Tag Archive for: topics

The Financial Times and McKinsey’s best business books of 2021 cover pressing topics like global cybersecurity, climate change, and the opioid epidemic

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  • The Financial Times & McKinsey announced the best business book of 2021 on December 1.
  • Judges chose “This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends” by journalist Nicole Perlroth.
  • Below, find this year’s shortlist — ranging in topics from the opioid epidemic to climate change.

The Financial Times and McKinsey have announced the winner and finalists for the 2021 Business Book of the Year award.

This year’s winner, “This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends” by “New York Times” reporter Nicole Perlroth, delivers a crucial and thorough analysis of the cyber arms race, encountering hackers, spies, and criminals clamoring to infiltrate essential computer systems.

Intrepid journalist Nicole Perloth delves into cyber crime to create an urgent, alarming analysis of the threat posed by the cybercriminals arms race.

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“Nicole Perlroth has done something that hasn’t been done before: going this deep into the mysterious world of hackers,” Financial Times editor Roula Khalaf said in a press release. “Cyber security isn’t featuring highly enough on CEOs’ agenda. I hope this award will prompt them to read this book and pay attention.”

McKinsey’s Managing Partner Europe, Magnus Tyeman, echoed the importance and singularity of Perlroth’s book. “Nicole Perlroth has written a book that is more than just a timely wake-up call to the fact that the world has largely ignored the realities and profound implications of the arms race between hackers, cybercriminals and businesses and national governments,” Tyeman said. “It is an alarming book, one in which the author makes a compelling, granular and matter-of-fact case for how vulnerable global computer systems have become, even as it also comes with an urgent plea for specific and systematic action.”

Below, you’ll find the six books listed on this year’s shortlist — stacked with journalists and ranging in topics from the opioid epidemic (by the prolific author of “Say Nothing“) to racism, climate change, and meritocracy. 

The winner of the Business Book of the Year…

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Charity Digital – Topics – The downsides of cryptocurrencies

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The price of Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, has rocketed from little over $6,000 a year ago to more than $60,000 today. It’s made some people very rich indeed. It’s also attracted the interest the likes of Tesla founder Elon Musk and donations can be made in the cryptocurrency to a range of charities including Save the Children and RNLI.

 

But if your charity is thinking about accepting donations in cryptocurrencies, it is very important to ensure that you are aware of the considerable downsides of this type of fundraising initiative, as well as the benefits.

 

 

Environmental impact

 

The first thing to consider is that cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin, have an enormous negative effect on the environment. That’s because behind every Bitcoin is a huge infrastructure of computers involved in Bitcoin “mining”.

 

These computers, working all over the world around the clock, consume a vast amount of energy. According to the University of Cambridge’s Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, Bitcoin is now responsible for more energy consumption than entire countries such as The Netherlands or Argentina.

 

The overwhelming majority of this energy is not generated from renewable sources like wind, so the amount of carbon dioxide that is released in to the atmosphere because of Bitcoin mining, and therefore Bitcoin’s effect on climate change, is significant.

 

That alone may give pause for thought. But for charities that are directly involved with environmental issues, it may be difficult to reconcile the harm that Bitcoin mining does to the environment, and the implicit endorsement of that harm by accepting funds in Bitcoin, with the aims of the charity.

 

 

Security concerns

 

On a more practical level, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin can be a considerable cyber security risk for charities when it comes to storing them. That’s because cyber criminals are particularly attracted to cryptocurrencies because of their high value and the fact that they can be used anonymously.

 

For that reason, many types of malware are designed to search infected computers for cryptocurrencies, and to send any that they find to the malware authors. Any…

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Protecting Data, Emerging Threats Hot Topics at Channel Partners Virtual

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Among the topics were securing data in motion, opportunities for MSPs and more.

Protecting data was a big topic at this week’s Channel Partners Virtual, with numerous sessions focusing on the latest threats and solutions.

Among the highlights were our latest Cybersecurity Thunderdome, as well as sessions focusing on protecting data in motion and 2021 predictions.

Webroot's Joe Cerrone

Webroot’s Joe Cerrone

In his session, Joe Cerrone, MSP account manager at Webroot, highlighted the many challenges to protecting data in 2021. The predictions were chilling, but also good news for MSPs.

“The cybersecurity skills gap is going to continue to widen, meaning businesses will continue to struggle to stay resilient against cyberattacks,” he said. “This will force them to increase their cybersecurity spend. They’re going to reallocate budget to secure the new hybrid workforce, creating a massive opportunity for MSPs to sell their services.”

To manage the skills gap, managed endpoint detection and response (EDR) supported by artificial intelligence (AI) will replace the traditional security operations center (SOC), Cerrone said.

Regarding the threat landscape, Emotet is very prevalent and Webroot expects it will remain the most active botnet, he said. It will continue to serve as a malware distribution service.

“And business email compromise will have yet another record year,” Cerrone said. “It accounted for over $2 billion [in losses] in the United States alone in 2020.”

Deepfakes will be increasingly easier to create, making misinformation a leading threat that companies must defend against, he said. In addition, phishing pages will primarily use HTTPS. It’s not as secure as originally thought.

And the most unsettling stat?

“We’re going to see a single ransomware victim may over $50 million to restore their data,” Cerrone said. “And as we know for a lot of businesses, that is a death sentence. And we’re also going to see cybercriminals expanding their ransomware targeting from government, education and health care organizations to manufacturing and supply chains.”

Tech Data's Chris DeRosiers

Tech Data’s Chris DeRosiers

Privafy's Kumar Vishwanathan

Privafy’s Kumar Vishwanathan

Another session focused on securing data…

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Charity Digital – Topics – A beginner’s guide to cyber security terms

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Encryption – One of the most effective ways to mitigate the risk of a data breach is to ensure that all confidential data that your charity stores is encrypted using a proven encryption method. That means that even if a hacker gains access to your data, they will be unable to use it without a decryption key.

 

Endpoint security system – Traditional anti-virus software installed on charity staff computers has evolved into software that provides protection against many different types of cyber security threats including ransomware and hacker attacks. This type of software is now known as endpoint security software but many people still call it anti-virus or AV software.

 

Exploit – In the cyber security world, an exploit is a specific technique that hackers develop to get unauthorised access to a computer system. In order to develop an exploit, hackers first need to discover a programming error or some other form of vulnerability in a piece of software (or occasionally hardware). The exploit is so-called because it exploits a particular weakness or vulnerability.

 

Firewall – A firewall carries out a similar job to a nightclub bouncer: it sits at the entrance to a charity’s network and watches all the data attempting to get in. Its purpose is to ensure that only legitimate data can get onto the network, while preventing data sent by hackers or other unwanted data from gaining entry. Many modern firewalls are now equipped with other security features including the ability to set up secure VPN (see below) connections.

 

Hacker – A hacker is a term commonly used to describe a cyber criminal, or anyone who attempts to interfere with other people’s computer systems with ill intent. Originally, a hacker simply referred to someone who liked to experiment with computer systems, so many cyber security experts prefer to use the term malicious hacker or black hat hacker when referring to cyber criminals.

 

Key logger – A hacker who gets access to an end user’s computer may install a key logger. This is a particularly malicious piece of software which records every keystroke that a user makes, and then sends this information to the hacker. A key logger can be used to

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