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Times are tough, and we all continue to hear about the heightened risk of the insider threat. Granted, unauthorized insider access to data has always been a concern. But the concern is increased now because of the tremendous changes that we are seeing in the economy. The term "disgruntled employee" now has a whole new meaning because there are more and more folks concerned about 'What if my job disappears? What kind of information can I keep? What kind of information can I have access to?' As one who's dealt with the insider threat, I have some questions of my own: What do you really mean by an insider? In our borderless world, the terms "insider" and "outsider" overlap. "Insiders" are not just employees and staff, but also service providers, business partners, consultants, contractors -- any number of parties who may work for companies we deal with. What do we really mean by an authorized versus an unauthorized insider? If you take a look at the Societe Generale situation, allegedly a fraud was committed by an authorized user with privileges he was not supposed to have. How? Well, the horribly overused cliché is that if you work with a company long enough, eventually you will have access to everything, and no one will know it. Bottom line: As people change jobs within a company, we are not good at updating their roles and responsibilities. If you look at all the efforts that have been spent on identity and access management products, the biggest challenge is trying to understand: What are the roles and responsibilities you are trying to apply to people? How do you develop these roles and responsibilities and how do group them? How do you really deal with people who have to change roles and responsibilities? How do you add and delete roles and responsibilities as people change jobs?

Government Information Security Podcasts As a GovInfoSecurity.com annual member, this content can be used toward your membership credits and transcript tracking. Click For More Info Insights on the Insider Threat: Randy Trzeciak of Carnegie Mellon's CERT February 25, 2009 We all know the risk of the insider threat is high, but what are the specific vulnerabilities for which organizations should be particularly vigilant? In an exclusive interview, Randy Trzeciak of Carnegie Mellon's CERT program discusses recent insider threat research, including: Patterns and trends of insider crimes; Motives and means displayed in real insider cases; What employers and staffs can do to prevent and detect crimes. Trzeciak is currently a Senior Member of the Technical Staff for the Threat and Incident Management Team in the CERT Program at Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute. He is a member of a team in CERT focusing on insider threat research, including insider threat studies being conducted with the US Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center, DOD's Personnel Security Research Center (PERSEREC), and Carnegie Mellon's CyLab.

(March 31, 2009) First Data Corp. announced on Tuesday it will use technology from Inside Contactless, a French chipmaker, for its Go-Tag product, a sticker that can be affixed to mobile phones to make them work like contactless-payment devices. Under the three-year agreement, Inside Contactless will supply so-called prelams, or chip-and-antenna elements, that card manufacturers can use to manufacture the stickers for First Data. Up to now, Go-Tags have been proprietary devices for use in so-called closed-loop networks involving individual merchants, but with Inside Contactless's technology the product will likely be usable by mid-year on the payWave and PayPass contactless platforms operated by Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., pending certification on those systems, according to industry sources. A First Data spokesperson will not comment beyond Tuesday's announcement concerning the company's arrangement with Inside Contactless to provide prelams for Go-Tags. In addition, CPI Card Group, a card manufacturer based in Littleton, Colo., last fall said it expected to ship millions of contactless stickers based on prelams from Inside Contactless (Digital Transactions News, Oct. 15, 2008). CPI's customers are financial institutions interested in using the stickers to permit contactless transactions on payWave and PayPass. CPI is a manufacturer of Go-Tags, but will not comment on any plans for that product. First Data's deal with Inside Contactless follows by one day an announcement by Blaze Mobile Inc., an Alameda, Calif.-based provider of applications for mobile devices, that it is introducing a similar sticker that will work on the PayPass platform. The product works with the Blaze Mobile Wallet, a service the 4-year-old company launched a year ago when it was known as Mobile Candy Dish Inc. (Digital Transactions News, April 10, 2008). The stickers link to prepaid accounts managed by MetaBank, a Storm Lake, Iowa-based unit of Meta Financial Group Inc. Devel

