To celebrate the halfway mark on another successful year in the finance department at Intact Specialty, the team recently held their annual BBQ event at our Plymouth, MN office. The beautiful weather called for croquet, cornhole and grilling. Here are some pictures from their fun in the sun.
As part of our ongoing Intern Spotlight Series, this week we are thrilled to introduce interns Joseph Holecek, Lindsay Ferreira and David Occhiogrosso. Through this series we aim to highlight the goals and aspirations of our interns, showcasing their unique journeys and contributions to our company.
Joseph Holecek
We are pleased to have Joseph interning with our Management Liability team this summer. Joseph will be a junior in the fall at The University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. He is eager to “explore and learn all about insurance and it’s various fields” with the goal of developing practical skills that will prepare him for a career in the industry.
Joseph was attracted to Intact because of our “commitment to professional development through the internship programs” and was drawn to our “reputation as an innovative company and industry leader in the field of specialty insurance” he says. Originally from Lincolnshire, Illinois, Joseph is looking forward to understanding the complexity of the specialty insurance industry.
The last television show Joseph watched was The Wire and the last book he read was The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. He highly recommends both. If given the opportunity to travel anywhere in the world, he would choose Rome.
Lindsay Ferreira
We are thrilled to have Lindsay interning with our Marketing and Communications team this summer in our Boston office. She is studying Marketing at The University of New Hampshire where she will be a senior in the fall. Lindsay is from Cohasset, a small coastal town on the South Shore of Massachusetts.
Throughout this internship, Lindsay hopes to learn and develop many new skills and “put them to use outside of the classroom” she says. Additionally, she is looking forward to “seeing firsthand how crucial the marketing department is for a company’s success”. Lindsay was attracted to Intact because of the collaborative atmosphere and because “the team appears to be very close-knit, fostering an environment where creativity flourishes and ideas are shared openly” she says.
If Lindsay had the chance to travel anywhere in the world, she would go to Australia to see the Great Barrier Reef. The last television show she watched was Suits and she is excited to watch the new season on Netflix.
David Occhiogrosso
David will be a senior this fall at Johnson County Community College, and we are thrilled to have him join us this summer. Originally from New Hyde Park, New York, David moved to Kansas as a child and has lived there most of his life. David is looking forward to understanding the Business’s operations and maintenance.
David is eager to explore different career avenues and network with colleagues throughout the summer. His goal is to “absorb insights, contribute meaningfully, and hone my professional skills” he says. David was introduced to Intact by our very own Richard Bennett, who spoke highly of the company and its impactful work. David was intrigued by his endorsement, and it motivated him to “explore opportunities with Intact further” he says.
If David could travel anywhere in the world, he would visit Sicily and Rome. “I’ve always dreamed of exploring the rich history and beauty of Italy firsthand” he says. The last book he read was The Mysterious Island, a science fiction novel.
Best of Luck Joseph, Lindsay and David! We look forward to working with you and being a part of your career development.
Our Intact Technology team is excited to sponsor “The Ergonomics Blueprint for Tomorrow’s Laboratory: Proven Strategies for Smart Lab Managers and Science Decision Makers” presented by Alison Heller-Ono, PT, CPE, and expert in Laboratory Ergonomics.
| In this virtual seminar, you will leave with these actionable steps: – To implement the most essential components of an operational ergonomics process. – To calculate the true cost of lab injuries to your workforce and operations. – To reduce the risk of injury by controlling the top four exposures hurting lab scientists. – Draw your ergonomics blueprint for today and tomorrow with these five strategies – Activate critical control measures all labs need to take for health and wellbeing. – And more! We hope to see you there! Register Now! |
The digital acceleration that occurred last year will continue to have far-reaching effects when it comes to cyber security. Security Boulevard predicts the global cost of cyber crime will reach $11 million per minute by 2021. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, data breaches decreased 30 percent in 2020 because cyber crooks are focusing on attacks that require logins and passwords to gain access to corporate networks for ransomware or Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams.
