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Compared to other key corporate executives, CEOs appear to underestimate the IT security risks faced by their own organizations, according to a survey of C-level executives released today by the Ponemon Institute. The Ponemon survey (download PDF) of 213 CEOs, CIOs, COOs and other senior executives reveals what appears to be a perception gap between CEOs and other senior managers concerning information security issues. For instance, 48% of CEOs surveyed said they believe hackers rarely try to access corporate data. On the other hand, some 53% of other C-level executives believe that their company's data is under attack on a daily or even hourly basis. The survey also found that the top executives were less aware of specific security incidents at their companies than other C-level executives and are more confident that data breaches can be easily avoided. Ponemon found that CEOs tend to view data protection efforts as vital to maintaining good customer satisfaction levels and to the company's brand image. The other managers, however, were more likely to say that the most important role for data security efforts is to satisfy regulatory requirements. The survey also found that CEOs and other top managers differed in their opinion of who is responsible for protecting corporate data. While eight out of 10 respondents said they believe there is one person responsible for data protection in their organization, there was a sharp difference of opinion on just who that person was. More than half of the CEOs said that CIOs are responsible for protecting data at their companies; only 24% of other senior managers felt the same way. And 85% of respondents said someone else would be held responsible for a data breach. "On the issue of accountability, we found that while people acknowledged that data breaches were a problem, very few people felt that if [their company] suffered a breach, they would be held responsible," said Larry Ponemon, founder of the Ponemon Institute.

Compared to other key corporate executives, CEOs appear to underestimate the IT security risks faced by their own organizations, according to a survey of C-level executives released today by the Ponemon Institute. The Ponemon survey (download PDF) of 213 CEOs, CIOs, COOs and other senior executives reveals what appears to be a perception gap between CEOs and other senior managers concerning information security issues. For instance, 48% of CEOs surveyed said they believe hackers rarely try to access corporate data. On the other hand, some 53% of other C-level executives believe that their company's data is under attack on a daily or even hourly basis. The survey also found that the top executives were less aware of specific security incidents at their companies than other C-level executives and are more confident that data breaches can be easily avoided. Ponemon found that CEOs tend to view data protection efforts as vital to maintaining good customer satisfaction levels and to the company's brand image. The other managers, however, were more likely to say that the most important role for data security efforts is to satisfy regulatory requirements. The survey also found that CEOs and other top managers differed in their opinion of who is responsible for protecting corporate data. While eight out of 10 respondents said they believe there is one person responsible for data protection in their organization, there was a sharp difference of opinion on just who that person was. More than half of the CEOs said that CIOs are responsible for protecting data at their companies; only 24% of other senior managers felt the same way. And 85% of respondents said someone else would be held responsible for a data breach. "On the issue of accountability, we found that while people acknowledged that data breaches were a problem, very few people felt that if [their company] suffered a breach, they would be held responsible," said Larry Ponemon, founder of the Ponemon Institute.

Federal regulators will be able to take back two years of pay from executives held responsible for a large bank's failure. Executives deemed "negligent" and "substantially responsible" for a big bank's failure can lose all their compensation from the previous two years under a rule approved Wednesday by the board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The advertiser's dream of sending a particular commercial to a specific consumer is one step closer to reality as Cablevision Systems plans to announce the largest project yet using targeted advertising on television. Beginning with 500,000 homes in Brooklyn, the Bronx and some New Jersey areas, Cablevision will use its targeting technology to route ads to specific households based on data about income, ethnicity, gender or whether the homeowner has children or pets. The technology requires no hardware or installation in a subscriber's home, so viewers may not realize they are seeing ads different from a neighbor's. But during the same show, a 50-something male may see an ad for, say, high-end speakers from Best Buy, while his neighbors with children may see one for a Best Buy video game. "We have, as an industry, been talking about this since the beginning of time," said Matt Seiler, the global chief executive of the media firm Universal McCann, a part of the Interpublic Group. "Now we've got it in 500,000 households. This is real." The potential of customized ads worries some privacy advocates, despite the assurance of cable companies that they maintain anonymity about the households. "We don't have an objection to advertising that is targeted to demographics," said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a civil liberties group in Washington. But, he said, there is a need to show "that they can't be reverse-engineered to find the names of individuals that were watching particular shows." Cablevision says it segments its subscribers only by demographics, so that an advertiser can divide ads among various groups: General Motors, for example, could send an ad for a Cadillac Escalade to high-income houses, a Chevrolet to low-income houses, and one in Spanish to Hispanic consumers. Cablevision matches households to demographic data to divide its customers, using the data-collection compa

