Andrew M. Rosini, Senior Managing Director, FTI Consulting, Inc. to Speak at The Knowledge Group’s Internal Investigations
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Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: Andrew M. Rosini, Senior Managing Director, FTI Consulting, Inc. to Speak at The Knowledge Groups Internal Investigations
The Knowledge Group, the leading producer of regulatory-focused webcasts, has announced today that Andrew M. Rosini, Senior Managing Director, Leader of Global Risk & Investigations Practice, FTI Consulting, Inc. will speak at its webcast entitled, Enhancing Corporate Governance with Effective Internal Investigations.
(1888PressRelease) June 07, 2024 – This event is scheduled for June 20, 2024, from 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM ET.
For further details, please visit:
https://knowledgewebcasts.com/know-portfolio/enhancing-corporate-governance-cle/
About Andrew M. Rosini
Andrew Rosini is a Senior Managing Director and Leader of the Global Risk and Investigations Practice in FTI Consultings Forensic & Litigation Consulting segment and is based in New York. Mr. Rosini joined FTI Consulting in November 2010 and specializes in fraud investigations, compliance program evaluations, forensic transaction reviews, litigation support and investigative due diligence. He combines years of experience in law enforcement, a background in accounting and finance and a deep understanding of technology solutions and data analysis to deliver valuable services to clients.
About FTI Consulting, Inc.
Over the last 40 years, FTI Consulting has grown to become a market-leading global consulting firm that brings together distinct capabilities and experts to serve as the trusted advisor to clients when they are facing their greatest opportunities and challenges. Each practice is a leader in its own right, staffed with experts recognized for the depth of their knowledge and a track record of making an impact. Collectively, FTI Consulting offers a comprehensive suite of services designed to assist clients across the business cyclefrom proactive risk management to the ability to respond rapidly to unexpected crises and dynamic environments.
Event Summary
In todays complex business landscape, maintaining robust corporate governance practices is paramount for ensuring transparency, accountability, and ethical conduct within organizations. One of the crucial components of effective corporate governance is the implementation of thorough and efficient internal investigations processes.
Join our speakers in this CLE webcast for an insightful webinar where we delve into the strategies and best practices for enhancing corporate governance through effective internal investigations.
Key topics include:
– Internal investigations as an aspect of proper corporate governance
– Elements of an effective internal investigation framework and the critical legal and regulatory considerations in the internal investigation framework
– Best practices
About The Knowledge Group
Founded in November 2006, The Knowledge Group has been at the forefront of providing quality continuing education programs for lawyers, accountants, financial executives, risk and compliance specialists, human resources professionals, technology officers, and business consultants in a wide range of industries.
The Knowledge Group strives to be the best-in-class provider of continuing education by bringing forth relevant content you cant get anywhere else.
Contact:
Therese Lumbao
Director, Account Management & Member Services
The Knowledge Group, LLC
info ( @ ) theknowledgegroup dot org
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The vitality sector has emerged as an increasingly extra inclined target for cyberattacks, with a rising need of high-profile circumstances around the globe within the previous couple of years.
Because the realm gradually transitions to renewable energy, the photo voltaic trade is additionally within the firing line. It’s estimated that photo voltaic shall be the one largest provide of vitality by 2030, so whereas there were no critical attacks on PV technology but, that is also increasingly extra tempting to risk actors. The enviornment shares the identical vulnerabilities because the broader vitality sector and a few piquant disorders that paddle away it at risk.
Main trade physique SolarPower Europe not too prolonged ago printed a paper [1] highlighting the dangers and calling for additional photo voltaic-convey security strategies to mitigate the hurt. Within the UK, concerns were raised about security threats emerging with the switch towards green vitality.
Right here we focus on the most most likely paths of attack on PV technology, the affect of a excessive incident, and what the trade can secure to harden its defences in opposition to a rising risk.
What are the leading cyber threats going via PV?
