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sandy ingram

RESEARCH SHOWS MORE THAN HALF OF SMBs OPERATE WITHOUT STAFF IT SECURITY GUIDELINES | Ec... - 0 views

  • AVG's research shows that: * 83% agree that having the right level of IT security protection is critical to their business * 77% say that a security threat could have a significant negative impact on their business * 55% feel they can make IT security decisions without 3rd party influence * However, only 48% have a clear IT security policy in place for their staff, leaving most at the mercy of what employees decide to download or access online * As a result, perhaps not surprisingly, 1 in 4 have experienced a security breach * Most worryingly, 1 in 7 have no security software or systems in place at all AVG also asked small businesses whether they expect to see growth in the next five years - 61% of UK and 74% of US small businesses say that they do.
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    "Research released today by Internet Security company AVG (http://www.avg.com) shows that although most small businesses understand the need to protect their IT systems, fewer are willing to put it into practice. Out of 2000 SMBs surveyed in the US and UK for the "SMB Landscape Report", more than half (52%) have no IT security guidelines for their staff, while 1 in 7 have no Internet security software or solutions in place at all. "
sandy ingram

Ponemon #BREACH SURVEY: 56% suffer from financial identity theft and cost Hospitals $6 ... - 0 views

  • "Our research shows that the healthcare industry is struggling to protect sensitive medical information, putting patients at risk of medical identity fraud and costing hospitals and other healthcare services companies millions in annual breach-related costs," said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder, Ponemon Institute.  "At this point one would hope to see that healthcare organizations have improved information security practices and come into compliance with HITECH, now that it's been more than one year since it was enacted.  Instead we found enormous vulnerabilities.  The protection of patient data should be at the forefront of their efforts."
  • ey findings of the research: Data breaches are costing the healthcare system billions.  The total economic burden created by data breaches on the healthcare industry is nearly $6 billion annually.  The impact of a data breach over a two-year period is approximately $2 million per organization and the lifetime value of a lost patient is $107,580.  The average organization had 2.4 data breach incidents over the past two years.  Major factors causing data breaches are unintentional employee action, lost or stolen computing devices and third-party error.Healthcare organizations are not protecting patient data.  Organizations have little or no confidence in their ability to appropriately secure patient records (58 percent).  Healthcare organizations have inadequate resources (71 percent) and insufficient policies and procedures in place (69 percent) to prevent and quickly detect patient data loss.Protecting patient data is not a priority.  Seventy percent of hospitals stated that protecting patient data is not a top priority.  Patient billing (35 percent) and medical records (26 percent) are the most susceptible to data loss or theft.  A majority of organizations have less than two staff dedicated to data protection management (67 percent).HITECH has exposed the healthcare industry's lax data protection practices rather than improved the safety of patient records.  The majority (71 percent) of respondents do not believe the HITECH Act regulations have significantly changed the management practices of patient records.  The findings indicate that there is a significant number of data breaches that go undetected, and therefore unreported.
  • "We talk with healthcare compliance people dealing with data breach risks every day and they just can't get their arms around the problem of data exposure," said Rick Kam, president and co-founder of ID Experts.  "Unfortunately, in healthcare organizations, patient revenue trumps risk management."
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    Hospitals Are Not Protecting Patient Data; Healthcare Industry Lagging Behind HITECH Standards TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. and PORTLAND, Ore., Nov. 9, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- The latest benchmark study by Ponemon Institute, sponsored by ID Experts®, finds that data breaches of patient information cost healthcare organizations nearly $6 billion annually, and that many breaches go undetected.  The research indicates that protecting patient data is a low priority for hospitals and that organizations have little confidence in their ability to secure patient records, putting individuals at great risk for medical identity theft, financial theft and embarrassment of exposure of private information.
sandy ingram

