Our Thinking

Online is proud to feature a chapter from Tribe of Hackers, written by Marcus J. Carey and Jennifer Jin. Our very own security expert Jeff Man shared many insights and stories in chapter 25 of this highly acclaimed book.

Jeffrey Man is a respected information security expert, advisor, evangelist, and co-host of the security podcast Security Weekly. He has more than 35 years of experience in all aspects of computer, network, and information security. Jeffrey has held various information security roles within the DoD as well as private sector enterprises, is a former PCI QSA, and was part of the first penetration testing red team at the NSA.

You’ve. Been. Hacked.

Three words that no business owner wants to read while opening their daily email, yet it happens more and more every year.

Every day, people make choices about the things they value.

Recycling versus sending it to a landfill.

Riding the bus versus driving to work.

Bringing your own bag to the grocery store versus using plastics.

These choices collectively define who we are, how the world sees us, but more importantly; how we see ourselves.

At Online Business Systems we have our feet in two different worlds – Digital Transformation and Cybersecurity. As you can guess, we get a lot of questions about how to plan for and incorporate a security strategy when designing and executing a digital transformation project (e.g. process automation, transforming to a paperless organization, incorporating AI, or a cloud migration.) I have read quite a few articles and blogs written on this topic recently and had a few thoughts of my own based on my experiences being on the front lines where we’ve seen security done well (and also, unfortunately, not so well.)

In a world where autonomous systems are becoming more numerous, there is pressure to build similarly autonomous agents to observe these systems for anomalous behavior. Given the complexity of the systems, and the fact that it is not economically viable to employ humans to observe them, we must find a way of algorithmically solving this problem.

We're changing it up today from our regular style of blogs, and are excited to share our first Vlog! In today's feature post we sit with Heidi Deras, a Business Analyst and exceptional Onliner who describes how BAs can assist Agile Product Owners to be successful.

Back in May, I had the chance to attend the WCISC conference in Winnipeg and listen to James Comey share his thoughts on security, leadership and integrity. If you’ve had the opportunity to hear James Comey speak, regardless of your political persuasion, I think you’ll agree with me – he is an excellent communicator. Over the hour session he shared many humorous and impactful stories about his role as the Director of the FBI and the direction that his life has taken.

We hear a lot about the pace of change and the increasingly sophisticated threats facing organizations today. You don’t have to look much further than the daily headlines to read about new ways of doing business, or the latest successful data breach. 

What’s becoming very clear is that Cybersecurity is not a sprint, but rather a marathon.
Each leg of the race presents new challenges and requires a commitment to diligence, risk management, and continuous program improvement. What we’ve done in the past is now proving to be insufficient and ineffective for the unpredictable terrain ahead. Different threat landscapes requires different solutions …and occasionally you need to stop, rest, and re-hydrate along the way.

Digital Transformation has become quite the industry buzzword. It’s become a goal for most organizations to achieve, yet more than half of these attempts are unsuccessful. What is it that prevents a successful digital transformation?  If you’re not one of the companies that has already failed or is on the verge of failure; keep reading to ensure you too, don’t become part of that rapidly growing statistic.

In less than a week, one of Canada’s largest information technology conferences will take place in Winnipeg.

“CANHEIT is the largest gathering of Canadian higher education IT leaders from universities, colleges, technical institutes and advanced research computing (ARC) experts. It will offer a unique forum to explore the latest best practices, opportunities and challenges within the realm of higher education technology.”