CIPP Information Privacy & Security News

It's time to comply. Nov. 1 is here, and financial institutions throughout the U.S. are still scrambling to meet their Identity Theft Red Flags Rule compliance deadline. For the past year, we've done what we can to guide your efforts with articles, interviews, research, webinars and white papers. You can see the fruits of our efforts here. These are the resources you need to ensure not just your own compliance, but that of your third-party service providers and key business partners. Within this special guide, please find: * A summary of the final rule and guidelines, including a listing of all 26 red flags; * A detailed look at the examination procedures for the new rule; * Insights from federal regulators and banking practitioners on what to expect post-Nov. 1; * Analysis of what compliance means to your institution and its customers for years to come.

Date: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 Time: 2:00 p.m. EST/11:00 a.m. PST Follow the link below to register: http://sc.haymarketcomm.net/r/?ZXU=775318&ZXD=33050957 Organizations are still struggling to get into compliance with PCI DSS, especially as the PCI Security Standards Council continues to update and tweak the standards. There's much to keep in mind and even more to do in order to adhere to the mandates, so what are the critical steps to get there. Experts share their know-how. Featured speakers Rich Mogull, L.L.C., Founder and Principle Analyst, Securosis Murray Rosenthal, CISA, Senior Policy Analyst - Security I&T Strategic Planning & Architecture Information & Technology Division, City of Toronto Sponsored by Symantec http://sc.haymarketcomm.net/r/?ZXU=775319&ZXD=33050957 Follow the link below to register: http://sc.haymarketcomm.net/r/?ZXU=775320&ZXD=33050957

If practice makes perfect, it's no wonder commercial pilot Chesley B. (Sully) Sullenberger III was able to save the day last week, guiding a malfunctioning jetliner over New York City and landing it safely in the Hudson River. It turns out Sullenberger was well trained for the job and had been studying crisis management. The Associated Press' Amy Westfeldt says Sullenberger, 57, of Danville, California, is a former fighter pilot who runs a safety consulting firm in addition to flying commercial aircraft. Westfeldt says Sullenberger is president of Safety Reliability Methods, a California firm that uses "the ultra-safe world of commercial aviation" as a basis for safety consulting in other fields. "When a plane is getting ready to crash with a lot of people who trust you, it is a test," Civil engineer Robert Bea told Westfeldt. "Sully proved the end of the road for that test. He had studied it, he had rehearsed it, he had taken it to his heart." The pilot "did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river and then making sure that everybody got out," Mayor Michael Bloomberg told AP. "He walked the plane twice after everybody else was off, and tried to verify that there was nobody else on board, and he assures us there was not. He was the last one up the aisle and he made sure that there was nobody behind him."

The GUIDE's Response & Recovery Issue Available in Digital Format Now! Our recent Response & Recovery issue focusing on Hurricane Ike is now available in digital format. If you did not receive the printed copy, follow this link for access to this invaluable resource

Scammers are at it again - taking advantage of Google sponsored ads for acquiring traffic in order to redirect it to malware-infected copies of legitimate software. win.rar GmbH is warning users of an ongoing fraudulent AdWords campaign pushing a malware-infected copy of WinRAR, the popular archiving application. Starting from the basic fact that, both, legitimate and malicious users can purchase their visibility, the fake WinRAR release is only the tip of the iceberg. Let's take a peek at the campaign impersonating Download.com - impersonation is a form of flattery - and discuss a separate campaign promising to deliver free copies of the free in general, WinRAR and WinZip, managed by a Zango adware affiliate.

70 percent of UK risk managers have declared that making sure the employees in their organization are risk savvy is their biggest challenge in light of new pitfalls according to research conducted by Aon. "The risks companies are facing, such as increased company insolvencies, less access to credit and increased levels of fraud, need to be dealt with by employees throughout the organization rather than just at senior management levels," said the bulletin. According to the survey of UK businesses the key risk management challenges they face in 2009 are: -- Embedding ERM in the culture of the organization 70 percent -- Keeping 'risk registers' real and relevant 47 percent -- Making the link between ERM and strategic planning processes 34 percent -- Gaining senior executive sponsorship 19 percent -- Making business continuity plans relevant to line managers 13 percent -- Credit rating agency scrutiny of ERM 6 percent Alex Hindson, head of enterprise risk management at Aon Global Risk Consulting commented: "When the markets are literally crashing down around us and we don't know what is just around the corner it is extremely tempting to focus just on the problems of today, rather than look at the issues and factors that are going to help us survive tomorrow, but this short term view can often be counter-productive.