Vitality generation and distribution are highly inclined to disruptive attacks corresponding to ransomware attributable to the dire penalties of a excessive outage. This places the field within the sights of both criminal gangs having a look to extort funds and nation-convey actors having a look to sow discord. The ransomware group BlackCat has been all for a string of incidents including vitality seller Encevo and the German vitality agency.
Industry heads and political leaders alike enjoy additionally reported an increasing need of attacks for the reason that outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war [2].
While some groups are motivated by corporate espionage, aiming to interrupt into the machine and take precious IP, most perpetrators purpose to ship standard disruption, affecting a enormous need of alternative folks with impacted provide and/or prolonged blackouts.
As such, attacks on PV technology will nearly certainly be on a utility-scale level. While residential installations are extra inclined, their highly distributed nature manner any attack will enjoy a decrease affect on the characteristic of the overall grid.
The distributed nature of utility-scale PV additionally makes it a aesthetic target. A PV grid will on the total involve a elevated need of smaller net sites that enjoy minute bodily security, when when put next with a single centralised extinct energy generation plant. Breaching one inverter will doubtlessly enable an attacker to “swim upstream” and attain other inverters and even separate companies on the identical community.
Alongside maximising the affect of their strike, risk groups will additionally purpose to search out the direction of least resistance into their target machine. Methods as enormous and complex as vitality infrastructure are naturally rife with lost sight of weaknesses that shall be exploited for ready machine access. Unpatched tool vulnerabilities and gaps in access controls are readily exploited by risk actors.
“Breaching one inverter will doubtlessly enable an attacker to ‘swim upstream’ and attain other inverters and even separate companies on the identical community”
The heavy reliance on cyber-bodily methods (CPS) is one other predominant security scenario. operational technology (OT) methods that reduction a watch on the bodily environment are increasingly extra interconnected with extinct IT networks.
While this has enabled several advantages in automation and much away connectivity, it additionally exposes excessive resources to cyber threats they weren’t designed for. Extra, long-established security instruments are generally ever neatly suited with OT methods, leading to gaps in security processes and blind spots in risk monitoring.
Why inverters are a top target
The inverter is with out doubt one of many predominant targets for attackers exploiting CPS. A most modern exclaim by the European Solar Manufacturing Council (ESMC) on sustainability and resilience in photo voltaic highlighted the inverter as a predominant cyber target, labelling it “the heart and brain of the PV machine” [3].
With most excessive functions for the machine being managed from the inverter, it’s a precedence target for malicious actors having a look to wreak havoc with unauthorised shutdown or discharge instructions that can interrupt provide.
As with many other aspects of the energy grid, the most attention-grabbing scenario in securing inverters is that they’ve been around for fairly a in point of fact prolonged time and were on the total not within the inspiration designed with sturdy cybersecurity in thoughts.
The trade has gone via fleet digitalisation in most modern years, ensuing in excessive methods being linked to the cloud that weren’t designed to withstand attacks originating online.
These model of methods lack total cybersecurity controls and blindly be conscious the instructions despatched to them with out confirming that the sender is licensed.
Inverters are a key target for doable attackers. Image: BayWa r.e.
Furthermore, it’s authentic to search out inverters the employ of either very total VPN encryption or simply lacking encryption altogether. As such, malicious actors are ready to breach the plant’s VPN machine and ought to most likely build ready access to every inverter on the community.
How risk actors secure their attacks
For the entire piquant factors in PV infrastructure, an attack on the photo voltaic grid will most likely initiate with the identical authentic ways seen in most incidents. Attackers will on the total purpose to make employ of stolen particular person credentials to access the community – Verizon’s annual Files Breach Investigations Account (DBIR) stumbled on that stolen credentials were gathered the most authentic blueprint of executing a breach in 2023 [4].
Until there are effective identity and access controls in set up apart, simply possessing the correct username/password mixture will on the total be adequate to grant a risk actor paunchy machine access.
Spear phishing is with out doubt one of many most efficient methods for harvesting these credentials. Posing as a relied on contact corresponding to IT enhance or an decent machine inquire of asking to substantiate login critical aspects are some of the most authentic ways. Threat actors will either starting up a phishing marketing campaign themselves, or secure cred units stolen by other criminal groups over the dark net.