Two U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission employees are under investigation by federal criminal authorities for allegedly using insider information to trade stocks, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday. A report by the SEC's internal watchdog alleges that the two SEC lawyers traded in stock of a large financial services company despite being told by another SEC employee of ongoing investigations of that company, CBS News reported. The SEC inspector general report said one SEC attorney under investigation works in the Office of the SEC's Chief Counsel and has access to a tremendous amount of nonpublic information, CBS News said. An SEC spokesman said: "We take seriously even the suggestion that any SEC employee would engage in insider trading. We note that the inspector general report neither accuses any SEC employee of insider trading nor concludes that any such conduct took place." Calls to the SEC's inspector general and Federal Bureau of Investigation were not immediately returned.

Banks and financial firms are placing more emphasis on internal threats to cut the flow of data leakage as a result of employee mistakes or workers disgruntled with layoffs and downsizing during the economic crisis, according to a recent survey. The report, "Protecting What Matters: The Sixth Annual Global Security Survey," is based on a Deloitte survey of 250 CISOs in the financial-services industry. It found that 36% of respondents believe the internal threat represents the greatest risk to organizations, compared to 13% who said external threats are the biggest concern. Mark Steinhoff, head of Deloitte's financial services security and privacy practices, said an organization's biggest mistake would be to let its guard down. While the number of security breaches may have declined over the last year, cybercriminals are not rationing back their efforts. "The number of breaches that are occurring are really at the hands of insiders and organizations are understanding that there is a real threat of malicious attacks and exposure of personal information by insiders," Steinhoff said. The failing economy may be driving the increased concern over insider threats, Steinoff said. "The climate we're in today causes concerns about disgruntled employees," he said. "We are seeing the layoffs and other forms of downsizing. Frankly with limited budget and less than satisfied employees, it really raises the parameter on that threat." Human error is the leading cause of information systems failure, and is likely to be the main cause of security attacks in the near future, according to 86% of those surveyed. To protect against employee mistakes that lead to a breach, financial firms should focus on risk rather than compliance to protect themselves, Steinhoff said. "[Organizations] need to look at what they want to protect and look at various types of threats internally and evaluate who has access to the data and who has access to which system, and approach it from that persp

The Air Force is seeking an entrepreneurial innovator to develop technology to analyze the conduct of insiders to determine if they pose a threat to government IT systems. In a call for proposals aimed at small businesses, posted on Tuesday, the Air Force is asking outside developers to "define, develop and demonstrate innovative approaches for determining 'good' (approved) versus 'bad' (disallowed/subversive) activities, including insiders and/or malware." For their initial efforts, the Air Force will pay up to $100,000. The proposal says current techniques that monitor illicit activities only address the most blatant violations of policy or the grossest deviations from accepted behavior. Most systems concentrate their resources on repelling attacks at the network borders with little attention devoted to threats that evade detection and/or emanate from within. The proposal states: "As such, there currently exists a great need across the federal, military and private sectors for a viable and robust means to provide near-real-time detection, correlation and attribution of network attacks, by content or pattern, without use of reactive previously-seen signatures. Many times, these trusted entities have detailed knowledge about the currently-installed host and network security systems, and can easily plan their activities to subvert these systems."

An insider at the California Water Service Company in San Jose broke into the company's computer system and transferred $9 million into offshore bank accounts and fled the country. Abdirahman Ismail Abdi, 32, was an auditor for the water company, which delivers drinking water throughout the state and is located in San Jose, Calif. Abdi resigned from his position on April 27. Allegedly, that night he went back to work and made three wire transfers totaling more than $9 million from the company's accounts to an account in Qatar. Abdi was seen by a janitor on the night of the crime, according to the San Jose Mercury News, citing court documents filed Wednesday in the federal court at San Jose. The next morning, the water company discovered what had been done and worked with their bank to have the money returned to their account. The company notified police, who are currently investigating the case, Jose Garcia, public information officer at the San Jose Police Department, told SCMagazineUS.com on Friday.