Regulators are examining Apple Inc's disclosures about Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs' health problems to ensure investors were not misled, Bloomberg said, citing a person familiar with the matter. The Securities and Exchange Commission's review does not mean investigators have seen evidence of wrongdoing, the person told Bloomberg. The person declined to be identified because the inquiry is not public, the news service reported. Both the SEC and Apple declined to comment on the matter. Jobs, who earlier had said he had an easily treatable "hormonal imbalance," said last week his problems were "more complex" than originally thought, and he would take a medical leave of absence for six months. In 2004, Jobs was treated for a rare type of pancreatic cancer called an islet-cell, or neuroendocrine, tumor. Such tumors can be benign or malignant, but they usually grow slowly and are far less deadly than most pancreatic tumors.

It's been four years since data broker ChoicePoint acknowledged the data security breach that put it in the middle of a media firestorm and pushed data protection to the top of the infosecurity community's priority list. Since then, the business world has made plenty of progress hardening its data defenses -- thanks in part to industry standards like PCI DSS and data breach disclosure laws (click to see state-by-state map) now in place. But the latest data breach to grab headlines illustrates how vulnerable organizations remain to devastating network intrusions. Heartland Payment Systems, the Princeton, N.J.-based provider of credit and debit processing, payment and check management services, admitted Tuesday it was the victim of a data breach some quickly began citing as the largest of its kind. The company discovered last week that malware compromised card data across its network, after Visa and MasterCard alerted Heartland to sinister activity surrounding processed card transactions. The Shadow of ChoicePoint The Heartland breach comes roughly four years after ChoicePoint announced -- as required by California's SB 1386 data breach disclosure law -- that conmen stole personal financial records of more than 163,000 consumers by setting up fake business requests. Since then, much bigger incidents have occurred, most notably the TJX data breach that exposed more than 45 million debit and credit card holders to identity fraud. Heartland President and CFO Robert H.B. Baldwin Jr. said Tuesday that 100 million card transactions occur each month on the compromised systems used to provide processing to merchants and businesses. As of Tuesday, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse estimated that a total of 251,164,141 sensitive records had been compromised since early 2005. Up to 15 separate cases have been reported since Jan. 1, 2009.

A recent data breach study commissioned by the state of Maine sheds light on the losses banks experienced as a result of the data breaches at TJX and Hannaford Brother's supermarkets. The state's banks said they incurred $2.1 million in expenses related to data breaches since January 1, 2007. The Hannaford breach had the largest impact, affecting 71 financial institutions and incurring $1.6 million in expenses according to the Maine Data Breach Study. Hannaford is based in Scarborough, Maine. The TJX breach accounted for $485,000 in expenses. The report was issued by the Main Bureau of Financial Institutions in November 2008. It studied the impact of data security breaches on Maine banks and credit unions. Fifty credit unions and 25 banks headquartered in Maine responded to the survey. Financial institutions reported more than 18 million records breached last year, according to the Identity Theft Research Center. The San Diego-based nonprofit found that data breach reports across five industry sectors jumped to 656 last year, up 47% from 2007. About 12% of the reports came from financial-services firms, up from 7% in 2007. In Maine, the Hannaford breach resulted in more than $318,000 in gross fraud losses, according to data reported by 22 financial institutions. More than 700 accounts were used to buy items fraudulently, although five of the 22 institutions that suffered a fraud loss did not report the number of accounts, according to the report. The Hannaford breach cost some banks as much as $58,000 to reissue credit cards to customers. Investigation expenses cost nearly $30,000 for some banks. Communication to customers cost nearly $28,000, some banks and credit unions reported. Fraud losses of nearly $45,000 were tied to the TJX data breach. The losses were reported by six financial institutions. The expenses for reissuing credit cards cost some banks as much as $32,000. Investigation expenses were as high as $21,000 for some banks. Communication to custom

This tip is part of SearchSecurity.com's Data Protection School lesson, E-discovery and security in the enterprise. Visit the E-discovery and security in the enterprise lesson page for additional learning resources. Most information security pros have a handle on the major data types found in their environments, but they also know that there is a whole lot more data lurking around the edges. These unknown data types can include documents used by individuals, or whole applications owned by departments that have quietly become essential to the business. Most of the time, focusing on the squeaky wheels is an acceptable strategy; if there's no "squeak" then there's no need to worry. But when it comes to litigation, and especially managing the electronic discovery process, what you don't know can hurt you. There are four major types of data in use today: paper documents; structured data sets, like databases; semi-structured applications, like email and image stores; and unstructured repositories, like file servers. Comprehending the vast volume of these varied records can be a challenge for everyone involved, which includes information technology, records management, legal staff, and even the data owners themselves. But since almost all business information is stored in digital formats today, electronic storage systems are the most popular target for the discovery motions filed as part of legal proceedings. It is most efficient for a litigator to head straight for your email, spreadsheets and applications, looking for what they term electronically stored information (ESI). Making matters worse for IT administrators, new rules for civil litigation enacted at the end of 2006 (called the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or FRCP) have pushed up the timetable of electronic discovery. What was once a delayed and informal process has become much more structured, with lawyers meeting to discuss available ESI, typically just a few weeks after legal action commences. When l

