Group items tagged

Supercharging the HVA Engineering and Maintenance Risk Assessment in the Healthcare Setting Webinar Registration Hospitals have been under close scrutiny for years to insure they evaluate and mitigate risks and exposures that could impact their ability to deliver healthcare services under all conditions. A staple of this activity is the "Hazard Vulnerability Assessment". A traditional HVA looks at specific threats within four categories (natural, technological, human and hazardous materials). While the HVA is useful for auditors looking to confirm minimum compliance, it does not properly arm the organization to assess how risk, mitigation strategies and limited capital can effectively be deployed for maximum benefit. Come hear from leaders of Deaconess Health Systems Engineering and Maintenance team on how they partnered with Virtual Corporation to execute an effective risk assessment methodology and toolkit across the DHS enterprise. Participants will see examples of innovative risk mapping and reporting methods that yield high information density in simple, understandable format. Presenters: Mark Merrill, Facility Engineer, Deaconess Health System Tom Barnett, Manager, Engineering and Maintenance, Deaconess Health System Scott Ream, President, Virtual Corporation Webinar Registration Hospitals have been under close scrutiny for years to insure they evaluate and mitigate risks and exposures that could impact their ability to deliver healthcare services under all conditions. A staple of this activity is the "Hazard Vulnerability Assessment". A traditional HVA looks at specific threats within four categories (natural, technological, human and hazardous materials). While the HVA is useful for auditors looking to confirm minimum compliance, it does not properly arm the organization to assess how risk, mitigation strategies and limited capital can effectively be deployed for maximum benefit. Come hear from leaders of Deaconess H

Two firms certified to asses a company's compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) have been placed under remediation by the PCI Security Standards Council. Two firms certified to asses a company's compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) have been placed under remediation by the PCI Security Standards Council. "We have a contractual relationship with the PCI Security Standards Council and they can pull our certification at any time," Bates said, adding that the firm is working wholeheartedly to remedy the situation. Chris Konrad, senior vice president of client services at Fortrex, did not return a phone call seeking comment. Fortrex's business is U.S-based. The company is in its sixth year assessing service providers and merchants. In addition to being certified to conduct payment application quality security assessments, the firm sells risk management consulting services. It is a reseller in security vendor Qualys Inc.'s PCI Partner Program, according to the company website. Qualys said its "program gives partners generous margins based on their level of certification." The PCI Council launched its quality assurance program for assessors in September to address growing concerns from merchants about the quality of their assessments and other issues. Merchants have complained that some QSAs don't appear to have the technical skills necessary to conduct a thorough assessment. Other merchants have raised issues with QSA's pitching security products during the assessment process. Merchants that receive negative feedback are placed on probation and a revocation process is in place if assessors do not address the issues identified by the council.

Consumer Sentiment rose up by 1.8 points in early January to 61.9%, compared with market expectations for a slight decline to 59.0%. Despite this surprising gain, sentiment is still 8.4 points below its September level and 21.0% below its year ago level. The current level remains well below its recessionary average of the past 50 years. Current Conditions slipped by 0.3 points to 69.2%. This is 5.8 percentage points below its September level and 26.7% below its year ago level. Consumer Expectations jumped by 3.2 points to 57.2%. Nevertheless, they are still 10.0 percentage points below their September level and 16.0% below their year ago level. Bottom Line: Consumer sentiment climbed in early January. However, sentiment had collapsed in October in reaction to the intensification of the financial and credit market turmoil. Overall assessments of the economy, as well as assessment of current conditions and consumer expectations, are still significantly below their September level and well below their year ago levels. Thus, despite this month's increase, household assessments of the economy are still mired at recessionary levels. The causes of consumers' pessimism are also dampening real consumer spending.

