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Dyman & Associates Risk Management Projects is a Risk Management firm whose main office is based in Boston, MA. We operate in the following fields: Cyber Security, Project Management, Emergency Management, Technology Governance, and Physical Security. Our company is a minority-owned enterprise with both MBE & DBE certifications.

Quite often, organizations muddle through crises in isolation, undertaking prime decisions within a vacuum. Dyman & Associates Risk Management Projects has the collective know-how to minimize your exposure to risk and help make your business become more resilient. We will work diligently for your benefit. We believe that honesty, reliability, and excellent customer service serve as the foundation for lasting relationships. Moreover, we supply empathy, humility, and a promise to give back to our community.

Cyber Security

The increase of incidents of cyber-attacks against businesses and government agencies in the United States continues. FBI Director Robert Mueller revealed that, "Terrorism is still FBI's top priority. But very soon, we expect that the cyber threat will replace terrorism as the number one threat to national security".

Dyman & Associates Risk Management Projects utilizes its decades-old track record in cyber security to provide protection for your employees, intellectual property, and other precious assets. Our consultants not only have many years of experience, but are also dedicated to the regular honing of their skills and keeping current on the innovations in hacking techniques and security trends.

Our services include:

·  Cloud Security

·  Mobile Security

·  Incident Response

·  Computer Forensics

·  Electronic Discovery

·  Penetration Testing

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Hackers have become very sophisticated over the past few years. Not only the recent attack on Target was tremendous, but it was also rather unusual because hackers attacked the company through their point of sale equipment and not online.

Dr. Vijay Anand, assistant professor in the department of Engineering and Technology at Southeast Missouri State University, gave some advices on how consumers can protect themselves against cybercrime. He urges consumers to be more proactive regarding cybersecurity, even if it is always difficult to predict where an attack will occur.

“It is always a good idea to check back on your account in a timely manner. That’s the only recourse consumers have at this point, it’s to regularly check on their account,” Anand said.

As far as credit or debit cards are concerned, consumers should privilege banks who offer them cards with a chip in it, instead of only the usual magnetic strip. The chip has a microprocessor which has more security features and guarantees more secure transactions. It is better than the magnetic strip, according to Anand, because the active chip can prevent certain kinds of attacks.

Regarding the issue of identity theft, Anand suggests people to do pretty much the same as for bank account attacks.

“The only recourse that you have against identity theft is to check and monitor your credit report,” Anand said.

Individuals can also be more careful by not throwing away mail containing sensitive personal information. Individuals should shred potentially sensitive mail. Indeed, some attackers do dumpster diving which consists in going over somebody’s trash in search of useful information about that person. Also, Anand remind consumers that they should never answer an email asking to give away private information such as your social security number. If a bank or other entity needs it, they will not ask for it through email. Those are called phishing attacks and are incredibly common.

Concerning internet browsers, Anand said he would privilege Firefox and Google Chrome over other browsers as he considers those two more secure. But there are other ways to be careful when doing a transaction. He explained that people should make sure the web link contains the “https” prefix instead of the usual “http.”

“If it is https then it is a secure transaction, there is some authentification going on, so that is a secure connection that you have with a server. But if you have a basic http connection, it’s not secure.”

Anand insisted on this point, making clear that this small change can make a huge difference regarding to the security of the transaction.

“It the https sign is not there I would never put my username and password into that account because I have no idea whether it is a secure site or a non secure site,” Anand added.

It is difficult for small businesses to protect themselves because cybersecurity is expensive. What they can do, Anand advised, is to use platforms such as Google Pay or PayPal because they are trustworthy sites with a huge security capacity. To him, it’s definitely a better solution than any home built solution.

Hackers don’t really go after private individuals one at a time. It would take too long.

“What they typically do is that they will go and attack the database of a large corporation, which as information about millions of people, so that value is much higher,” Anand said.

So even if the targets are still primarily big corporations, one is never too careful and should follow some of those tips to make sure that their online transactions remain safe.

A new cartoon created by John Cook illustrates the failure of climate contrarians to manage global warming risks

Climate change is fundamentally a risk management problem. Whether or not you agree with the 97 percent expert consensus on human-caused global warming, there is an undeniable risk that the consensus is correct and that we're causing dangerously rapid climate change.

Frequently, climate contrarians argue against taking action to mitigate that risk by claiming the uncertainties are too large. One of the most visible figures to make this argument is climate scientist Judith Curry, who said in 2013,

"I can't say myself that [doing nothing] isn't the best solution."

This argument represents a failure to grasp the principles of basic risk management, as illustrated in the following cartoon.

When it comes to managing risk, uncertainty is not our friend. Uncertainty means it's possible the outcome will be better than we expect, but it's also possible it will be much worse than we expect. In fact, continuing with business-as-usual would only be a reasonable option in the absolute best case scenario.

Doing nothing is betting the farm on a very low probability scenario.  It's an incredibly high-risk path that fails to reduce the threats posed by the worst case or even most likely case scenarios. This is a concept Judith Curry understood in 2007, when she wrote,

"The rationale for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide is to reduce the risk of the possibility of catastrophic outcomes. Making the transition to cleaner fuels has the added benefit of reducing the impact on public health and ecosystems and improving energy security ... I have yet to see any option that is worse than ignoring the risk of global warming and doing nothing."

Judith Curry of 2007 got it exactly right. Unfortunately she and her fellow climate contrarians no longer seem to grasp these fundamental principles of risk management.

Failing to mitigate global warming by significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions is fundamentally equivalent to continuing to smoke cigarettes, driving without a seat belt, or refusing to buy homeowner's insurance. Each situation represents the failure to take action to reduce the risks of a very dangerous outcome.

Even if you personally have doubts about the 97 percent expert consensus on human-caused global warming and the threats it represents, there's a good chance you're wrong. You may also doubt the medical science consensus that smoking causes lung cancer, but acting on that doubt by continuing to smoke is a risky decision. The difference is that in the latter case, you're only risking the health of yourself and those in your proximity. In the case of global warming, you're risking the health of entire ecosystems and future generations.

From a risk management perspective, mitigating the undeniable threat of catastrophic climate change is a no-brainer. So let's stop delaying and denying and get to it.

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