Once particular person credentials were received, the attacker will inquire of to bag higher their access rights and enact lateral motion via the community to attain excessive methods and data. Once more, if there are outdated access controls and monitoring capabilities in set up apart, there’s a factual chance they’re going to be ready to switch via the machine undetected at this point.
How attacks can lead to disruption and blackouts
With access unlocked, the most articulate direction to disrupting the grid is to simply send a shutdown dispute the employ of the native protocols of the inverter. To in actual fact pour the tension on the target, the attacker could presumably presumably well today be conscious this up with a ransomware attack.
SCADA methods, engineering workstations, human-machine interfaces (HMIs) and ICS historians associated to the machine could presumably presumably well be some of the readiest targets right here, ensuing in a regular machine lockdown that grinds operations to a terminate.
To in actual fact maximise the hurt, we on the total scrutinize this model of attack accompanied with wiper instructions that could presumably presumably well bag it very complex, doubtlessly not doable, to remotely restore methods from backups. This could presumably presumably cause impacts corresponding to interrupted energy presents to lift noteworthy beyond regular time to fix. Threat actors backed by nation states shall be aiming for as noteworthy disruption as conceivable, whereas criminal groups will inquire of so as to add extra tension to bag higher the potentialities of the victim paying their ransom question.
The globalised nature of the PV provide chain is one other doable risk ingredient. Basically the most modern exclaim from the ESMC highlights Europe’s over-reliance on Chinese language manufactured PV inverters and other ingredients as a doable outdated hyperlink, with an estimated 80% of all at the moment put in inverters within the EU being made in China.
On account of China’s Nationwide Intelligence Products and companies Laws, organisations and voters are required to construct any assistance required by the convey—doubtlessly including elegant data and machine access. The ESMC speculates that in a worst-case scenario of escalated global tensions, the Chinese language authorities could presumably presumably doubtlessly orchestrate mass blackouts via Chinese language-equipped inverters. The exclaim recommends prioritising Europe-made infrastructure to diminish the risk.
Defence starts with working out
While the complexities of PV infrastructure bag it inviting to valid in opposition to cyber threats, there are several steps that operators can lift to spice up their resilience in opposition to attack and mitigate the affect on their provide.
The 1st step is to enjoy a sturdy inventory of your entire community environment. There needs to be an good overview of all resources, how they join and the blueprint they are accessed. Without this data, it is not doable to successfully switch forward with security controls. On account of the true fact long-established IT and security instruments are generally ever neatly suited with OT methods, a paunchy inventory requires specialist solutions constructed explicitly for interfacing with CPS and OT resources.
Once a paunchy and good inventory has been achieved, it shall be leveraged to perceive the predominant risk exposures. This data will reduction to structure and prioritise security efforts to present protection to the most excessive resources first.
This could presumably presumably reduction to facilitate an exposure administration strategy, discovering aspects where the machine is uncovered to exterior threats, or where interior resources shall be exploited in an attack. Once more, this needs to accommodate the bodily facet of the PV infrastructure and yarn for a technique it connects to digital methods that in turn shall be accessed online.
Coping with vulnerabilities and machine access are fundamental
Correct patch administration is with out doubt one of many most fundamental but on the total lost sight of priorities. Over 21,000 excessive vulnerabilities were reported this year alone [5], and security and IT groups will must enjoy a take care of on that are the most excessive disorders in need of pressing patching. The patching conception must additionally yarn for bodily methods that enjoy not essentially been designed with security in thoughts.
Gaining firm reduction a watch on of machine access needs to be high on the agenda. This contains deploying a veteran a long way away access solution designed for CPS environments so that most attention-grabbing licensed people could presumably presumably access the machine remotely. Alongside this, identity and access reduction a watch on measures are critical.
Following a least privilege ability will bag particular licensed customers most attention-grabbing enjoy access to methods that are critical for his or her jobs.
