Dear Reader, 

We’ve been unusually busy the past three months.  We published a special issue on election security in August and then got to work on our penultimate issue for the it-sa365 conference in Germany.  That latter looks to be the largest we’ve ever done. It was handed out at the conference in print form. A PDF copy is available to subscribers on the website.

We have also been buried under the usual tranch of “exclusive” surveys and reports about the cybersecurity.  This seems to have become a popular form of marketing, but most of the results are repetitive and not newsworthy, but it has given us an idea for an article.

Many of the reports state that executives are concerned that they are unprepared to deal with security issues, specifically protecting customer data.  That begs several questions because that is the story of almost every survey we get.

Is it because they are not confident that providers (like the companies sending us these surveys) can protect that data; maybe they don’t know how the tools and services work; or the providers have not figured out how to communicate the tools value? Or is it some other problem altogether?  We will be putting that together over the next few days and already have 20 responses.

The imminence of general AI and quantum computing is an evergreen story and we are looking into several potential stories for our final special issue of the year.  One of those stories is whether the world has the infrastructure to support those efforts. 

Microsoft recently announced plans to pay $100 million to reactivate the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to provide steady power to a new AI data center.  However, even operating at full power, the plant will not be able to meet the demand. 

And in order to build a quantum computer powerful enough to break a 256-bit encryption on a single file, it will need 100MW per hour for 8 hours. That alone will require the power generation of a medium size nuclear power plant.  So are those technologies even viable?  We will find out.

In the issue we will also take a look back at our first special issue of the year where we published our predictions and those of several others. We will decide if we even came close.

The next few weeks will determine what our larger calendar will cover in 2025, so if you have suggestions, especially if you would like to sponsor those issues, drop us a line.

In the meantime, don’t forget we are now offering media training to make sure your issues get broader coverage and that you can differentiate yourself from the 5,000 competitors you are working against.

Happy reading

Lou Covey, Joe Basques and Patrick Boch

Awareness Month

With Cybersecurity Awareness Month coming to an end, it might be worthwhile to see what you've missed - at least here on Cyber Protection Magazine. We've covered the event with several articles this year, here's a selection.

Hacker's strategies

In the everlasting battle between good and bad cyber criminals don't lack innovation and creativity. The latest hype in the cyber attack department: pig butchering. Actually relatively simple, but effective - it uses social engineering and humans are just easier to trick than machines. Be aware and check every message you receive!

It's become increasingly easy to step over to the dark side - as our author Andy Swift explores in this article.