Internal controls failure.

Consumer Watchdog has sent the U.S. Justice Department a Google document presenting the best corporate arguments for why Google should not be viewed as monopolistic, along with a duplicate of the presentation marked up with comments from an expert countering the claims. The nonprofit consumer group received both documents from an anonymous industry insider. In the presentation, Google seeks to deflate increasing criticism that it is too big and powerful by spin meant to minimize the notion its search and advertising businesses are virtual monopolies. Commentary surrounding the presentation in the second document delivered to Consumer Watchdog presents information countering Google's contentions in what is described as a "Charm Offensive." "As the Justice Department examines the Google book deal and other Google enterprises it deserves to see the play book Google has prepared to deflect scrutiny and insider commentary on how many Google myths lack a basis in reality," said Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court. "Google's charm and spin should not be allowed to deter anti-trust regulators from seeing the real problems with Google's dominance and setting appropriate limits to protect users."

If you think the biggest threat to your sensitive information lies in network security, think again. Once a criminal is inside a building, there are limitless possibilities to what that person can access or damage. Take a look at your building's security. How easy is it to get inside?

Good awareness video to make employees & employers think about physical security ramifications

Six out of every 10 employees stole company data when they left their job last year, said a study of US workers. The survey, conducted by the Ponemon Institute, said that so-called malicious insiders use the information to get a new job, start their own business or for revenge. "They are making these judgements based out of fear and anxiety," the Institute's Mike Spinney told BBC News. "People are worried about their jobs and want to hedge their bets," he said. "Our study showed that 59% of people will say 'I'm going to take something of value with me when I go'." The Ponemon Institute, a privacy and management research firm, surveyed 945 adults in the United States who were laid-off, fired or changed jobs in the last 12 months. Everyone that took part had access to proprietary information such as customer data, contact lists, employee records, financial reports, confidential business documents, software tools or other intellectual property.

Industry Insiders Discuss HIT and HIPAA Issues March 30, 2009 by Astrid Fiano, Writer A significant part of President Obama's health care reform agenda is the push for implementing more health care technology. In the health care field privacy is always a major concern, and was the impetus of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996--protecting the privacy of individually identifiable health information in all formats, and the confidentiality provisions of the Patient Safety Act--protecting identifiable information being used to analyze patient safety events. So those in the health care industry now wonder will the Administration's focus on health IT (HIT) present more challenges to privacy concerns? As part of a continuing focus on HIT issues, DOTmed interviewed industry expert Kirk J. Nahra, a partner in the Washington D.C. legal firm of Wiley Rein LLP, specializing in privacy and information security for the health care and insurance industries, and named an expert practitioner by the Guide to the Leading U.S. Healthcare Lawyers. DOTmed also interviewed Lise Rauzi, Vice President, Training Development, for Health Care Compliance Strategies (HCCS). HCCS provides online training compliance for employees. Nahra notes that regardless of the rising concern over privacy and the new HIT legislation, there have already been formal HIPAA security rules on electronic information in place for several years--the health care industry compliance has just been inconsistent. The problem -- to the extent there is one -- is that HIPAA rules are process-oriented, Nahra explained. The rules don't tell an entity what to do, but rather what to evaluate--a standard set of questions, but without a standard set of answers. For example, a covered entity has to have an internal audit, but the rules do not tell the entity how best to carry out that internal audit. Not surprisingly, different businesses have different ideas on how to implement their HIPAA evaluations

The SEC will charge Angelo Mozilo, former chairman and CEO of Countrywide Financial, with insider trading, according to people familiar with the situation. The SEC will also charge the company's former chief operating officer, David Sambol, and former financial chief, Eric Sieracki, with securities fraud for failing to disclose the firm's relaxed lending standards in its 2006 annual report. The charges, which are expected to be announced by the SEC later today, will not be accompanied by any criminal indictments.

Another example of misuse of company data for personal gain.

