CISOs who want to keep more cyber-attacks from succeeding should focus on decreasing the half-life of vulnerabilities, which refers to the amount of time it takes half of all systems affected by a vulnerability to get patched. That's the advice from Qualys' Wolfgang Kandek.

One of the most difficult challenges in protecting sensitive patient data that's used in medical research is educating researchers and other clinicians who share that data about potential privacy issues, says Dave Summitt of Moffitt Cancer Center in Florida.

By the time venture capitalist Alberto Yépez had breakfast on Monday, global markets had plunged, and the Dow had lost 1,000 points and gained back nearly 900. His message to cybersecurity investors about the volatile market: "I'm still bullish."

Rand Corp.'s Martin Libicki sees circumstances in which a weaker economy could curtail Chinese cyber spying on U.S. companies. Then again, he says, the Chinese government could see spending money on hacking as an economic stimulus.

Hacker attacks often start with spear-phishing attempts, but healthcare entities can take steps to help prevent these scams from being successful, says Connie Barrera, CISO of Jackson Health System in Miami, who describes her organization's approach.

To help mitigate the risk that blackmail and extortion campaigns might target employees, employers' security teams must regularly review post-breach data dumps as well ramp up enforcement of their corporate security policies, says Stephen Coty of Alert Logic.

Despite the ongoing ban on federal funding for the development of a national unique patient identifier, progress is being made through collaborative efforts to improve patient data matching to ensure safety and privacy, says security expert Lisa Gallagher.

An inspector general's memo that highlights three significant information security deficiencies that have plagued the U.S. Department of Labor for the past five years points out problems that most federal agencies confront.

The recent FDA alert advising healthcare organizations to stop using a line of infusion pumps because of cybersecurity flaws, coupled with earlier guidance from the agency, will lead manufacturers to be more focused on risk management, predicts attorney Anna Spencer.

Get over it. The OPM breach and the pilfering of top U.S. government officials' private emails, presumably by the Chinese government, are acceptable forms of spying. All nations with the technical means do it.