Crucially, these controls must veil the aspects where IT and OT sinful over. This interconnectivity on the total ends up being a blind characteristic that offers risk actors the opportunity to evade security controls.
It’s additionally critical to enjoy risk detection and monitoring instruments that are constructed namely for CPS. This could presumably presumably enable security groups to construct visibility of any doable risk train and reply quick sooner than an attack can escalate, even supposing attackers are exploiting the complexity of the CPS environment.
Within the slay, it’s critical to enjoy a sturdy backup in set up apart. A machine’s restore functionality needs to be generally tested to bag particular it’s up to the project of getting the lights reduction on quick in a disaster. As licensed, cybercriminals will on the total inquire of to encrypt or wipe backups within the event that they will access them. As such, backups ought to ideally be safely offsite or in every other case disconnected from the predominant methods to support them out of hurt’s blueprint.
Survey out frameworks to manual the protection roadmap
With the daunting dimension and scope of a entire strategy, PV operators ought to additionally inquire of to be conscious standards and frameworks that are applicable of their set up apart. This could presumably presumably reduction to construct extra structure to train.
As licensed by the SolarPower Europe exclaim [1], there’s at the moment a shortage of frameworks designed namely with PV technology in thoughts. Within the period in-between, broader vitality frameworks will take care of most PV security disorders successfully. Ideally, these frameworks needs to be seen as a baseline for security, and PV operators ought to lift a proactive stance in additional making improvements to their defences.
For firms operating within the EU, the drawing shut NIS2 directive [6] contains the broader vitality sector as a excessive trade, requiring necessary controls centred on risk evaluation and visibility. The European Price EC has additionally printed steering on vitality security [7], as has the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Company (CISA) within the US [8].
Making ready for a adverse future
Taking a look forward, heightened global tensions and emboldened criminal gangs indicate that the vitality sector is decided to remain highly inclined to cyberattacks. As photo voltaic continues to develop in prominence and scale, that is also increasingly extra uncovered to malicious actors.
We’re additionally seeing fleet shifts in technology that are additional complicating the risk panorama. The fleet tempo of AI is with out doubt one of many most influential trends, with risk actors the employ of the technology to automate both their social engineering attacks on personnel and digital attacks on infrastructure.
Operators will ought to be increasingly extra on guard about spear phishing and bag particular personnel are knowledgeable to recognise the most authentic methods.
Equally, security groups will must switch even quicker to characteristic and terminate extra automated attacks. The factual data is that AI is additionally assisting with quicker and further good security solutions.
While the complexities of CPS-heavy infrastructure indicate PV technology is a scenario to valid, the risk shall be mitigated with a entire strategy tailored to its piquant wants. Combining long-established IT security measures love patching and access controls with specialist OT security will reduction scrutinize off attackers intent on striking out the lights.
William Noto is the vice president, trade main at Claroty where he specialises in OT and cyber bodily machine (CPS) security, alongside edge computing, IIOT, ICS and renewables. He is an experienced govt with a demonstrated be conscious yarn spanning product marketing, product administration, sales, tool enhance and technology structure.
Ronda Rousey became finest two fights into her MMA occupation when she signed with Strikeforce. Quickly after, she grew to turn into one among the faces of the sport and helped usher females into UFC.
It’s been documented frequently over that UFC CEO Dana White famously talked about females would never fight in the octagon, but Rousey grew to turn into the game-changer that altered his imaginative and prescient for the promotion. Nonetheless the total skill aid in 2011, Rousey became correct an up-an-coming fighter hoping she would possibly perchance perchance web ample of an affect for any individual esteem White to peek her.
Taking a gaze aid now, Rousey admits she felt a responsibility to web White’s attention, seriously with the accelerate bet that females had been potentially on the decreasing block after UFC bought Strikeforce.
“Of us omit how fragile that enviornment became and how closing-minute I became ready to web us in,” Rousey knowledgeable Chris Van Vliet. “Strikeforce became the suitable organization that became truly showcasing females and that became on myth of Gina Carano, because her dad became alive to with the Nevada Athletic Payment and became ready to sanction fights for her and all these objects.