More than 50 per cent of internet users say they would be more interested in advertisements if they were tailored to their own interests, according to a new report from Q Interactive. Furthermore, another 50 per cent of respondents said they would view an advertiser favourably if they received personalised ads. Despite a number of obstacles that prevent marketers from obtaining too much personal information, 53 per cent of internet users would rather have free online services and insider information in exchange for relevant targeting data. However, 32 per cent of the respondents said they would accept worse service in exchange for privacy, and 15 per cent would prefer to pay for premium service and view no advertising whatsoever. Last year, a survey from Dynamic Markets on behalf of Coremetrics, found that half of UK consumers were happy for marketers to use behavioural targeting to track their online behaviour.

Likely a bit of bias in the survey, but indicitive that targeted ads are not going away. Like most things digital, doing it safely is important for consumers. - Karl More than 50 per cent of internet users say they would be more interested in advertisements if they were tailored to their own interests, according to a new report from Q Interactive. Furthermore, another 50 per cent of respondents said they would view an advertiser favourably if they received personalised ads. Despite a number of obstacles that prevent marketers from obtaining too much personal information, 53 per cent of internet users would rather have free online services and insider information in exchange for relevant targeting data. However, 32 per cent of the respondents said they would accept worse service in exchange for privacy, and 15 per cent would prefer to pay for premium service and view no advertising whatsoever. Last year, a survey from Dynamic Markets on behalf of Coremetrics, found that half of UK consumers were happy for marketers to use behavioural targeting to track their online behaviour.

"If there was anything even vaguely comforting about the data breaches that were announced this year, it was that many of them stemmed from familiar and downright mundane security failures. Companies continued to be felled more by usual issues such as lost laptops, unpatched or poorly coded software, inadvertent disclosures and rogue insiders, rather than by sneaky new attack techniques or devastating new hacker tools. Here's a look back at five of the more notable breaches of the year:"

More preventable security failures predicted for 2010. Way to show value!

"If there was anything even vaguely comforting about the data breaches that were announced this year, it was that many of them stemmed from familiar and downright mundane security failures. Companies continued to be felled more by usual issues such as lost laptops, un-patched or poorly coded software, inadvertent disclosures and rogue insiders, rather than by sneaky new attack techniques or devastating new hacker tools. "

Preventable data loss damages customer trust and corporate trust.

Data security represents both a new market opportunity to sell insurance coverage and a new risk - especially for independent insurance agencies that may not be compliant with data security laws or have plans in place to protect their own companies from data breaches. While data security is an evolving issue, failing to protect data can have a huge financial impact on a company. The average total per-incident cost of a data security breach was $6.65 million, compared to an average per-incident cost of $6.3 million in 2007, according to the "U.S. Cost of Data Breach Study" conducted by data protection company PGP Corp. and information management research firm The Ponemon Institute. The PGP/Ponemon study indicated that data breach incidents cost U.S. companies $202 per compromised customer record in 2008, meaning that companies incur additional costs with an abnormal churn in lost customers. More than 84 percent of data breach cases in 2008 involved organizations that had more than one data breach. And, more than 88 percent of all cases in the study involved insider negligence. The cost of lost business continued to be the most costly effect of a breach, averaging $4.59 million or $139 per record compromised. Lost business now accounts for 69 percent of data breach costs, up from 65 percent in 2007, compared to 54 percent in the 2006 study. "After four years of conducting this study, one thing remains constant: U.S. businesses continue to pay dearly for having a data breach," said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of The Ponemon Institute. "As costs only continue to rise, companies must remain on guard or face losing valuable customers in this unpredictable economy." Includes video: Data Security Creating Insurance Agent Sales Opportunities