This tip is part of Mitigating Web 2.0 threats, a lesson in SearchSecurity.com's Data Protection Security School. Visit the lesson page or our Security School Course Catalog for additional learning resources. Social networking, a term relatively new to the computing vernacular, has already become part of the cultural norm for a great proportion of Internet users. Even more recently, the use of online communities to establish and build connections among those with shared interests has become part of the corporate world as well. As professional social networks such as LinkedIn and Blue Chip Expert continue to grow, and professional groups gain in popularity on once-personal sites like Facebook and MySpace, enterprise security and risk management professionals must face the reality that these sites are emerging conduits for the unauthorized disclosure of confidential corperate information. Add the use of public social networking tools to the list of concerns, and the effectiveness of the traditional corporate security perimeter is further diminished. However, a robust set of policy, process and architecture aids in mitigating the risks of being social. Broadly, social networking is described as software that lets people interact, rendezvous, connect, play or collaborate by use of a computer network. This definition covers the popular social networking sites, including those mentioned above, as well as blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts, tags, and more recently, search engines. While there are numerous benefits to social network solutions, including reducing costs and increasing collaboration, we'll focus on addressing the risks.

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.

The federal government would subsidize up to 65% of COBRA health insurance payments for many individuals who have lost their jobs since Sept. 1, 2008, under an $825 billion stimulus package unveiled by House Democrats. COBRA provisions are supported by health insurance groups, including America''s Health Insurance Plans and the National Business Group on Health. However, AHIP said other parts of the plan tying increased investment in health information technology to stricter scrutiny of how health IT records are handled would make it more difficult for plans to coordinate care and streamline administrative costs. Dubbed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the House bill allocates $39 billion to aid individuals attempting to continue paying health insurance premiums through the 23-year-old Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act program. COBRA allows employees who are terminated or leave their jobs voluntarily to remain in their former employer''s group health plan for up to 18 months, which can be extended to 36 months for those with extenuating life circumstances. However, because COBRA enrollees can be charged up to 102% of the full cost of coverage, many find the plans prohibitively expensive and, according to Hewitt Associates Inc., only about 20% enroll. A recent report by the consumer group Families USA found monthly COBRA premiums for family coverage were $1,069, or 83.6% of the average monthly unemployment insurance benefit of $1,278. In nine states, average COBRA payments exceeded unemployment benefits, the group found. Health groups have been largely supportive of the proposal, with AHIP President Karen Ignagni writing in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the group believes the move would "help ensure continuity of coverage and serve as an important lifeline for many workers who do not qualify for Medicaid, but still need help paying their health insurance premiums."

From a municipal network lockout to illegal access of Barack Obama's cell phone records, 2008 had no shortage of headlines about bad acts by company employees - both those currently employed and former workers. Here we look at five embarrassing breaches that brought publicity to companies they would probably prefer to forget. The incidents taught each company a lesson about security holes in their systems, and also shed light on just how vulnerable sensitive information continues to be to illegal and malicious access.

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)

Point by Marcus Ranum THERE'S AN OLD SAYING, "Sometimes things have to get a lot worse before they can get better." If that's true, then breach notification laws offer the chance of eventual improvements in security, years hence. For now? They're a huge distraction that has more to do with butt-covering and paperwork than improving systems security. Somehow, the security world has managed to ignore the effect voluntary (?) notification and notification laws have had in other fields-namely, none.We regularly get bank disclosure statements, stock plan announcements, HIPAA disclosures, etc.-and they all go immediately in the wastebasket, unread.When I got my personal information breach notification from the Department of Veterans Affairs, it went in the trash too. Counterpoint by Bruce Schneier THERE ARE THREE REASONS for breach notification laws. One, it's common politeness that when you lose something of someone else's, you tell him. The prevailing corporate attitude before the law-"They won't notice, and if they do notice they won't know it's us, so we are better off keeping quiet about the whole thing"-is just wrong. Two, it provides statistics to security researchers as to how pervasive the problem really is. And three, it forces companies to improve their security. That last point needs a bit of explanation. The problem with companies protecting your data is that it isn't in their financial best interest to do so. That is, the companies are responsible for protecting your data, but bear none of the costs if your data is compromised. You suffer the harm, but you have no control-or even knowledge- of the company's security practices. The idea behind such laws, and how they were sold to legislators, is that they would increase the cost-both in bad publicity and the actual notification-of security breaches, motivating companies to spend more to prevent them. In economic terms, the law reduces the externalities and forces companies to deal with the true costs of