There are four "high risk" areas that aren't getting the attention they deserve as financial institutions work toward complying with the ID Theft Red Flags Rule, says a leading industry compliance expert. Many institutions have already complied with the regulation and have done their risk assessment to identify covered accounts and determined what red flags they need to be monitoring. But there are areas that should be considered "high risk" and aren't getting the attention they deserve from institutions, says Sai Huda, CEO of Compliance Coach. The Red Flags Rule is a risk-based regulation. As such, Huda says, compliance should be approached from a risk management and not a purely technical perspective, and institutions should ask these questions: * Which accounts are more at risk to identity theft? * Which red flags represent higher risk? * Which detection and response procedures are commensurate with the risks? * Which service providers pose greater risk? * What controls exist to mitigate the risks? The big question that most institutions have at top of mind is "What about enforcement?" Huda says the federal banking regulators are taking a risk-based, top-down approach when assessing institutions. "They are first assessing whether the [institution] has implemented a risk-based program and how it is overseeing compliance," he says. "If the program is risk-based and sound, they will limit their scope. If not, then they will dig deeper."

Travelers arriving at U.S. borders may soon be confronted with their laptops, PDAs, and other digital devices being searched , copied and even held by customs agents -- all without need to show suspicion for cause. Notices are being proposed by the Privacy Office at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which last week released a report approving the suspicionless searches of electronic devices at U.S. borders. The 51-page Privacy Impact Assessment also supported the right of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to copy, download, retain or seize any content from these devices, or the devices themselves, without assigning any specific reason for doing so. Also, while in many cases searches would be done with the knowledge of the traveler in some situations, the report says, "it is not practicable for law enforcement reasons to inform the traveler that his electronic device has been searched." In arriving at the assessment, the Privacy Office argued that such searches of electronic devices were really no different from searches of briefcases and backpacks. They are needed to interdict and investigate violations of federal law at U.S. borders and have been supported by courts in the past, the assessment said.

"In light of a spike in identity theft and the frequency with which personal information is stored on portable devices, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) have expanded Generally Accepted Privacy Principles (GAPP) to include protocols for securing and disposing of personal information. "Safeguarding personal information is one of the most challenging responsibilities facing an organization, whether such information pertains to employees or customers," said Everett C. Johnson, CPA, chair of AICPA/CICA Privacy Task Force and a past international president of ISACA, a global information technology association. "We've updated the criteria of our privacy principles to minimize the risks to personal information." GAPP offers guidance and best practices on securing portable devices, breach management and ensuring continued effectiveness of privacy controls. The guidance additionally covers disposal and destruction of personal information. The principles are designed for chief privacy officers, executive management, compliance officers, legal counsel, CPAs and CAs offering technology advisory services. "Portable tools such as laptops and memory sticks provide convenience to employees but appropriate measures must be put in place to secure them and the data they contain," said Donald Sheehy, CA.CISA, CIPP/C, associate partner with Deloitte (Canada) and a member of the AICPA/CICA Privacy Task Force. "We must stay abreast of technological advances to assure that proper measures are put into place to defend against any new threats." Created by the AICPA/CICA Privacy Task Force, GAPP is designed to help an organization's management team assess an existing privacy program or address privacy obligations and risks. The principles provide a framework for CPAs and CAs to offer privacy services to their clients and employers, such as advisory services, privacy risk assessments and attestation or

