Dear Reader, 

Cyber Protection Magazine is coming into the end of it’s third year and it’s been a wild ride.  Our audience has grown steadily in the past year, and we rose from the top 20 cybersecurity magazines last year to the top 10 this year (Feedspot rankings). We just finished distributing thousands of copies of our latest, in-print, special issue at it-sa365 in Nuremberg, Germany. More on special issues later.

Our stated goal, right on our masthead, is “Cybersecurity. Explained.” We’re not here to publish press releases or push marketing agendas but to make that tech accessible to a larger market.  In the process we learned a lot about this crucial industry and, based on the feed back, we’ve done a pretty good job.

“Cyber Protection Magazine is the most honest voice in the industry.” — Grant Wernick, CEO of Fletch

“They look at the most important issues in cyber from a completely unique perspective.”  Ian Thornton Trump, CISO for Cyjax.

We take those comments very seriously and with humility.  So we are making a big change in the coming year.  Watching the success of other publications, which are primarily funded by subscriptions, has inspired us.  So we will be building a paywall for our long-form journalism and for digital access to our special issues.  It will be the bargain of all bargains, so stay tuned.

With that in mind, this newsletter is a look forward to the year, rather than a few weeks. We are drilling down into the issues affecting the growth and viability of the industry.  Here are a few of the subjects we are looking into.

Enjoy reading.

Lou Covey, Joe Basques and Patrick Boch

Insurance under fire — The insurance industry is under assault due to climate change, world conflict and financial instability.  Some insurers have pulled out of certain markets or raised premiums dramatically.  Similar turmoil has affected the cyber market, as well.  And it doesn’t matter if it is in the large enterprise market or small-to-medium companies.  Figuring out how to get this important protection is a Gordian Knot that we are tackling over the next year.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics — That Benjamin Disraeli quote is alive and well in cyber marketing.  Not a week goes by that we don’t get a pitch on a “study” that shows the cost of cybercrime is going up citing a 10-year-old statistic that was refuted by the original source just three months after it came out originally. We are going to tackle the REAL numbers and call out the BS.

There are jobs and then there are “jobs” — Along side the problem with “statistics” is the problem off cybersecurity job openings.  Training programs are abounding and a clear profit center for some companies. But recent article in Commentary by Bruce Schneier, godfather of all thing cyber, called into question whether all that training is producing hirable workers.  It’s time for a hard look at what kind of worker is actually needed.

AI: Huh! What is it good for? — AI is all the rage, and the hype is strong with this buzzword.  But is a general AI really worth the investment?  It seems clear that a targeted approach to AI, ensuring the data is clean, is a more effective use of the tech.  At least, that’s what we are going to find out.

Profiting from poisoned data — Some data scientists have claimed that up to 50 percent of all AI data sets have been “poisoned” or corrupted, intentionally or unintentionally.  Now there is research helping creatives purposely poison their data to keep AI companies from stealing their content.

Fire from the sky — It’s getting crowded up in the low-space realm above earth.  Satellites are proliferating rapidly and creating an entire new battlefield for international conflict.  Can we secure that? Let’s find out.

SaaS: a major battleground in security — If you are in business today, you are probably using Software as a Service (SaaS).  And that’s where cybercriminals like to hang out.  Is it possible to protect yourself… even a little bit.

Many of those subjects will become special issues so there are a lot of opportunities out there.  We are open to other ideas, but base your pitches on those subjects to guaranteed inclusion.  Let’s finish the year strong and start the new year even stronger.