Social engineering will become more sophisticated and remain a prominent tool used in all forms of phishing attacks. Social media has contributed to the wealth of free information available about individuals and organizations making it easier to profile potential targets with credible details prior to launching an attack. By employing technology to gather this data, crooks can effectively create highly targeted spear phishing attacks. In November 2020 Proofpoint reported SMiShing attacks had increased more than 300%. In August 2020 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned of a substantial increase in scams originating on social media. No topic is off limits to the intruders. Pandemic-related topics, such as testing, contact tracing and vaccines, will continue to be used as lures.
In July 2020 Forbes reported that an audit of the Dark Web, the portion of the Internet that uses anonymity tools to hide network addresses, revealed that 15 billion stolen logins and passwords from 100,000 cyber breaches are in circulation. This data can be bought for mere pennies making it critical to use multi-factor authentication (MFA) whenever it is available. WatchGuard boldly predicts any service without MFA is highly likely to be compromised in 2021.
In Q3-2020 Check Point Research saw a 50% increase in the global daily average of ransomware attacks as compared to the first half of the year. Ransomware tactics have become increasingly aggressive. Traditional ransomware attacks denied access to systems and data. The methodology, however, has evolved to include double extortion with crooks threatening to leak the data if ransom is not paid. In addition, cyber criminals are offering to deploy ransomware as a one-time or ongoing service. Alternatively, security firms have begun offering ransomware brokering services to negotiate with attackers. Healthcare remains an alluring target due to the urgency associated with accessing records and systems, which increases the likelihood of paying a ransom.
Rapidly transitioning to remote learning along with the outsourcing of distance learning tools likely resulted in cyber security gaps making educational institutions vulnerable to attack. A December alert from the National Cyber Awareness System warned that kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12) educational institutions are being targeted for ransomware attacks, data theft, and disruption of distance learning through 2021.
The Internet of Things (IoT) will continue to expand and be combined with the Internet of Behaviors (IoB). The IoB uses the data collected via the IoT to build a profile from multiple sources and intelligently anticipate human behaviors. The IoB is still in the infancy stage but has the potential to become an essential sales and marketing tool. It remains to be seen how ethical questions will be resolved.
Deepfakes have the potential to fundamentally change how the world is perceived. As quality improves, discerning truth from fiction becomes more difficult. In October 2020 Adobe announced the pre-release of a content attribution tool that provides an audit trail of a photo including the author’s name, location, and a history of the photo edits.
Cyber espionage and attacks by nation states are becoming more advanced. In December 2020 the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) issued an emergency directive regarding a global hack of the SolarWinds Orion suite of business software products. Concurrently, Reuters reported that a National Security Council meeting was held at the White House on a Saturday because hackers allegedly working for Russia have been monitoring internal traffic at the United States Treasury and Commerce Departments. It appears that the compromise began in March 2020 and was accomplished via a supply chain attack when malware was hidden in the body of legitimate software updates that were then provided to targets via a third party. Orion software is widely used by the United States government and companies worldwide to monitor their networks. The extent of this hack is still unknown, and it underscores the enormous risk posed by third-party vendors.
These items are merely a snippet of today’s cyber security challenges. Keeping pace with the increasing number of constantly evolving threats will continue to be a demanding but vital focus for us all in 2021.
Medicine plays a vital role in safeguarding public health throughout the world. Pharmaceutical companies develop medicines to treat and cure sickness and disease. However, despite these noble intentions, occasionally substances created for a specific therapeutic purpose become dangerous. As such, federal and state governments have passed numerous laws to control and manage the prescription, use, storage, handling and disposal of such controlled substances.
To offer you and your clients deeper insights on this topic, we are pleased to announce the publication of our latest Technology whitepaper titled “DEA Controlled Substances & Regulatory Compliance” authored by Technology Risk Control Specialist Elizabeth Marazzo. In this whitepaper, she provides an overview of DEA requirements and controls that should be in place for organizations who handle, manufacture and/or store controlled substances.
Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions. More whitepapers can be found on our website at onebeacontech.com/whitepapers.