forbes: The Hidden Cost of Privacy - 0 views

  • Special interest groups and lawyers claim they are defenders of individual privacy. But all that red tape is causing more harm to consumers than good.
  • In a world of tight budgets and sacrificed programs, one sector has continued to grow with the speed and choking effectiveness of kudzu: regulations around privacy.More than 300 privacy-related laws are on the books, in both Washington, D.C. and state capitals. Privacy-related consulting services provided by law and accounting firms are a $500-million-a-year business and have been growing at double digits.
  • In other instances, the American approach to privacy occasionally produces too much of it, notably when it comes to medical research. Federal privacy laws involving health records are often so stringently interpreted by bureaucrats that studies involving life-threatening diseases have had to be scaled back or canceled. A pioneering, decades-long study of strokes and heart attacks shut down this year when researchers weren't able to get the necessary patient-consent forms signed.
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  • A recent report from the Institute of Medicine says privacy laws have created a crisis for U.S. researchers. Lawrence O. Gostin, the Georgetown University law professor who presided over the study, complains that the consent forms that are a centerpiece of many laws don't even do a good job in protecting medical privacy. "Patients don't understand what they are signing," he says.
  • Lawyers who spend their workdays preparing privacy-related notices freely admit that scarcely anyone reads them. The yearly privacy updates from banks required by the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act are commonly cited as especially useless; no less an authority than Ralph Nader says the mailings are among the biggest wastes of paper in human history."Whenever I am speaking, I ask the audience if anyone has ever made use of one of those forms," says Kirk J. Nahra, an attorney with Wiley Rein in Washington, D.C. "If even one person raises their hand, I am amazed."
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    Special interest groups and lawyers claim they are defenders of individual privacy. But all that red tape is causing more harm to consumers than good.
sandy ingram

Security awareness: Helping employees really 'get' company policy - CSO Online - Securi... - 0 views

  • Employee awareness of their companies' security policies is high—if you ask the employees. In a survey of 2,000 office workers, software security company Clearswift found almost three quarters, 74 percent, felt 'confident' that they understand their employers' Internet security policies. That is, policy designed to safeguard data and IT security, as well as maintain productivity.
  • But the confidence is misplaced, Clearswift suggests in their summary of the findings, because a third of those surveyed have not received any training on IT security since joining their firm. And more than two thirds of those who have not had recent training joined their organization more than five years ago—a 'technological lifetime,' notes Clearswift.
  • "When security is kept in the shadows and not discussed openly, and only referred to when things go wrong, it is all too easy for office 'folk-law' to become perceived as official policy very quickly. If employees are not aware of when they have broken policies—in some cases because the policy is not even enforced—it can lead to a false sense of security or a belief that what they are doing is actually in line with the corporate policy."
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  • The research raises a question that is frequently discussed, but very rarely measured, among organizations: What kind of awareness training is effective? Is it regular and incremental? Is it most effective when done through courses, formal sessions or informal discussions? And how does an organization gauge its effectiveness?
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    "Research finds while most employees believe they understand their company's security policies, a large number have never received any formal policy education or training. How can an organization really ensure people understand risk?"
sandy ingram

SURVEY: Data-breach costs rising, 84% repeat offenders - 0 views

  • The study measured the direct costs of a data breach, such as hiring forensic experts; notifying consumers; setting up telephone hotlines to field queries from concerned or affected customers; offering free credit monitoring subscriptions; and discounts for future products and services.
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      THE COST OF A DATA BREACH The study measured the direct costs of a data breach, such as hiring forensic experts; notifying consumers; setting up telephone hotlines to field queries from concerned or affected customers; offering free credit monitoring subscriptions; and discounts for future products and services. Company's stock price, which in some cases can be substantial. CASE STUDY when the nation's sixth largest credit and debit card processor -- Heartland Payment Systems -- disclosed a breach that could affect millions of customers, the company's stock price took a nosedive. Shares of Heartland's stock lost 42 percent of their value the day after that disclosure, closing at a 52-week low of $8.18. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY A breach often exposes proprietary data that can jeopardize millions of dollars invested in research and development.
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      COST TO YOUR BRAND "The first thing companies say when they have a breach is 'Well, we'll implement encryption and data leak prevention technologies, and maybe do more training'," Dunkelberger said. "That's great, but what amount of brand damage has to occur in these public disclosures before we see changes made to the way companies handle not just consumers' personal information, but also the intellectual property that drives their businesses?"
  • "The first thing companies say when they have a breach is 'Well, we'll implement encryption and data leak prevention technologies, and maybe do more training'," Dunkelberger said. "That's great, but what amount of brand damage has to occur in these public disclosures before we see changes made to the way companies handle not just consumers' personal information, but also the intellectual property that drives their businesses?"
  • Microsoft patched for the worm affecting Heartland 4 months ago.
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    the Ponemon Institute, a Tucson, Ariz., based independent research company, found that companies spent roughly $202 per consumer record compromised. The same study put the total cost of a breach in 2007 at $6.3 million, and roughly $4.7 million in 2006.
sandy ingram

