Shannon Wilkinson, President of Axiom Cyber Solutions, selected as the 2018 Las Vegas Women in Technology – Cybersecurity Award Winner

Shannon Wilkinson, President of Axiom Cyber Solutions, selected as the 2018 Las Vegas Women in Technology – Cybersecurity Award Winner


On Saturday, April 28th, President of Axiom Cyber Solutions, Shannon Wilkinson (far left), was selected as the 2018 Las Vegas Women in Technology – Cybersecurity award winner.

“I am incredibly honored to receive the inaugural Las Vegas Women in Technology for Cybersecurity award. Three years ago, I started Axiom Cyber Solutions with the best business partner I could ask for, my husband, Troy. I also want to thank my parents for always supporting me and not batting an eye when I told them that I wanted to run off to join a United Nations peacekeeping mission after I graduated from UNLV. Lastly, I’d like to dedicate the award to the future of technology – our three young daughters who have already started showing an extreme interest in technology and thank the community for their support of education for girls in technology,” said Shannon Wilkinson.

The Las Vegas Women in Technology Awards recognizes the women working in and changing the face of the technology community in Las Vegas

 

As President of the Las Vegas Women in Technology award program from the Las Vegas Community Tech fund I want to personally congratulate you on your award!  The technology community of Southern Nevada “has spoken” and they choose you for all your hard work, progress and great achievements in technology.

Lori Nguyen, Las Vegas Women in Technology Awards

The Las Vegas Women in Technology Awards accepts nominations from the community for for the following categories:

  • Technology Woman of the Year
  • Technology Woman Entrepreneur
  • Technology Woman for Community Service
  • Technology Woman Mentor
  • Technology Woman Rising Star
  • Technology Woman for Gaming & Hospitality (New 2018)
  • Technology Woman for Cybersecurity (New 2018)

In addition to honoring professional women, the awards also recognizes outstanding local students in coordination with the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) for Aspirations in Computing, Collegiate, and Educator awards.

Shannon Wilkinson, President of Axiom Cyber Solutions, Selected as Top 100 Women of Influence by MYVegas Magazine

Shannon Wilkinson, President of Axiom Cyber Solutions, Selected as Top 100 Women of Influence by MYVegas Magazine

For the second year in a row, President of Axiom Cyber Solutions, Shannon Wilkinson, has been named to the Top 100 Women of Las Vegas by MyVegas Magazine. MYVegas Magazine polls over 100,000 of its readers to find the Top 100 Women in Las Vegas each year.

These women come highly recommended by our readers and our community! There’s no shortage of fabulous females in the Las Vegas Valley, so ranking among the Top 100 Women of the Year is an extraordinary honor and sought-after accolade. – MYVegas Magazine

Shannon Wilkinson stated “I am very honored to have been nominated and selected as one of the Top 100 Women of Las Vegas. To see the outstanding line-up of other women being honored, I am humbled to be included in the list for 2018.”

MYVegas Magazine is available for free around the community or a free copy can be requested from their website www.myvegasmag.com

MYVegas Top 100 Women 2018

Why Threat Intelligence is Not Always Intelligent

Why Threat Intelligence is Not Always Intelligent

The primary purpose of threat intelligence is to help organizations understand what kind of threats they may face, zero-day attacks or exploits. The problem that exists for many organizations about threat intelligence is that there can be so much information coming at them, so much information to act upon, but no time or resources to shift through it, much less apply it to the company’s cybersecurity defense and/or strategy.

Threat intelligence that doesn’t do anything is not that intelligent.

Brent Watkins, FBI Special Agent (Retired), Axiom Cyber Solutions Head of Business Development

There is a real issue with cybersecurity alert fatigue. It is such a problem that TechRepublic ran an article titled “Why notification overload is killing enterprise cybersecurity teams“. Cybersecurity fatigue affects 72% of organizations and part of the problem is the cybersecurity skills gap that only seems to be widening, rather than closing. Basically, the conclusion of a Bitdefender report called CISO’s Hardest Burden is that unless companies have enough personnel to deal with the incoming threat reports, they cannot improve their security.

And if cybersecurity teams, or the lone IT professional tasked with anything & everything within the organization (including cybersecurity, which is not a hobby), are overwhelmed, what does that mean for the cybersecurity defense of the organisation? Troy Wilkinson, CEO of Axiom Cyber Solutions, has frequently discussed that a company’s risk factor exponentially increases from the time that a vulnerability is disclosed to the time that a patch is applied yet still so many organizations are struggling to stay on top of their cybersecurity defense.

The result of the mismatch between the magnitude of threat data and the qualified resources needed to analyze and respond to new threats is increasingly costly and damaging data breaches across all industries from healthcare to financial services to retail and food service.

The problem with threat intelligence data is that it does require that someone in the organization to analyze and apply changes. Changes that may need to go through a strenuous and timely change management approval process which further slows down apply patches to maintain a secure cyber defense. And by the time that a change to the defense may be approved, there are thousands of other possible changes that have come through. So where does it end?