The new year has come and gone on the Gregorian calendar. But the new year for legal technology is still in progress at LegalTech New York, where vendors are unveiling their new products and services and attendees are helping them celebrate. LegalTech attendees should revel in the number of vendor initiatives aimed at reducing e-discovery costs from acquisition to review and production. And, like last year, EDD vendors continue to design and manufacture their products for international litigation. But LegalTech is not all about e-discovery. There were still plenty of vendors with products outside the Electronic Data Reference Model. EDD PARTIES Readers should be aware that Index Engines can access and extract data from tape and tape libraries -- and can do so really fast. But now they can also extract data from network storage systems, file shares, forensic images and hard drives and still provide users a single point of access to it -- via a Web browser. Index Engines first indexes data on disparate resources. Once the index is compiled, data can be deduped, searched, reviewed and extracted on demand. Also note that Index Engines can now filter unwanted file types such as EXE, DLL, etc., during the indexing process to reduce the time it takes to review the data. Read LegalTech New York 2009 Coverage on Legal Blog Watch In preparation for the new year, Kazeon Systems introduced new pay-as-you-go pricing models that augment their current standard software licensing option and focus on case matters. Kazeon hopes the new pricing models allow customers to implement an e-discovery solution that does not require a major financial investment or lengthy rollout. Vendors are starting to "go left" of the EDRM to provide organizations a better view of the end of litigation via early case assessment tools. In fact, KPMG promoted the concept with a T-shirt emblazoned with "go left." Toward that end, Daticon EED announced the availability of its Early Case Assessment servic

This year was an interesting year in privacy and information security, and by looking back, we can clearly discern trends that will likely be a major part of the security management landscape in 2009. More and more states passed breach-notification laws and several enhanced or extended existing legislation. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and virtualization really took off, and compliance's looming presence grew with PCI DSS version 1.2 and some actual enforcement of HIPAA. Of particular note was Massachusetts' data breach law 201 CMR 17.00: Standards for The Protection of Personal Information of Residents of the Commonwealth. This is to date the most comprehensive law of its kind, setting a new standard for what breach-notification laws should look like; it covers both paper and electronic records, it mandates appropriate security awareness training as well as security and risk assessments and, most importantly, requires companies to make changes to their security programs in accordance with the findings of those risk assessments. Similarly, California enhanced the well-known CA-1386 to include not just traditional financial information, but also health care and health insurance data as well. With new mandates popping up all the time, it's no wonder compliance was one of the biggest focus areas for enterprise information security teams in the past year, and this trend will clearly continue in 2009; there will be more regulation on both the state and federal levels, and stronger enforcement of existing regulations. Fines and other penalties for violations of PCI DSS and HIPAA will continue to rise, along with the inevitable rise in discoveries of malfeasance. As a result, there will be an even larger focus on compliance by upper management, which also means decreased time and budget for necessary security controls that don't clearly fall under a compliance umbrella.

In May 2008, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) awarded an approximately $450,000 contract to Booz Allen Hamilton to assess and evaluate the scope of the medical identity theft problem in the U.S. Medical Identity Theft Medical identity theft is a specific type of identity theft which occurs when a person uses someone else's personal health identifiable information, such as insurance information, Social Security Number, health care file, or medical records, without the individual's knowledge or consent to obtain medical goods or services, or to submit false claims for medical services. There is limited information available about the scope, depth, and breadth of medical identity theft. Dr. Robert Kolodner, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, has noted that medical identity theft stories are being documented at an increasing rate, bringing to light serious financial, fraud, and patient care issues. ONC recognizes that health IT is an important tool to combat the threat of medical identity theft. We are seeking input from the public and other government agencies to better understand how health IT can be utilized to prevent and detect medical identity theft as well as build consumer trust in electronic health information exchange. ONC believes it is imperative to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of this issue from a variety of perspectives, and to create an open forum for dialogue to work proactively to address medical identity theft. Medical Identity Theft final report. The report summarizing health IT and medical identity theft issues raised at the town hall was completed January 15, 2009 and sets forth potential actions the Federal government and other stakeholders can undertake in working toward prevention, detection, and remediation of medical identify theft.