A top affliction of privacy professionals is the growing complexity of privacy laws. The number of jurisdictions regulating data privacy and the number of other laws in which privacy provisions are tucked has increased with no letup since 2000. Like the Lilliputians in Gulliver's Travels, the tiniest jurisdictions are now lassoing their privacy ropes around the mightiest of corporations. Where does this leave those who are charged with keeping their organizations privacy-compliant? Desperately looking for a way to organize news about all of these developments. I recently surveyed the landscape of possible solutions to this problem. What did I find? Three different approaches: free Web sites, newsletters and news feeds; fee-based periodicals; and fee-based databases, such as Nymity's PrivaWorks, Cecile Park Publishing's DataGuidance and law firm Morrison and Foerster LLP's Summit Privacy. What were the pros and cons of each approach? Free sources Privacy leaders with no budget will want to exploit what's free, including these options: * Morrison & Foerster's Privacy Library, probably the most comprehensive and current free online listing of privacy laws in 95 countries. * Law firm Baker & McKenzie's annual Global Privacy Handbook, which is distributed to clients and friends. * Computerworld's own Security Newsletter, which offers a regular look at news about the technical threats to personal data. * The International Association of Privacy Professionals' Daily Dashboard, Canada Dashboard Digest and monthly Inside 1to1: Privacy. These are the best available free news feeds on privacy.

With the nation's strictest data security law set to take effect Jan. 1 in Massachusetts, mobile phone merchant Dennis Kelly plans to parlay the regulations into a competitive advantage. Kelly will display signs at each point-of-sale device inside 28 Wireless City shops, of which he is co-owner, stating that the company complies with the state's new mandate and that protecting customers' personal information is a company-wide priority. He says that as his business has grown in a few short years, adhering to the new requirements - namely, establishing an official information security policy and deploying more stringent access control solutions - was necessary, regardless of the impending legal obligation. And now he wants to show that investment off. "We can set ourselves apart from competitors by communicating that we take this stuff seriously," he says. "I think we will be somewhat unique in that regard." Kelly's take on the regulations - the first time any state has issued such a comprehensive and prescriptive list of measures that must be taken to protect data - appears to be in direct contrast to most other business owners across the Bay State.

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Wikipedia told the controversial U.K. advertising firm Phorm on Thursday not to spy on Wikipedia's users, saying the company's plan to monitor what sites people visit on the net invaded people's privacy. Wikipedia now joins Amazon.co.uk in opting out of the Big-Brother-esque marketing scheme and creating the possibility of a mass opt-out by the net's largest websites. Phorm wants to pay ISPs -- such as British Telecom -- to let it build marketing profiles of its subscribers by installing boxes inside the ISP that monitor every url users visit and every search they run. Using those profiles, Phorm can charge advertisers high rates to serve targeted ads. But in an email sent Thursday, Wikimedia.org told Phorm not to record anything about urls from domains it controls, ranging from Wikiquotes to Wikipedia -- one of the most popular sites on the net. Phorm operates an opt-out system for sites and ISP customers, but it would be virtually impossible to verify if the company actually complied with such requests. "The Wikimedia Foundation requests that our web sites including Wikipedia.org and all related domains be excluded from scanning by the Phorm / BT Webwise system, as we consider the scanning and profiling of our visitors' behavior by a third party to be an infringement on their privacy," the email read, according to a Wikimedia blog post.

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This is a great time to be in the hard-drive shredding business, as companies scramble to destroy data before the bad guys have a chance to steal it. A look inside the belly of the beast (includes video). September 08, 2008 - CSO - Thanks to all the fear over data security breaches, a computer recycling operation has morphed into something much bigger - and potentially more lucrative - for the Saraiva brothers. That's not to say the nature of their work has changed much. They still make money off of companies looking to unload devices that have outlived their usefulness. They still stuff the gadgetry into a shredder on the back of a truck that reduces it to shrapnel. The difference is they're now part of the fight against data thieves. Their company, Peabody, Mass.-based Corporate Destruction Solutions, is rapidly expanding to accommodate organizations desperate to destroy old hard drives before they can fall into the hands of data thieves. And they're not alone. Several companies in the metal-shredding business confirm a surge in demand for their services in the wake of many highly-publicized data breaches.

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