Malta Info Security

Welcome to the New Year.. its the dawn of a new year and we're moving fast.

Technology and life in general seem to be moving at rate faster than I ever recall. Recently I was in London and one of the staple places my son and I visited was the Science Museum in S. Kensington. Whilst walking through the corridors of the 'old' technology section I talked to him how my first computer was a Memotech 512s2 with Basic, Assembler (Z80) and even a database language called Noddy... of course my speech was cut short with ... "dad, cut it . You're ancient.." --- and yet I REALLY am not THAT old.. so he made me promise NOT to brag on and on about how we used tapes to load stuff up that took an age -- and just observe and not give him the "In my time..." spiel.

New year resolutions apart.. as I normally come up to scratch with the usual technology predictions for the forthcoming year.. I increasingly see "sensational" headlined tweets such as "The era of Mobile Internet is dawning" and "Hackers Brew Self-Destruct Code to Counter Police Forensics.. " all designed to sir something in the reader ... and that one thing often boils down to fear through curiosity.

Inspired by BruceS, I recently I read the book "The Science of Fear" by Daniel Gardner. It is an excellent read as the author recounts his personal experiences and slowly progresses to explain and interpret them in an exceptional way -- merging a rather heavy element of psychology with simple explanations of why we act the way we act when faced with decisions and different circumstances. In a nutshell, the way we perform risk management is somewhat always biased and subjective whos origins are instinctive. So fear (as well as other factors, of course) has a bearing -- a very heavy bearing in the way we do risk management and react to incidents.

The next ISACA talk, entitled "The Cost of Fear" focuses on these same points and attempts to put them into perspective showing us why we often downplay risk. The media, numbers, culture, group thinking, historic events and human nature all contribute to the way we ascertain risk. Sometimes we readily take on risk accepting the consequences -- other times our instinctive nature takes the better of us -- two analogies Daniel Gardner calls "Head" and "Gut".

Quoting from Gartner's book, "Unreasoning fear" as Roosevelt called it, may be bad for those who experience it and society at large, but it's wonderful for shareholders. The opportunities are limitless. All that's required is that fears keep rising, and those who reap the profits know which buttons to push in our Stone Age minds to ensure that happens.

So whilst I plunge in yet more studying for 2 more years as I undertake an LLM, I look forward to what's to come and the next ISACA presentation. Don't forget to keep up to date & follow us on Twitter!

Happy New Year to all..!

Posted by Donald Tabone

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The next local ISACA chapter educational event happening on 12/01/10 is to be entitled The Cost of Fear

In a 200 page book about mankind's evolution, the last two hundred years would span a quarter of a page. Our brain's evolution has been outmatched by the technological advances it itself is creating, landing us in an environment which we cannot comprehend. The media fill us with irrational scare stories. Politicians often use fear to push an agenda. Even when we consciously disbelieve their stories, they mark our thoughts and affect our decisions.

Research shows that you're likely to be underestimating your real risks. You're also likely to be spending too much attention on risks which matter little to your business. Justin Vassallo will analyse the findings of scientific research to discover the complex methods by which our brain takes risk judgements, and enable us to unravel them.

Continue reading "Event: Managing Risk - The Cost of Fear"

Posted by Donald Tabone