyond the K-12 sector. Let’s look at other events that made headlines in our industry this week.

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Sept. 11: RTInsights reported that the changing threat landscape of the automotive industry demands a transition to real-time threat detection.

Sept. 11: Infosecurity magazine reported, “The adoption of a zero trust concept of security defense has increased due to increased remote working as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Sept. 10: Concerns over election security drew bipartisan attendees to a cybersecurity forum in Tennessee, part of a Google-funded, nonpartisan University of Southern California initiative to educate election workers.

Sep. 10: Europe is reportedly at risk of failing to create industry-leading cybersecurity firms, as it is behind both the US and China in cybersecurity funding, according to The Daily Swig.

Sept. 9: Bloomberg Law reported, “Businesses in South Africa and Kenya have experienced an increased amount of cybersecurity threats since the coronavirus pandemic, according to a survey by Liquid Telecom.”

Sept. 9: Retired Army general and cybersecurity leader, Keith Alexander, was added to Amazon’s board of directors.

Sept. 8: Breaking Defense reported, “A new Trump Administration policy on space cybersecurity does not mandate any regulatory changes but does put pressure on commercial operators eyeing 5G communications to beef up their satellite networks against jamming and spoofing.”

Sept. 7: “The vast majority of reports published by the cyber-security industry focus on high-end economic espionage and state-sponsored hacking topics, ignoring threats to civil society and creating a distorted view of the actual cyber threat landscape that later influences policy-makers and academic work,” ZDNet reported.