2018 articles spotlight innovation's cybersecurity and compliance risk

High-profile data breaches at major corporations, newly implemented GDPR rules and ever-evolving online threats -- 2018 continued to prove that cybersecurity and compliance remain top concerns for enterprise CIOs.

Throughout the year, SearchCIO provided strategic advice, news coverage and analysis of these enterprise cybersecurity and compliance trends. Firsthand advice gathered from IT execs facing these data protection issues will go a long way to help understand the evolving threats facing modern companies -- and how to overcome them.

These complications aren't going anywhere, either. Companies will continue to face seemingly endless data vulnerabilities in 2019, and lessons learned from the past year can go a long way to incorporating innovative information protection strategies. Here is a look back at our top cybersecurity and compliance articles from the past year for expert guidance to help craft your data protection strategy.

Ex-Equifax CIO indicted, creating a warning for unscrupulous IT execs

One of our most popular security stories from 2018 actually began the year before, when the Equifax breach exposed personal information of more than 145 million customers in summer 2017. In March 2018, former Equifax CIO Jun Ying was indicted for insider trading based on allegations he sold more than $950,000 worth of company stock just days before the company publicly announced the breach. In this news analysis, experts discuss the fallout of Ying's indictment and what CIOs at other companies with vulnerable data need to know.

GDPR strategy: 4 tips to bring IT processes up to speed

The EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was a big topic this year, as companies strived to meet the June compliance deadline. In a webinar produced about 90 days in, a panel of experts discussed GDPR compliance tips to help companies that fell behind and provided advice about how to remain compliant once they started to catch up. The panelists' main point? GDPR strategy is not a "set it and forget it" type of process, and companies must continuously monitor and update their processes to remain compliant.

Aanchal Gupta

Facebook director of security talks data protection efforts

Facebook had a tough year from a cybersecurity and compliance standpoint: In addition to the Cambridge Analytica data-sharing scandal, a security breach affected at least 50 million users and put the company in the crosshairs of GDPR regulators. In this multipart Q&A, Aanchal Gupta, who is now head of security and blockchain at Facebook, gives an overview of the best practices and methodologies that Facebook is incorporating to protect user data.

Step by step guide to avoid 'My Activity' data privacy risks

Activity Controls are a family of features in a Google Account that tracks all search and browsing history activities. It also creates a personal location map of where people go with logged-in devices, creating endless privacy and security vulnerabilities. In this popular tip from SearchCompliance, learn how to avoid those threats.

Layered cybersecurity: OSI security risks and frameworks to offset them

Every layer of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) presents unique, but connected, vulnerabilities. To offset these risks, it's important to address vulnerabilities by layer. Read this tip to learn how to establish an OSI security and compliance framework for each of the seven layers of the OSI model.

New data governance strategies offset risks created by multi-cloud

More enterprises are adopting multi-cloud environments to avoid vendor lock-in, increase IT agility and, of course, decrease costs. But CIOs pursuing multi-cloud strategies face numerous cybersecurity and regulatory compliance challenges. In this tip, experts discuss how innovative data governance strategies are helping CIOs avoid vulnerabilities in multi-cloud systems.

What is the CIO role in modern enterprise cybersecurity?

As CIOs continue to play a pivotal role in their organization's digital transformation, the cybersecurity questions that come with the necessary IT changes must be answered. Panelists at the 2018 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium discussed C-level cybersecurity leadership during digital transformation, and why the CIO's cybersecurity knowledge is a big factor in digital transformation success.

Martin Sokalski

The top RPA security risks -- and how CIOs are preventing them

CIOs have been hearing about the business benefits of robotic process automation (RPA) for a while now, but the technology is certainly not without its business risks. Saurabh Gupta, chief strategy officer with HfS Research Ltd., and Martin Sokalski, principal in Emerging Technology Risk services at professional services firm KPMG, discuss unique RPA security considerations that are required to successfully deploy this emerging technology.

As threats proliferate, IT leaders plan cybersecurity investments

Rapidly evolving cyberthreats and new compliance rules like GDPR are forcing companies to re-examine dated data protection strategies. And while many IT leaders report that their organizations are definitely vulnerable to attack, plans are in the works to increase spending, hiring and overall investment in cybersecurity-related projects.

Steps to overcome the risks associated with advancing business tech

As tech such as cloud, AI and IoT has become ubiquitous in digitized business settings, adopting these innovations has also created unprecedented security concerns for businesses. In this feature, experts provide advice for CIOs to beware the associated, underlying risk that comes with these evolving technologies.