"The number of fraudulent IRS websites taken down in 2008 soared to 3,030, up more than 240 percent from 2007, according to a GAO analysis of Internal Revenue Service data, suggesting a sharp increase by criminals to draw unassuming taxpayers to faux tax agency websites to steal identities and money. In a Government Accountability Office audit, made public Thursday, the GAO credited the IRS for implementing programs to prevent, detect and resolve identity theft, but said the tax agency needs to do a better job in assessing the effectiveness of its initiatives. And, as it relates to potential online abuse, the IRS should be more consistent in enforcing security controls. "

eBook: Compliance 2.0: Comprehensive, Scalable and Sustainable Systems http://go.techtarget.com/r/6705298/226727/1 Enterprises are moving towards a top-down approach to compliance that starts with risk assessment and prioritization, experts agree. In this expert e-book gain insight from senior IT and security officers who are taking a holistic approach to compliance for long-term sustainability and cost reduction. Learn which quantitative tools you can use to prioritize your efforts, maximize your investments and get key business executives to support your next project. Learn how to: ** Bring your data into governance ** Understand and manage your risk exposure ** Get the right people on board to support your strategy and policies Start building your true compliance infrastructure: http://go.techtarget.com/r/6705299/226727/2

Legislation to reform the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 will be introduced in the Senate on Tuesday, a Senate staffer who helped draft the bill told a panel at the RSA Conference in San Francisco on Thursday. Erik Hopkins' presentation provided further evidence that the White House could assume greater control in coordinating federal government security. In the panel - The New FISMA: Security Finally Transcends Compliance - Hopkins offered a diagram illustrating the bill that showed a cyber office reporting directly to the president. Hopkins, who works for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, was the third federal official addressing conference attendees to suggest the White House will be given more authority in safeguarding federal government information systems. On Wednesday, Obama administration cybersecurity advisor Melissa Hathaway - who last week submitted to the president an assessment of federal cybersecurity policy - said the White House must lead federal government cybersecurity efforts. A day before, National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander said NSA would not lead the nation's cybersecurity efforts, suggesting a greater role for the White House. Hopkins said the benefits of FISMA reform includes improved coordination of security efforts, better economies of scale and greater situational awareness of security threats such as knowing where they originate and how the government will respond.

There is an old axiom in marketing circles that it costs more money to acquire new customers than to retain and service your old ones. In this precarious financial environment, the focus for many companies is now on keeping the existing customers satisfied, rather than worrying only about adding new ones to the fold. Since the business environment has slowed for now, showing your clients additional "value added" services rather than simply a lower price, for example, will be critical. Companies should be taking an introspective look for differentiating factors in the areas of security and privacy "value," and how they can leverage what they uncover - a competitive advantage. How can an organization best position their privacy and security programs to be used as a competitive advantage? First, of course, you need to ensure that your privacy and security program is robust, well-tested, formally documented and meets or exceeds whatever legislation that your company is subject to or regulated against. It is also important to give your customers a point of reference about the validity of your programs so they easily translate the value into a currency they recognize. Further, you should take advantage of any other internal and external audits, assessments and oversights that you can reasonably share with external parties by crafting the results of these documents as a consumable for external parties. It has been my experience that clients, especially their security teams, really appreciate this effort. Another innovative way to deliver a competitive advantage today is in the realm of vendor management. This discipline is quickly becoming an increasingly high-profile topic of discussion and interest between clients, customers and their service providers. The onus is on you anyway to demonstrate oversight of your third-party service provider(s). This is where you should also have the "value add" conversation and validate why your clients placed their trus

www.killdo.de.gg Most quality online stores. Know whether you are a trusted online retailer in the world. Whatever we can buy very good quality. and do not hesitate. Everything is very high quality. Including clothes, accessories, bags, cups. Highly recommended. This is one of the trusted online store in the world. View now www.retrostyler.com

The global economic crisis has become the biggest near-term U.S. security concern, sowing instability in a quarter of the world's countries and threatening destructive trade wars, U.S. intelligence agencies reported on Thursday. The director of national intelligence's annual threat assessment also said al Qaeda's leadership had been weakened over the last year. But security in Afghanistan had deteriorated and Pakistan had to gain control over its border areas before the situation could improve. "The financial crisis and global recession are likely to produce a wave of economic crises in emerging market nations over the next year," said the report. A wave of "destructive protectionism" was possible as countries find they cannot export their way out of the slump. "Time is our greatest threat. The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests," the report said. The report represents the findings of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies and serves as a leading security reference for policymakers and Congress. Besides reviewing adversaries, it also considered this year the security impact of issues including climate change and the economy. It said a quarter of countries have already experienced at least "low-level" instability, such as government changes, linked to the economy.

