Ransomware among top threat vectors – report

BY Richard Summerfield

The cyber security landscape is increasingly fraught with danger. Attacks such as the ‘WannaCry’ cryptoworm, have been headline news in recent months. According to the Cyber Threatscape Report 2017, produced by iDefense, part of Accenture Security, there will be a continuation escalation of the high profile attacks seen in the first half of 2017. As such, companies must be prepared to take action.

“The first six months of 2017 have seen an evolution of ransomware producing more viral variants unleashed by potential state-sponsored actors and cybercriminals. Our findings confirm that a new bar has been set for cybersecurity teams across all industries to defend their assets in the coming months,” said Josh Ray, managing director at Accenture Security. “While the occurrence of new cyber attack methods is not going away, there are immediate actions companies can take to better protect themselves against malicious ransomware and reduce the impact of security breaches.”

According to the report, cyber criminals are rapidly expanding their capabilities, due to factors such as the proliferation of affordable, customisable and accessible tools and exploits. Attack vectors, such as distributed denial of service-for-hire services are likely to become much more widespread as cyber criminals, both individual and state-sponsored, look for new ways to disrupt the landscape.

The report suggests that to improve cyber defences, companies should consider adopting an email analytics platform in the cloud, as well as authentication tools and spam filters. They should also update and test cyber resilience plans, and impose administration rights restrictions on local workstations to further reduce the potential impact of cyber criminality.

The study also found that cyber criminals have begun to use alternative cryptocurrencies or adopt bitcoin laundering schemes to conceal transactions. Furthermore, the report notes that state-sponsored threat actors may continue to conduct espionage activities in response to military exercises and economic sanctions.

Ensuring that adequate business continuity planning is in place is an important step organisations should take as cyber criminals become more ambitious. This requires companies to be proactive. By taking action to protect themselves against cyber attack, companies can reduce the impact of any breaches they suffer.

Report: Cyber Threatscape Report 2017

Jimmy Choo sold for $1.2bn

BY Richard Summerfield

Luxury shoe manufacturer Jimmy Choo Plc has been sold to fashion brand Michael Kors in a deal worth $1.2bn, or $1.35bn including assumed net debt.

According to a statement announcing the deal, Jimmy Choo investors will receive 230 pence, or about $3, for each share held. The price represents a 36.5 percent premium to the company’s share price in April, before the company announced it was putting itself up for sale. The deal is expected to close in Q4 2017.

Though the company has retained many of its celebrity endorsements since it shot to fame in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it has struggled to retain its status in recent years. Furthermore, JAB Holding, the company which holds a 70 percent stake in Jimmy Choo, having acquired the brand for £500m, is moving out of the luxury fashion market and is exploring dealmaking opportunities in other industries, including the food and beverage sector. Jimmy Choo has only been publicly owned for a little over three years.

John D. Idol, chairman and chief executive of Michael Kors, said, “We are pleased to announce the acquisition of Jimmy Choo, an iconic brand with a rich history as a leading global luxury house. Jimmy Choo is known worldwide for its glamorous and fashion-forward footwear. The company is a leader in setting fashion trends. Its innovative designs and exceptional craftsmanship resonate with trendsetters globally. We believe that Jimmy Choo is poised for meaningful growth in the future and our company is committed to supporting the strong brand equity that Jimmy Choo has built over the last 20 years.”

Pierre Denis, chief executive of Jimmy Choo, said, “It is a privilege for our management team to lead Jimmy Choo and to preside over such an exciting period for our company. We are convinced that there is so much more that can be delivered in the years ahead. We look forward to working closely with the leadership and team at Michael Kors Holdings Limited to further develop our iconic brand. Our two companies share the same vision of style and trend leadership. Our luxury heritage is the foundation of Jimmy Choo and we will continue to bring our brand vision to consumers globally.”

News: Michael Kors to buy luxury shoemaker Jimmy Choo for $1.2 bln

US business bankruptcies soar in Q2 2017, confirms new report

BY Fraser Tennant

US business bankruptcy activity in 2017 is continuing on an trend upward, with Q2 experiencing a 10 percent increase in filings over Q1 according to new data compiled by BankruptcyData.com.

In ‘Quarterly Report of Business Bankruptcy Filings for the Period Ending June 30, 2017’, the business bankruptcy information provider analyses Q2 and year-to-date (YTD) 2017 business bankruptcy activity and breaks down the filings by various factors, such as industry, sales volume, company size, creditor, liabilities, assets, employees, creditors and public and private filings

Reflecting on a fluctuating bankruptcy landscape, the report notes that the 2017 YTD business bankruptcy filing figure increased by 1 percent compared to the first six months of 2016, but rose 35 percent compared to the first six months of 2015. Small businesses are also shown to be making up the lion's share of all business bankruptcy filings for 2017. Companies with sales of $500,000 or less generated 56 percent of all filings during Q2 and 61 percent YTD.

In addition, although overall bankruptcy activity is rising, public company bankruptcies are down 30 percent so far in 2017; 43 public companies having filed for bankruptcy in the first six months of 2017, compared to 61 over the same period in 2016.