“When she became long previous, Cris Cyborg’s pumped to the f*cking gills with steroids. No one needs to see that dishonest ass bitch. The whole lot correct tanked. The division became loss of life. The UFC bought Strikeforce and it became assumed they had been correct going to absorb the total male skill that they loved and fold the overall organization, because that’s what they did with PRIDE, that’s what they did with WEC, that became their industrial model. So there became a matter of time.”
Earlier than Rousey’s arrival, Carano became positively the largest enormous establish in females’s MMA, but she successfully left the sport in 2009 after she suffered a first-spherical TKO loss to Cris Cyborg. Her departure from MMA didn’t stop Strikeforce from selling females’s fights, but Rousey knew UFC shopping for the organization became going to potentially swap all the things.
From that moment forward, Rousey made it her mission to web attention by any manner needed, and her devastating finishes combined with her penchant for the dramatic every time she touched a microphone helped her turn into a large establish.
“I became the predominant lady signed to Strikeforce because it got bought by Zuffa, and I became brought in to substitute Gina Carano because she became alleged to are accessible in for a comeback but she wasn’t medically cleared to come aid for her match,” Rousey talked about. “So she pulled out they in most cases signed me to fight that identical chick, Sarah D’Alelio. So I knew the clock became ticking.
“It became correct a matter of time sooner than they closed the overall thing and there would be nowhere that would possibly perchance perchance perchance showcase females’s MMA, so I had that phenomenal time to be definite that that Dana [White] couldn’t scuttle a single day with out seeing my establish somewhere. The rest is history.”
Even after White decided to promote females’s fights in UFC, Rousey restful didn’t feel esteem she became standing on solid ground.
On the starting, females finest had one UFC division and it became headed up by Rousey along with her phenomenal skill to scheme a crowd. Even after UFC dedicated to a deeper roster for females and 2 divisions, Rousey restful wasn’t definite what would happen if she correct decided one day to stroll away.
“As soon as females had been dropped on the UFC, [Dana] talked about, ‘Right here’s an experiment, right here’s to evaluation the very best contrivance it goes,’” Rousey talked about. “It got to a degree where we needed to evaluation the very best contrivance it would scuttle with out me because it became so reckoning on me.
“Whereas, I mediate if I retired undefeated and left, I don’t know what it would possibly perchance maybe well be esteem. Due to they’ve already brought in the [145-pound] division and closed it. They’re not against closing divisions.”
In the intervening time, UFC promotes three varied females’s divisions, and whereas no female fighter has reached stratospheric levels of fame esteem Rousey, there’s numerous females’s skill on the tip of the sport.
Rousey issued a reminder to the fresh reduce of UFC opponents — male and feminine — that they all fragment a responsibility that goes beyond correct coaching stressful and exhibiting up to compete.
Phase of the explanation she became ready to convince White to bring her and the females’s division into UFC became because she commanded so phenomenal attention. Rousey believes extra opponents must shield shut peek that their job goes to this level beyond correct combating.
“I mediate one thing people don’t perceive now as opponents — and these that make perceive it make extraordinarily successfully — it’s esteem, it’s indispensable to promote your fight as stressful as you practice for it,” Rousey talked about. “Slightly a few people feel so precise of their space that they’re going to correct dispute up and fight they in most cases would possibly perchance have to restful web all the things thrown at them. It’s not the firm that promotes you. You shouldn’t be trying forward to the firm to utilize all this money to promote you. What are they going to make? Make extra commercials? That you just must to head accessible and promote your self. That you just must to head accessible and be a personality and web your fights correct into a narrative, and the things that I discovered from professional wrestling.
“Earlier than I even got into there, I became trying to bring that into females’s MMA, and I mediate one contrivance of them omit they’re not alleged to correct be athletes but entertainers. It’s not one thing you make on the facet. It’s one thing you make equally as stressful and put correct as phenomenal effort and time and focal level into. Slightly a few people correct mediate of it as a difficulty or one thing they’ve to make for the explanation that firm makes them make it. That’s why you review some those that are absolutely wonderful and no one exterior of MMA has ever heard of them.”