A consumer reporting agency that failed to properly screen prospective customers and, as a result, sold at least 318 credit reports to identity thieves, has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated federal law. Under the settlement, the company and its principal must ensure that they provide credit reports only to legitimate businesses for lawful purposes, use a comprehensive information security program, and obtain independent audits every other year for 20 years. The settlement also imposes a $500,000 penalty but suspends payment due to the defendants' inability to pay. According to the FTC, the defendants use sensitive financial data from other consumer reporting agencies to create reports that landlords use to assess potential renters. These reports contain consumers' names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, bank and credit card account numbers, credit histories, and other personal information. The Commission alleges that the company failed to properly screen new customers. The company allegedly requested only publicly-available information from applicants seeking credit reports, and it did not request supporting documentation to establish that an applicant was actually a landlord renting property. As a result, identity thieves posing as property owners were given an account with unlimited online access to credit reports, and the account was used to access at least 318 reports containing sensitive personal information. The FTC charged the defendants with violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by furnishing credit reports to persons who did not have a permissible purpose to obtain them, and by failing to maintain reasonable procedures to prevent such impermissible disclosures and to verify their customers' identities and how they intended to use the information. The agency also charged them with violating the FTC Act by failing to employ reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect sensitive consumer inform

A couple in Pittsburgh whose lawsuit claimed that Street View on Google Maps is a reckless invasion of their privacy lost their case. Aaron and Christine Boring sued the Internet search giant last April, alleging that Google "significantly disregarded (their) privacy interests" when Street View cameras captured images of their house beyond signs marked "private road." The couple claimed in their five-count lawsuit that finding their home clearly visible on Google's Street View caused them "mental suffering" and diluted their home value. They sought more than $25,000 in damages and asked that the images of their home be taken off the site and destroyed. However, the U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania wasn't impressed by the suit and dismissed it (PDF) Tuesday, saying the Borings "failed to state a claim under any count." Ironically, the Borings subjected themselves to even more public exposure by filing the lawsuit, which included their home address. In addition, the Allegheny County's Office of Property Assessments included a photo of the home on its Web site. The Borings are not alone in their ire toward the Google Maps feature. As reported earlier, residents in California's Humboldt County complained that the drivers who are hired to collect the images are disregarding private property signs and driving up private roads. In January, a private Minnesota community near St. Paul, unhappy that images of its streets and homes appeared on the site, demanded Google remove the images, which the company did. However, Google claims to be legally allowed to photograph on private roads, arguing that privacy no longer exists in this age of satellite and aerial imagery. "Today's satellite-image technology means that...complete privacy does not exist," Google said in its response to the Borings' complaint Not long after the feature launched in May 2007, privacy advocates criticized Google for displaying photographs that included people's faces and car license

Heartland Payment Systems, the sixth-largest payments processor in the U.S., announced Monday that its processing systems were breached in 2008, exposing an undetermined number of consumers to potential fraud. Meanwhile, Forcht Bank, one of the 10 largest banks in Kentucky, told its customers it would begin reissuing 8,500 debit cards after being informed by its own card processor of a possible breach. In the case of Heartland, while the company continues to assess the damages inflicted by the attack, Robert Baldwin, the company's president and CFO, says law enforcement has already noted that the attack against his company is part of a wider cyber fraud operation. "The indication that it is tied to wider cyber fraud operation comes directly from conversations with the Department of Justice and the U.S. Secret Service," Baldwin says. The company says it believes the breach has been contained. Heartland, headquartered in Princeton, NJ, handles approximately 100 million transactions per month, although the number of unique cardholders is much lower. "It is still a question as to the percentage of the data flow they were able to get," Baldwin says, adding he would not speculate on the number of cards potentially exposed. Specifics surrounding when the breach occurred are still being analyzed. But Baldwin says two forensic auditing teams have been working on the breach analysis and investigation since late 2008, after Heartland received the notification from Visa and MasterCard. The investigation began immediately after the credit card companies told Heartland they saw suspicious activity surrounding processed card transactions. Described by Baldwin as "quite a sophisticated attack," he says it has been challenging to discover exactly how it happened.