Survey Finds Gap in Attitudes Between the Cloud "Haves" and "Have-Nots" - ReadWriteCloud - 0 views

  • This post is part of our ReadWriteCloud channel, which is dedicated to covering virtualization and cloud computing. The channel is sponsored by Intel and VMware.
  • London-based communications SaaS provider Mimecast has announced the results of its second annual Cloud Adoption Survey. The survey, conducted by independent research firm Loudhouse, assessed the attitudes of IT decision-makers in the U.S. and UK about cloud computing
  • The majority of organizations now use some cloud-based services. The report found 51% are now using at least one cloud-based application. Adoption rates for U.S. businesses are slightly ahead of the UK with 56% of respondents using at least one cloud-based application, compared to 50% in the UK
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  • Two thirds of businesses are considering adopting cloud computing. 66% of businesses say they are considering adopting cloud-based services in the future, with once again, U.S. businesses leaning more towards adoption than their UK peers (70% of U.S. businesses, and 50% of UK ones).
  • Email, security, and storage are the most popular cloud services. 62% of the organizations that use cloud computing are using a cloud-based email application. Email services are most popular with mid-size businesses (250-1000 employees) with 70% of organizations this size using the cloud for email. Smaller businesses (under 250 employees) are most likely to use the cloud for security services, and larger enterprises (over 1000 employees) most likely to opt for cloud storage services.
  • Existing cloud users are satisfied. Security is not considered to be an issue by existing cloud users: 57% say that moving data to the cloud has resulted in better security, with 58% saying it has given them better control of their data. 73% say it has reduced the cost of their IT infrastructure and 74% believe the cloud has alleviated the internal resource pressures.
  • Security fears are still a barrier. 62% of respondents believe that storing data on servers outside of the business is a significant security risk. Interestingly, this number was higher for users of cloud applications than it was for non-users (only 59% of non-users thought it was risky, while 67% of users did.)
  • Some think the benefits of the cloud may be overstated.54% of respondents said the potential benefits of the cloud are overstated by the IT industry, and 58% indicated they believed that replacing legacy IT solutions will almost always cost more than the benefits of new IT.
  • "The research shows that there is a clear divide within the IT industry on the issue of cloud computing," says Mimecast CEO and co-founder Peter Bauer. "While those organisations that have embraced cloud services are clearly reaping the rewards, there are still a number who are put off by the 'cloud myths' around data security and the cost of replacing legacy IT
  • It is now up to cloud vendors to educate businesses and end users to ensure that these concerns do not overshadow the huge potential cost, security and performance benefits that cloud computing can bring."
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    Existing cloud users are satisfied. Security is not considered to be an issue
sandy ingram

Innovations in software, engineering, pharmaceuticals and other fields are being stolen... - 0 views

  • The first responsibility of any president is to protect the American people. President Barack Obama will provide the leadership and strategies to strengthen our security at home.
  • Barack Obama and Joe Biden's strategy for securing the homeland against 21st century threats is focused on preventing terrorist attacks on our homeland, preparing and planning for emergencies and investing in strong response and recovery capabilities. Obama and Biden will strengthen our homeland against all hazards
  • Protect Our Information Networks
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  • Barack Obama and Joe Biden -- working with private industry, the research community and our citizens -- will lead an effort to build a trustworthy and accountable cyber infrastructure that is resilient, protects America's competitive advantage, and advances our national and homeland security.
  • Strengthen Federal Leadership on Cyber Security
  • ensure that the federal government works with states, localities, and the private sector as a true partner in prevention, mitigation, and response.
  • Work with the private sector to establish tough new standards for cyber security and physical resilience.
  • Work with industry to develop the systems necessary to protect our nation's trade secrets and our research and development
  • Mandate Standards for Securing Personal Data and Require Companies to Disclose Personal Information Data Breaches:
  • Prepare Effective Emergency Response Plans:
  • Working with State and Local Governments and the Private Sector:
  • Create a National Infrastructure Protection Plan:
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    The first responsibility of any president is to protect the American people. President Barack Obama will provide the leadership and strategies to strengthen our security at home.
sandy ingram

