When the holiday season comes around, pretty much every thought turns to those things that make this time of the year so special: gathering with family and friends, gift-giving and receiving, food and beverage consumption, and most likely some time away from the office. This is the personal view of the holidays. Of course, there’s another side to this coin—the side that makes all of that happen: the businesses that supply food, beverage, gifts, and services… and the time off for their employees to enjoy the holidays.

We have many conversations with InfoSec professionals from around the world and often we hear about how important it is to raise awareness for our employees—not only at work but also at home. During these conversations, there seems to be a common theme that continues to surface: if the employees take cybersecurity seriously at home—making it important to protect themselves and their families—then that learning will “stick” better when they come back into the office.

The team at CyberIreland invited ITSPmagazine to join them for a joint event with Ireland Israel Business. During the event, Jacky Fox, Managing Director and Security Lead at Accenture Ireland and Vice Chair for Cyber Ireland, moderated a panel covering many aspects of cybersecurity in Ireland and in collaboration with Israel.

Ultimately, we get into the complicated discussion about what Ireland's cyber responsibilities are in the European and Global economies, given the country's drive to be the central hub for European technologies and push to draw multinationals from the US and beyond. It's a quick listen, but one worth popping on a set of earphones.

Deep fakes, fake news, surveillance, facial recognition, privacy, breach fatigue, massive data collection, anti-surveillance trends and products, education, social engineering, and so much more - even fashion. A lot of fashion talk on this podcast. Maybe. Maybe not.

Everyone loves the conveniences, but most of us have no idea how these things work nor what they are doing behind the scenes. Nevertheless, we are in this Internet of Things (IoT) system 24/7; grandma and grandpa are on it, so are the teenagers, and even the very young kids have connected tablets these days. Meanwhile, nobody knows much about it.

Wolfgang is a cyber security strategist, who has an immense depth of experience which he likes to share with his Stuck In Traffic video series. Jenny and The Wolf talk about how he got started in the industry, they explore how the attack vectors and their sophistication have changed over time.

Cyber threats are everywhere — every country around the world is dealing with cybercrime and trying to keep their societies cyber safe with the onslaught of technological advancements in connected devices, apps, and cloud-enabled services. While the problems — and the solutions to them — may sound the same at the surface level, the devil is in the details. This is true when it comes to different regions around the world — it remains especially true when representatives present the view of the problems and solutions in society that aren’t purely InfoSec focused.

Maybe not everybody knows that this term derives from the Greek words ástron (ἄστρον), meaning "star", and nautes (ναύτης), meaning "sailor".

Aeronaut, for example, was the term used for the first air traveler, which happened to be balloonists - back in the 18th century.

What's my point? Well, you'll see. But first relax, read the rest of this chronicle, and listen to the podcast — the answer may be there.

Fifty years ago, we successfully sent humans to the moon *and brought them back* with far fewer technical capabilities than we have available to the masses today: a far more robust technology now fits in our pocket and on our wrist. Yet, today, we are still dealing with cybersecurity issues that seem a bit silly, all things considered.

What is wrong with this picture?