In terms of industry hotspots, despite a lot of attention being paid to the bankruptcy woes of the retail industry in 2017 (more than 300 retailers have filed for Chapter 11 so far this year), it is actually the energy sector that has continued to dominate, with 16 of 43 (37 percent) of public company bankruptcies coming from the oil & gas, mining and other energy sectors. Turning to location hotspots, Texas overtook New York as the state generating the highest percentage of overall business bankruptcies during Q2 2017.

“2017's US Bankruptcy Court business filing activity is shaping up as we expected, with counts at or slightly above the 2016 levels but significantly above 2015 and earlier,” states the BankruptcyData.com report. “The energy sector, though slowing down, is not out of the woods yet. We also expect retail bankruptcy levels to keep increasing as consumers continue to opt for online over brick-and-mortar purchases in this highly competitive sector that is already besieged by liquidity issues, ailing credit ratings, unfavourable borrowing terms and more.”

Against a dramatically changing corporate landscape, US business bankruptcy activity is continuing to escalate; with many more companies likely to be navigating the filing process before 2017 comes to an end.

Report: Quarterly Report of Business Bankruptcy Filings for the Period Ending June 30, 2017

National exercise tests Singapore’s cyber attack resilience

BY Fraser Tennant

Against a backdrop of increasingly frequent, sophisticated and impactful cyber attacks, the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) has carried out a large multi-sector exercise to test the robustness of the country’s cyber incident management and emergency response plans.

Code-named Cyber Star, the exercise tested 11 critical information infrastructure sectors (CII): government, infocomm, energy, aviation, maritime, land transport, healthcare, banking and finance, water, security and emergency and media.

Comprising of a series of scenario planning sessions, workshops and table-top discussions, exercise participants were tested on their incident management and remediation plans in response to simulated cyber security incidents, such as a malware infection or a large-scale distributed denial of services (DDoS) attack.

The Cyber Star exercise followed a similar exercise in May 2016 which covered the banking and finance, government, energy and infocomm sectors.

"This is a good opportunity for us to level-up our capability and make sure that we are ready as possible," said deputy prime minister Teo Chee Hean, who observed the exercise at CSA headquarters alongside more than 200 sector leaders and owners, including the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Energy Market Authority and Singapore Airlines.

“With greater interconnectivity and proliferation of cyber threats, the ability of our critical sectors to respond promptly to attacks is vital,” said David Koh, chief executive of the CSA.

The exercise this week also coincides with a public consultation on a proposed Cybersecurity Bill, which was launched last week by the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) and the CSA. The proposed Bill seeks to establish a framework for the oversight and maintenance of national cyber security in Singapore and will empower CSA to carry out its functions. The Bill also aims to minimise cyber threats and ensure that the country can better deal with cyber attacks in future.

The Bill has four main objectives: (i) to provide a framework for the regulation of CII owners; (ii) to provide the CSA with powers to manage and respond to cyber security threats and incidents; (iii) to establish a framework for the sharing of cyber security information with and by CSA officers, and the protection of such information; and (iv) to introduce a lighter-touch licensing framework for the regulation of selected cyber security service providers.

The Cybersecurity Bill consultation runs from 10 July to 3 August 2017.

News: Singapore’s 11 critical sectors tested for first time in national cyber security exercise

Activism the new normal – report

BY Richard Summerfield

Shareholder activism is increasingly widespread. No longer just a niche tactic employed by a small number of hedge funds, it is becoming more mainstream, according to a new report from J.P. Morgan Chase on the 2017 proxy season.

The report, ‘The 2017 Proxy Season – globalization and a new normal for shareholder activism’, notes that while the 2017 proxy season began slowly, it ended with a number of high-profile, mega-cap campaign announcements. Yet, surprisingly, the number of activist campaigns recorded during the proxy season was flat. According to the report, this paucity of activity is not indicative of a decline in the popularity of activism but rather demonstrates activism's metamorphosis into a more commonly accepted practice.

“Investors around the globe continue to use activist tactics to bring about change,” the report notes. “As a result, shareholder activism has become an accepted strategy across global markets, even in regions once believed to be hostile or structurally difficult for campaigns. After several years of growth, global activist campaign volume dipped by 6 percent in 2017, with nearly every region experiencing a modest decline in new campaigns, year-over-year. The US market, in particular, seemed to settle into a ‘new normal’ of campaign volume, accounting for 54 percent of global volume, as the strategy gains footing in international markets.”

Globally, there were 606 activist campaigns in the year to 30 June. The US saw the lion’s share of activity, with 327 campaigns. Of those, 68 proxy contests were launched during the 2017 season, 54 of which had been completed by 30 June.

Nineteen percent of campaigns in the US were launched by first time activists and nearly two-thirds of all 2017 US campaigns targeted companies with market caps below $500m. Smaller funds were most active during the 2017 proxy season, focusing on smaller-cap companies.

The report also claimed that institutional investors are increasingly turning to activism. As activism has matured as a strategy, traditional long-only funds have begun to embrace it. Actively managed funds displayed a willingness to publicly support activist campaigns and also partnered with activists to target one of their portfolio companies.

M&A focused activism has also become prevalent in recent years. Five hundred M&A-related campaign demands were made by activists globally during the 2016 and 2017 proxy seasons, which accounted for approximately 75 percent of total value demands for that period.

Report: The 2017 Proxy Season – globalization and a new normal for shareholder activism