IT security typically has been deemed one of those services best provided in-house. But the stigma attached to outsourcing security and Security as a Service -- namely that an outsider does not know your company well enough to protect it -- may be falling away, as businesses look for more ways to cut costs. Certainly, some heavy-hitter providers believe attitudes are changing. This month, McAfee Inc. announced its new SaaS Security Business Unit. Headed by former Hewlett-Packard Co. SaaS executive Marc Olesen, the unit will oversee all McAfee products delivered over the Internet, including security scanning services, Web and email security services and remote managed host-based security software and hardware. Meanwhile, last April, IBM launched some hosted and managed services that it says help midsized businesses better manage risk and improve the security of their IT systems, all while offering cost savings over traditional products. Indeed, much of IBM's security strategy during the next 24 months will focus on moving security technologies into the cloud and expanding its managed services offerings, said Jason Hilling, an enterprise services business line executive with IBM Internet Security Systems. That includes providing some hosted implementations of technologies that once were located only at the customer premises. "Because the economy is struggling, I think there will be enough excitement in the marketplace over the cost benefits of Security as a Service that we are going to see a much higher degree of willingness to look at it as a real viable option," Hilling said. Hilling contended that a midmarket company with between 500 and 700 employees can realize costs savings from 35% to upwards of 60% by doing security as a managed service. Savings diminish as the deployment gets larger and more complicated, and the costs of managed services escalate. Yet outsourcing security is not just about cost. The world is becoming very hostile, said Sadik Al-Abdulla,

Online advertising firm Phorm is pressing ahead with plans to launch more than a year after it first drew criticism from some privacy advocates. Phorm executives will meet with members of the public on Tuesday, following a similar meeting in 2008. The service has proved controversial for some campaigners who believe it breaks UK data interception laws. The firm received clearance from the Home Office and police closed a file on BT trials of the technology. "We have been supported or endorsed by all of the leading stakeholders," Phorm chief executive Kent Ertugrul told BBC News. "Ofcom, the Information Commissioner's Office, the Home Office, leading privacy advocates like Simon Davies, the advertising industry and publishers have all backed our service," he said. He added: "We are very, very happy with where we are one year on." Trawling websites Phorm's system works by "trawling" websites visited by users whose ISPs have signed up to the service and for whom the technology is switched on, and then matches keywords from the content of the page to an anonymous profile. Users are then targeted with adverts that are more tailored to their interests on partner websites that have signed up to Phorm's technology.

A majority of business executives believe that they have a right to know what their employees are doing on social-networking sites, but most workers say it's none of their bosses' business, according to a new survey by Deloitte. The survey was conducted in April with about 2,000 U.S. adults. Of the 500 respondents with managerial job titles (vice president, CIO, partner, board member, etc.), 299, or 60%, agreed that businesses have a right to know how employees portray themselves or their companies on sites like Facebook and MySpace. But 53% of employee respondents said their profiles are none of their employers' business, and 61% said that they wouldn't change what they were doing online even if their boss was monitoring their activities. That disagreement, says Sharon Allen, chairman of Deloitte's board and the sponsor of the survey, is one that companies need to address, particularly as these sites have become part of younger workers' lives. "It does, in fact, tee up the challenging debate or discussion that needs to take place to try to resolve both of their concerns," she said. Few businesses are having that conversation, according to the survey, though many executives indicated that it was on their minds. When asked what their company's policy was regarding social-networking use, roughly a quarter (26%) of employees said they knew of specific guidelines as to what they could and couldn't post. Similar numbers said their office didn't have a policy or they didn't know if their company had a policy - 23% and 24%, respectively.

As protests in Iran last month drew the world's attention, the top executives at a large global industrial goods company held a teleconference to consider their options. The meeting was hastily called, but the participants were not starting from scratch. In fact, the events unfolding in the country were strikingly similar to a scenario that they had developed, along with a handful others, in a 2008 offsite meeting focused on potential changes in their competitive environment. The workshop, the output, and the eventual impact on decision making represents a perfect illustration of how so-called scenario planning techniques can be utilized to help managers navigate in complex and uncertain environments. In the meeting the industrial company held last year, executives had discussed each scenario they developed, the potential triggers for each of them, and how the company should respond to each of these situations if it were to arise. Pulling out the notes from these discussions, they already knew their options and had a view on how they would like to respond. In many ways, they were prepared -- and already one step ahead of some other companies.

