3 Tracking the leading edge
Like many computing topics, information security sits in a turbulent landscape and, like the weather, it is sometimes easier to see what will happen in the long term (five or ten years hence) than what will happen tomorrow. There is a constant turnover of technologies, research, organisations and commentators that makes it difficult to:
- keep tabs on the issues that arise on a day-to-day basis and to know which are the issues that you should be concerned about
- know where to turn to find information – and an in-depth evaluation – about those issues.
In this section you will survey the industry’s response to these issues. The response isn’t centralised in a single website but in the work of hundreds of individuals, either acting alone or on behalf of their organisation. The resources that they provide in the form of podcasts and other assets form the richest of resources for navigating the turbulent landscape of InfoSec (information security).
Even with such rich resources it won’t be possible to predict tomorrow’s headlines in information security. For example, which organisation will lose their customers' personal details to a hacker [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] (Protalinski, 2013), which virus will strike complex processing control machinery (Wikipedia, 2016b) or which minister will divulge important policy details through a photograph of their meeting notes.
Nor can anyone predict the immediate or long-term response to such things: which legislation and regulation will be introduced or amended to require 2048 bit encoding of customer details, or the requirement that ministers must use opaque wallets for carrying meeting notes.
However, by staying up-to-date with regularly updated web resources, you may be in a better position to respond to InfoSec issues – both personally and within your organisation.