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NewsBriefs

World Economic Forum forms cybersecurity consortium The consortium plans to begin work
in conjunction with the organiza-
On March 6, 2018, the World Economic Forum launched a consortium tion's Global Centre for Cyberse-
dedicated to bolstering cybersecurity within the financial technology and data curity, which opened recently in
aggregator sectors. The consortium came together after leading cybersecurity Geneva, Switzerland. According to
experts convened by the forum identified the growing threat of cyber-attacks the forum, the aim of the center is
to financial services providers as a key concern for global financial systems. to establish the first global platform
"Fintechs can only deliver on their customer experience promises if the financial for governments, businesses, experts
system is able to manage the risks adequately," said Matthew Blake, Head of the and law enforcement agencies to col-
Financial and Monetary System Initiative at the forum. "This consortium will laborate on cybersecurity challeng-
offer technology companies a clear goalpost and thus enable them to implement es. The consortium plans to focus on
sound cybersecurity measures at the product design stage." four key areas: development of com-
mon principles for cybersecurity as-
sessments, guidance for implemen-
tation, a point-based scoring frame-
work and guidance on improving an
organization's score.
CyberEdge finds rising
security concerns
A report published March 7, 2018, by
CyberEdge Group noted year-over-
year growth in security concerns
and threats. Researchers surveyed
1,200 information technology man-
agers from 17 countries and 19 in-
dustries to examine the emerging
threat landscape and respondents'
security postures, investments and
strategies for this fifth annual re-
port. Respondents cited cloud se-
curity, data privacy, access control
and threat monitoring among their
leading challenges. "Although we've
presented multiple pieces of evi-
dence to suggest that IT security has
finally stemmed the tide of success-
ful cyberattacks, this doesn't mean
that life is peachy keen," researchers
wrote. "Far from it."

Survey respondents cited lack of
skilled IT personnel, low security
awareness and data overload as
leading inhibitors to data protection.
"Last year's stunning finding that
nearly nine out of ten organizations
are experiencing a shortage of IT
security talent validated recurring
headlines that claim there's a global
shortage of one to two million cyber-
security professionals," researchers
wrote. "The good news, if it can be
called that, is that our results this
time around show a modest im-
provement in this area, with only
eight out of ten (i.e., four in five), now
indicating that their organizations
are impacted by the security talent
shortfall."
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