NEW YORK — The Dow Jones Industrial Average topped the 40,000 level for the first time Thursday, as U.S. stocks drifted around their records set a day before.
The Dow was up 69 points, or 0.2%, at 39,967, in afternoon trading. It topped 40,000 earlier in trading, making its last leap of 10,000 points in about three and a half years, as the U.S. economy and corporate profits crawled out of the crash caused COVID-19. They’ve continued to hold up so far despite the worst inflation in decades, the punishing effects of high interest rates and worries about a recession that seemed inevitable but hasn’t arrived.
The S&P 500 index, which is much more widely followed on Wall Street and dictates the performance of many more 401(k) accounts than the Dow, was 0.1% higher, as of 1:22 p.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq composite was down 0.1%. They had rallied on Wednesday to all-time highs.
Walmart was one of the strongest forces lifting the market, and it rose 6.5% after reporting stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also said its revenue for the year could top the forecasted range it had earlier given.
Walmart’s strength could be an encouraging signal for the broader economy. Worries have been rising about whether U.S. households can keep up with still-high inflation, even if it’s not as bad as before, and more expensive credit-card payments, particularly those making lower incomes.
Target, which reports its quarterly results next week, climbed following Walmart’s report, along with other retailers like Dollar General and Dollar Tree. Each added at least 2.9%.
Chubb climbed 4.2% after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway disclosed it had built an ownership stake in the insurer.
Stronger-than-expected profit reports have been one of the main reasons U.S. stock indexes jumped through May to records following a tough April. Another has been revived hopes that the Federal Reserve will be able to cut its main interest rate at least once or twice this year. The Fed has been keeping its federal funds rate at the highest level in more than two decades.
A string of worse-than-expected reports on inflation at the start of the year had put the potential for such cuts in jeopardy, but some more encouraging data has since arrived.
Treasury yields have eased in May as hopes rose that the economy could hit the hoped-for sweet spot, where it cools enough because of high interest rates to stifle inflation but not so much that it causes a bad recession. Yields were edging higher Thursday following some mixed data on the economy.
One report showed slightly more workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected, though the number remains low compared with history. Others said homebuilders broke ground on fewer projects last month than expected, manufacturing growth in the mid-Atlantic region was weaker than hoped and import prices rose more than forecast.
“Today’s numbers were in line with the overall theme of the week — nothing dramatic, but showing signs of a steady-to-cooling economy,” said Chris Larkin, managing director, trading and investing, at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury ticked up to 4.37% from 4.35% late Wednesday. The two-year yield, which moves more closely with expectations for action by the Fed, rose to 4.78% from 4.72%.
On the losing end of Wall Street, Deere fell 4% despite reporting stronger profit for its latest quarter than expected. It cut its forecast for profit over the full fiscal year below analysts’ estimates, as farmers buy fewer tractors and other equipment.
Homebuilders fell following the weaker-than-expected report on housing starts. They gave back some of their big gains the day before, when hopes for lower mortgage rates had sent them sharply higher. Lennar fell 2.1%, and D.R. Horton slipped 2.5%.
GameStop and AMC Entertainment slid for a second straight day, pulling back further from their jaw-dropping starts to the week. They’ve been moving more on excitement drummed up by investors than any changes to their financial prospects.
GameStop fell 20.72%, though it’s still up nearly 80% for the week so far. AMC Entertainment lost 10%.
Under Armour swung between losses and gains after it warned that its revenue will be likely down by “a low double-digit percentage rate” this upcoming fiscal year, citing weaker demand from wholesalers and “inconsistent execution across our business.” The company announced a restructuring plan to cut costs and also announced a program to buy back up to $500 million of its stock. It was down 0.6%.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were modestly lower in much of Europe after mostly rising in Asia. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 1.6% after reopening following a holiday, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.4%.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