Organisations fail to meet security awareness and compliance training best practices - ... - 0 views

  • “If this assessment demonstrates anything, it's that IT and security departments have got to gain greater visibility over all of their security and compliance activities and take steps to better understand and manage them.”
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    A survey of high-risk organisations has found that more than three quarters fail to perform quarterly security and compliance training. According to a survey by enterprise key and certificate management solutions provider Venafi and IT security research provider Echelon One, 77 per cent of respondents failed to perform quarterly security and compliance training while 64 per cent failed to encrypt all of its data in the cloud. However 90 per cent did use encryption throughout the organisation. The survey of 420 enterprises and government agencies also found that almost 100 per cent of respondents had some degree of unquantified or unmanaged risk. When asked if their organisations encrypted data stored in public clouds such as Google Apps, Salesforce.com and Dropbox, 40 per cent said they did not know.
sandy ingram

Strong Growth And Innovation Seen For IaaS In 2011 - "dramatically improved data security" - 0 views

  • Even smaller and moderately sized companies will start to look at IaaS. So far, most of the IaaS deployments have been concentrated around very large $1B+ companies; however, we are now seeing that even smaller and moderate sized organizations are very interested in IaaS to help them overcome their data challenges. As a result, in 2011 and beyond we are likely to see small mission-critical IaaS deployments in these organizations to support various types of use cases, ranging from single-version-of-the-truth to BI to searching and compliance reporting. 
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    6. "More organizations will realize IaaS's security potential. During various inquiry calls this year, some customers mentioned to us that they dramatically improved data security by using an IaaS framework, centralizing the authentication, authorization, and access control of critical data - as a result disallowing direct access to data sources. This not only improves compliance audits for various organizations but also ensures that only authorized users can access sensitive data. We expect that more organizations, especially those that have hundreds and thousands of sources, will adopt an IaaS framework just to improve data security and compliance. "
sandy ingram

CERT's Podcast Series - 0 views

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    CERT'S PODCASTS: SECURITY FOR BUSINESS LEADERS: SHOW NOTES Tackling Tough Challenges: Insights from CERT's Director Rich Pethia Key Message: Rich Pethia reflects on CERT's 20-year history and discusses how he is positioning the program to tackle future IT and security challenges. Executive Summary CERT's vision is a securely connected world. CERT's mission is to enable informed trust and confidence in the use of information technology. To achieve this vision and mission, CERT has broadened its perspective to include the full system/software engineering and operations life cycle and is reaching out to thought leaders in the global IT and security community. In this podcast, Rich Pethia, director of the CERT Program at Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute, discusses the past, current, and future state of Internet security and CERT's role in tackling future challenges as CERT celebrates its 20th anniversary. PART 1: LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY CERT's Vantage Point CERT's vision is a securely connected world, supported by CERT's mission of enabling informed trust and confidence in the use of information technology. As the director of CERT, Pethia has unique access to government, commercial, and industry leaders. The Good News Internet use continues to grow, not just in size (number of people, volume of traffic) but also in utility, for example: * the increasing amount of real government and business operations * the introduction of new applications * the growing use of new mobile appliances User awareness of the need to address security is increasing along with increasing attention from service providers (firewalls, virus protection, anti-spyware, data backup). Developers are paying more attention to building security into their products. Vendors have more mature processes for providing cost-effective, timely updates for software vulnerabilities. Users are more willing
sandy ingram

Malicious insider attacks to rise: "This is one of the most significant threats compani... - 0 views