Visit the Amazon.com site to buy a book online and your welcome page will include recommendations for other books you might enjoy, including the latest from your favorite authors, all based on your history of purchases. Most customers appreciate these suggestions, much the way they would recommendations by a local librarian. But, what if you visited an investment site, only to find advertising messages suggesting therapies for your recently diagnosed heart condition? Chances are that you would experience what Fran Maier calls the "creepiness" factor, a sense that someone has been snooping into a part of your life that should remain private. Maier is the Executive Director of TrustE, a nonprofit that sets guidelines for online privacy and awards a seal of approval to companies meeting those guidelines. She was a speaker at the recent Supernova conference, an annual technology event in San Francisco organized by Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor Kevin Werbach in collaboration with Wharton. Creepiness Factor The creepiness factor is a risk inherent in so-called behavioral targeting. This practice is based on marketers anonymously observing a user's behavior on the Internet and compiling a personal profile based on interests and behavior -- sites visited, searches conducted, articles read, even emails written and received. Based on their profiles, users receive advertising targeted specifically to them, regardless of where they travel on the web. Consumer advocates worry that online data collection and tracking is going too far. Marketing executives counter that consumers benefit from seeing advertising relevant to their interests and contend that relinquishing some personal data is a reasonable trade-off for free access to Internet content, much of it supported by advertising.

To find out more about the survey, I asked Deloitte LLP chairman of the board Sharon Allen to provide some additional context. Given that my only risk-management concern early this week relates to thunderstorms off the coast of South Padre Island, I asked Sharon to step in as a guest blogger today. Here's what she sent me: When I was a high school student growing up in the small farming community of Kimberly, Idaho, little did I know that a song from that time could serve as an anthem for something happening in the workplace today. The Beatles' 1967 classic "Hello Goodbye" is a study in contrasts, as are the current attitudes about social media. Social media has arrived - and with it, employers and employees are singing very different songs about what constitutes appropriate social networking both on and off the job. Recently, I commissioned the third annual Deloitte LLP "Ethics & Workplace" survey. We polled 500 executives and 2,000 employees outside Deloitte. Our survey found that 60 percent of business executives believe they have a right to know how employees portray themselves and their organizations in online social networks. Perhaps because nearly three-fourths of the employees in our poll agreed that the use of social networks makes it easier to damage a company's reputation. However, more than half of employees polled say their social networking pages are not an employer's concern. That belief is especially true among younger workers, with nearly two-thirds of 18- to 34-year-old respondents stating that employers have no business monitoring their online activity.

"What have been the biggest privacy issues of 2009, and what emerging trends should you watch heading into 2010? We posed these questions to J. Trevor Hughes, Executive Director of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). In an exclusive interview, Hughes discusses: The role of the IAPP; Key legislation in the U.S. and internationally; Where organizations need to improve privacy protection. Hughes is an attorney specializing in e-commerce, privacy and technology law. In his role as Executive Director of the IAPP, Hughes leads the world's largest association of privacy professionals. "

You can't ignore the presence and usage of all the myriad forms of instant messaging, social networking and blogging. The millennial generation won't thrive in companies where Facebook is banned or texting is frowned upon. They think and work so differently from their baby boomer managers that generational clashes are inevitable. The Security Executive Council and CXO Media, producer of CSO Perspectives and CSO magazine, are partnering to probe attitudes toward collaborative technologies like IM and social networking. By participating you will receive a research report based on this survey. Definition of web 2.0 apps: The term "Web 2.0" describes the changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aim to enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web culture communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. (Wikipedia)

These were developed for boards, but they would probably be a good basis for questions auditors could ask as well.

Several years ago I was helping firms prepare for their first SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) compliance audits. Following is one of the experiences I had training corporate executives, staff and even auditors about the benefit of selling change...

I walked into the Chief Information Officer's office, not k

"The United States House of Representatives took a major step this week toward enacting a national data breach notification law. H.R. 2221, the Data Accountability and Trust Act (DATA), cleared the House with a voice vote. In its current form, DATA requires businesses to notify customers and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) if sensitive information has been exposed to a security breach. If the U.S. Senate can reconcile its own approach to data breach notification legislation with DATA, a new federal standard will emerge. If signed into law by President Barack Obama, a federal data breach ¬law would pre-empt the jumbled mass of dozens of state laws. "You'd be better served by federal legislation if the federal legislation has teeth and doesn't pre-empt the state's law," said California state senator Joe Simitian, speaking to executive editor Scot Petersen in September. "If there was a meaningful standard at the national level, I think many states would be happy to accept it." Aside from the data breach notification required by the HITECH Act, DATA would put into place the first national law of its kind. H.R. 2221 was sponsored by House Subcommittee Chair Rep. Bobby L. Rush of Illinois. The bill specifically states that: "Any person engaged in interstate commerce that owns or possesses data in electronic form containing personal information shall, following the discovery of a breach of security of the system maintained by such person that contains such data -- 1. notify each individual who is a citizen or resident of the United States whose personal information was acquired by an unauthorized person as a result of such a breach of security; and 2. notify the Federal Trade Commission."