Axiom’s Polymorphic Threat Defense System

Recognizing the need to marry threat intelligence with action, Axiom Cyber Solutions developed its Polymorphic Threat Defense Systems used by both our Axiom SecureAmerica and Axiom Shield products. Axiom has curated over 100 open and closed sources of threat data to bring into our platform which allows us to currently push out over 350,000 threat data points a day to our clients. And to steal a line from “As Seen on TV”…but wait there’s more… one of the beautiful things about connecting with Axiom’s platform is that it requires no action on the part of the customer. All updates from our platform are fully automated and applied without intervention.

Threat actors are constantly evolving their tactics, methods, and connection points. It is important that we also evolve our defenses just as fast, if not faster, to ensure that we are doing our best to protect our businesses.

If you are interested in more information about Axiom’s Polymorphic Threat Defense System, please contact us or call 800-519-5070.

Cybersecurity and the Medical Field: Six Solutions You Should Implement Today

Cybersecurity and the Medical Field: Six Solutions You Should Implement Today

United States healthcare organizations, from small two-person offices to massive hospitals, need to draw their attention to cybersecurity. While many medical personnel don’t understand or think they need it, a recent report by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services on cybersecurity disagrees.

The industry must come together to address this growing concern and this blog will give you six solid ways to do so.

 

Why Healthcare Organizations are Targeted

According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, social security numbers have the possibility of being more exposed in healthcare than any other industry.

In addition, because doctors’ offices, hospitals and suppliers are often interconnected with Electronic Health Records, once a cybercriminal breaches one system, it’s much easier to crack into others.

Unlike credit card numbers that are generally used within a few minutes to a few days of being stolen, health records are valuable to a bad actor up to ten years after they capture the data. If the patient information is sensitive in nature, it can be used a blackmail against them.

One other important note, health records are ten to sixty times more valuable on the dark web than credit card information.

 

How Bad Actors Get In

Nurses, doctors and administrators typically don’t understand data breach risks; therefore, cybercriminals access patient records in one or more of the following ways:

  1. While smart devices help diagnose and treat patients, they often have the lowest level of encryption which make them great entry points
  2. Legacy hardware that doesn’t support current operating systems and applications and software that hasn’t been upgraded and updated is another method
  3. Electronic Health Records (EHRs), that are purposefully or accidently given to the wrong individuals
  4. Patient portals that do not have end-to-end encryption

Unfortunately, even today, only 25% of all U.S. hospitals have a designated cybersecurity specialist, according to Healthcare IT News. This makes reporting and monitoring difficult.

Ignoring Cybersecurity is Risky Business

If patient data is stolen or compromised, your organization will be held accountable under HIPPA guidelines and will incur heavy regulatory fines. In addition, if enough records are exposed, your brand reputation will suffer leaving patients to possibly seek other medical options. Last, if your records are held for ransomware, you may have to pay millions of dollars for return of those records.

 

Six Effective Cybersecurity Solutions

  1. Put one individual in charge of cybersecurity.
    Whether you run a small office or a sprawling medical complex, one person needs to oversee cybersecurity. This person will set policy. They will be the conduit to others to report problems and suspected breaches.
  2. Complete a benefit/risk analysis of all connected devices.
    What is the value of each device? Is there an alternative product that offers a better cybersecurity choice? What is your BYOD policy? A complete analysis should be completed before moving to the next step.
  3. Set in place cybersecurity standards and practices.
    Once a thorough analysis of your hardware, software and network solutions is concluded, which should include virtual workers and suppliers that can tie into your network, you are armed with enough information to move forward on an effective policy. Work with outside consultants who can analyze your vulnerabilities effectively.
  4. Subscribe to updates from the Health Care Industry Cybersecurity Task Force.
    This 21-member task force is responsible for researching and making recommendations on healthcare cybersecurity initiatives. They offer best practices, on an ongoing basis, to prepare your organization against an attack.
  1. Implement a strong continuous monitoring solution.
    Effective cybersecurity starts by protecting the data that resides on the network. Failure to have 24/7 monitoring can result in data loss, ransomware and impact your brand integrity.
  2. Outsource cybersecurity.
    The funding required to hire, train and keep cybersecurity talent may simply not be available for small-to-medium medical facilities. Tack on assessment software and monitoring solutions, which can be enough to push your small IT budget over the edge, not allowing you to move forward on other needed equipment upgrades. Outsourcing handles all of the above concerns and more.

Axiom Cyber Solutions Can Protect Your Medical Establishment

We offer the world’s first polymorphic cyber defense platform that can identify the newest threats, vulnerabilities, and automatically dispatch updates in real-time. This included ransomware and DDoS mitigation, as well as, dynamic dark web protection. Contact us today to learn more about how we can protect your data today!