Enterprise employees frequently use social networking tools, most notably Web-based applications. It's no surprise more organizations are wondering what happens if social networking data becomes relevant to an e-discovery investigation. How does an enterprise go about discovering and assessing Web 2.0 data? How responsible is an organization, legally speaking, for the information that's out there in the Web 2.0 world? What risks arise from e-discovery as it relates to Web 2.0 data, and how can you mitigate them? In this tip, we will look at e-discovery as it relates to Web 2.0 and consider the strongest options for minimizing risks to the organization. E-discovery basics We begin with a quick look at what e-discovery is and how it can create risk. Essentially, e-discovery is the electronic extension of the legal process of discovery, which Wikipedia defines as "the pre-trial phase in a lawsuit in which each party through the law of civil procedure can request documents and other evidence from other parties or can compel the production of evidence by using a subpoena or through other discovery devices, such as requests for production and depositions." If you're an IT person, not a lawyer, it's important to note that the rules governing the discovery process now require plaintiffs to address all electronically stored information or ESI. In other words, if your organization faces litigation, it will have to deal with the issue of e-discovery, which will entail a whole lot more than turning over some old emails. Depending upon your role in the organization, the first you may hear of this is a "notice of litigation" with perhaps a "litigation hold directive" containing a "preservation directive." Here is a generic e-discovery request below. Apart from a few limiting factors, such as subject matter, named persons and a specified time period, the scope of such a notice is likely to be broad; blame standard procedure, not some high-powered attorney pushing his or her lu

In this expert videocast, you will learn about Web 2.0 software, the threats they pose, and whether the benefits outweigh the risks. Key areas covered include the threats posed by services like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, as well as wikis and blogs. Our expert also dives into particular attack vectors and scenarios that are becoming popular, defensive policy, and technology best practices and Web 2.0 trends to monitor going forward. Speaker David Sherry CISSP, CISM - CISO, Brown University As chief information security officer of Brown University, David Sherry is charged with the development and maintenance of Brown's information technology security strategy, IT policies and best practices, security training and awareness programs, as well as ongoing risk assessment and compliance tasks. Sherry has 20 years of experience in information technology. He most recently worked at Citizens Bank where he was vice president for enterprise identity and access management, providing leadership for compliance and security governance. He had also served as Citizens' vice president for enterprise information security, overseeing the company's security operations and controls. He has taught classes at colleges in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island, as well as spoken on identity management strategy and implementation at industry conferences. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in business management.

Changes relating to different aspects of data management have been highlighted as key trends in the IT industry for 2009 in a report by consultancy Deloitte. The falling price of digital storage has caused an irresponsible approach to file management and IT leaders will need to give an increased focus to these issues, says Deloitte, along with finding ways around the rise in physical storage costs. "There are ways to control the escalation of storage costs, such as de-duplication tools that can free up space by reducing duplicate files," says the report. "Companies can assess the impact of individual applications, especially email - which is estimated to take up 25 per cent of enterprise storage capacity," it says. According to Deloitte's research, businesses will become increasingly aggressive when pursuing disputes related to copyright infringement and digital ownership rights. "If undertaking a swift launch of a product or digital application, companies should ensure that no element could lead to litigation," says the report. Despite pointing out that 2009 will be the break-out year for social networks in the business, Deloitte says that such networks will need to be developed with caution to encourage more productivity and balance control with employees' desire for privacy.