"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 U.S. Supreme Court Monday will hear arguments for and against the constitutionality of the oversight board established to monitor public company financial activity as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley regulation. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was created and enacted into law partly in response to corporate accounting scandals such as Enron and WorldCom. The regulatory standard set out to reduce such fraudulent financial activities and provide an oversight mechanism for public companies. Part of the law includes the establishment of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), which consists of five members appointed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The arguments to be heard this week relate directly to the PCAOB. While set up to regulate financial accounting at companies, those opposed to the board's powers argue that because its members are not appointed by the president, the board's control is unconstitutional based on the country's tenets of three branches of government. The challengers to the law say that the PCAOB lacks the presidential control required for executive branch agencies because the five members are appointed by the SEC, which doesn't fall under presidential powers. As a private agency in essence, the PCAOB is able to act as a government authority, which the Free Enterprise Fund believes to be unconstitutional. "

"Facebook tightens security as it deals with the continuing fallout over changes to its privacy settings." ...Earlier on May 13, Facebook had a meeting where employees asked executives questions about privacy. Facebook officials would not comment on exactly what was said. "We have an open culture and it should come as no surprise that we're providing a forum for employees to ask questions on a topic that has received a lot of outside interest," a spokesperson said.

Hey Zuck! Privacy & security are NOT the same thing. Misdirection is not the response FB users are seeking.

"It's one of the newest and most popular stops on the Washington, D.C. tour, and its artifacts of history leave clues for how information security professionals should approach their future. The International Spy Museum has just celebrated its 7th year and its 5 millionth visitor, says Executive Director Peter Earnest, a former CIA officer who's run the museum since its inception. In an exclusive interview, Earnest discusses: the museum's goals and growth plans; who visits the museum and what they get from the experience; lessons to be learned by today's information security professionals. Earnest is a 35-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He served 25 years as a case officer in its Clandestine Service, primarily in Europe and the Middle East. He ran intelligence collection and covert action operations against a range of targets including Soviet Bloc representatives and Communist front organizations. As Museum director, he has played a leading role in its extraordinary success as a Washington attraction. He edits the Museum's book ventures and has frequently been interviewed by the major media in radio, TV, and the press on current intelligence issues."

"Mozilla's flagship Firefox browser is vulnerable to at least 11 "critical" vulnerabilities that expose users to drive-by download attacks that require no user interaction beyond normal browsing. The open-source group shipped Firefox 3.5.4 with patches for the vulnerabilities, which range from code execution risk to the theft of information in the browser's form history."

You're watching Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show," when suddenly you see a commercial for the Mustang convertible you've been eyeing - with a special promotion from Ford, which knows you just ended your car lease. A button pops up on the screen. You click it with the remote and are asked whether you want more information about the car. You respond "yes." Days later, an information packet arrives at your home, the address on file with your cable company. This is the future of cable TV advertising: personal and targeted. Cable TV operators are taking a page from online advertising behemoths like Google Inc. to bring these so-called "addressable" ads onto the television. "It hasn't really been done on TV before," said Mike Eason, chief data officer of Canoe Ventures, a group formed by the nation's six largest cable operators to launch targeted and interactive ads on a national platform starting this summer. They're betting they can even one-up online ads because they also offer a full-screen experience - a car commercial plays much better on your TV than on your PC. As such, they hope to charge advertisers more. The stakes are high: Cable companies get only a small portion of the $182 billion North American advertising market. Eason said the cable operators, which sell local ads on networks like Comedy Central, get roughly 10 percent of the commercial time on those channels. With targeting, they are hoping to expand that. But they have to tread carefully. Privacy advocates worry the practice opens the door to unwanted tracking of viewing habits so ads can target consumers' likes or dislikes. They also fear it could lead to discrimination, such as poorer households getting ads for the worst auto-financing deals because they are deemed credit risks. "You've got to tell people you're doing it and you've got to give people a way to say no," said Pam Dixon, executive director of World Privacy Forum in Carlsbad, Calif. "Otherwise, it's just not fair."