"HIPAA was never intended for the digital age, because the 1996 HIPAA law never anticipated the emergence of Web-based records." -- David Brailer, former national coordinator for Health Information Technology "Before increasing federal spending on health IT, Congress should first fix the already-outdated 1996 HIPAA privacy rule to ensure individuals have control over their personal health information," said Sue A. Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom (IHF). "Right now, the HIPAA privacy rule has too many loopholes to ensure true patient privacy."

A New Jersey credit-card processor disclosed a data breach that analysts said may rank among the biggest ever reported. Heartland Payment Systems Inc. said Tuesday that cyber criminals compromised its computer network, gaining access to customer information associated with the 100 million card transactions it handles each month. The company said it couldn't estimate how many customer records may have been improperly accessed, but said the data compromised include the information on a card's magnetic strip -- card number, expiration date and some internal bank codes -- that could be used to duplicate a card. Heartland, of Princeton, N.J., processes transactions for more than 250,000 businesses nationwide, including restaurants and smaller retailers. Avivah Litan, an analyst at research company Gartner, called it the largest card-data breach ever, based on her conversations with industry executives. Previously, the largest known breach occurred when around 45 million card numbers were stolen from retail company TJX Cos. in 2005 and 2006. Robert Baldwin, Heartland's president and chief financial officer, said it was too early to say how many records were accessed and that calling it the largest-ever breach would be "speculative." Representatives of Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. alerted Heartland to a pattern of fraudulent transactions on accounts the processor handled sometime last fall, Mr. Baldwin said. But an internal investigation and audits failed to detect a security breach. Last week, however, a forensic investigator discovered evidence of the breach. Mr. Baldwin said Heartland was targeted with malicious software that was "light-years more sophisticated" than malevolent programs commonly downloaded from the Internet.

DURING the Parliament session on Monday, MP of Ang Mo Kio GRC Ms Lee Bee Wah, asked the Minister of Information, Communications and Arts, Dr Lee Boon Yang, whether a comprehensive privacy law will be introduced to protect the privacy of individuals and their personal data. She also queried about the existing laws which are in place to protect people from spam mails and unauthorised sale of personal information, as well as protecting people whose photographs are posted on blogs and other new media platforms. Dr Lee's reply was: "The Government recognises the importance of data protection and the need to protect personal data. At the same time, we also appreciate the impact of data protection on businesses and the general public. I had previously informed the House that an Inter-Ministry Committee is reviewing Singapore's data protection regime. This review is on-going. We are currently looking into developing a data protection model that can best address Singapore's privacy concerns, commercial requirements and national interest. As data protection is a complex issue with extensive impact on all stakeholders, this review will take some time." With regards to unauthorised Use of personal data, he replied: "While there is currently no generic data protection law, it does not mean that there is no protection of personal data. In fact we have in place strict provisions in sectoral laws, such as the Banking Act and codes for medical professionals to protect sensitive financial and health information. There are also other industry codes of practices against the unauthorised use of personal information. For example, in the telecommunications sector, under the Telecom Competition Code, IDA requires licensees to take reasonable measures to prevent the unauthorised use of End User Service Information. A telecom licensee would be in breach of the Code if it shares with third parties its customers' information that was obtained from the use of its service, without the cust

How will Barack Obama's administration affect IT spending in the trenches, where technology decision makers are dealing with strapped budgets and a shaky economy? President Barack Obama's official campaign Web site is a model of how 21st century technology tools can boost a candidate's popularity, building significant buzz via blogs, IM applications and e-merchandising. And Obama's campaign wasn't confined to his own site either, because he chose to expand his presence on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Eons and BlackPlanet. His images and words also constantly popped up at outlets such as Flickr, Digg and YouTube. All these efforts made Obama an accessible, immediate and appealing figure to both younger voters and older ones who regularly connect to the Internet. Ultimately, they energized his campaign and helped secure a decisive victory for the nation's first African-American president. Certainly, Obama enters the White House with a reputation as one of the most-if not the most-tech-savvy chief executives ever. For starters, he's created the position of a federal chief technology officer to oversee the future of information technology for government agencies.