  • Microsoft said so-called "malicious insider" breaches are on the rise and will worsen in the present downturn.
  • "This is one of the most significant threats companies face,"
  • "The malicious insider is classed as the greatest security concern because they have access, and relatively easy access, to corporate assets," said Mr Leland.
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  • The problem is not just a serious one for business.
  • "The national security and economic health of the United States depend on the security, stability and integrity of our nation's cyberspace, both in the public and private sectors,"
  • A report last week by the Ponemon Institute, a privacy and data-protection research group, found that 88% of data breaches were caused by simple negligence on the part of staff.
  • While insider attacks are lower in number, Mr Rowney said they can be more devastating because the employee knows where "the crown jewels" are kept
  • Verizon indicates these protections are a critical form of risk management that no enterprise can no longer afford to ignore.
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    "This is one of the most significant threats companies face,"
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    People to Google: Doug Leland, Microsoft John Brennan, the President's top adviser for counterterrorism and homeland security. Kevin Rowney, Symantec, founder of the firm's Data Loss Prevention Unit
sandy ingram

The Future of Enterprise 2.0 Technologies - ReadWriteWeb - 0 views

  • Forrester predicts that social networking tools and internal wikis "will have the greatest impact on workplace collaboration"
sandy ingram

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - WHERE PRIVACY LAW GET'S IT'S QUE - 0 views

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    The economic downturn will hit the Internet economy hard in 2009, according to the latest available OECD estimates. The IT Outlook 2008 says that the IT industry is likely to have grown by 4% at most in 2008 compared to the previous year. But with the outlook for the global economy worsening and business and consumer confidence plumetting, growth will remain flat or decline in 2009.
sandy ingram

Data Security Breaches Cost Real Money - 0 views

  • PGP Corporation, an enterprise data protection company, and the Poneman Institute, a privacy and information management research firm, as part of their fifth annual U.S. Cost of a Data Breach Study, tracked a wide array of cost elements
  • These elements included outlays for detection, escalation, notification, and response along with legal, investigative and administrative expenses, customer defections, opportunity loss, reputation management, and costs related to customer support like information hotlines and credit monitoring subscriptions
  • data breaches caused by malicious attacks and botnets were on the high end of severity and cost responses. These types of breaches doubled from 2008 to 2009.
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  • data breaches involving data outsourced to third-parties, especially those offshore, remain very costly.
  • The study shows that companies are spending more on legal defense costs in the area of data security breaches
  • Furthermore, companies that have a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) or equivalent high-level security/privacy leader in place who manages data security breach incidents experienced a 50% less per cost of compromised record than companies that do not have such leadership.
  • Somewhat surprisingly, the study indicates that companies that notify victims of data breaches too quickly may incur about 12% higher response costs. The study suggests that moving too quickly through the data breach process could cause inefficiencies that raise total costs
  • companies that engage outside expertise to assist them during a data breach incident tended to have a lower $170 cost per victim than companies that do not seek outside help at $231 per victim.
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    study shows that companies are spending more on legal defense costs in the area of data security breaches. This has been attributed to fears of potential class actions, and other lawsuits resulting from consumer and employee data loss. In fact, companies that engage outside expertise to assist them during a data breach incident tended to have a lower $170 cost per victim than companies that do not seek outside help at $231 per victim.
sandy ingram

Small Companies Look to #Cloud for Savings in 2011 - WSJ.com - 0 views

  • As of April 2010, only about 7% of small-business owners were using cloud services, but that number is expected to grow to more than 10% by mid-2011, according to a survey by technology-research firm IDC.
  • Half of small firms that use "the cloud" say it has improved their bottom line, according to a survey this fall by Microsoft Corp., which provides cloud services.
  • A number of surveys show that some business owners are hesitant to try cloud computing because they don't want to stray from familiar systems or invest in new ones. Some owners that have made the switch, however, say it has been a boon to their cash-strapped firms.
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  • Garey Willbanks, owner of Boiler Management Ltd. in Houston, says he pays about $600 a month to store information in the cloud. He estimates that is less than a tenth of what he would pay if he hired technology personnel to run an in-house storage server.
  • In June, Michael Tracy, a private law practitioner in Irvine, Calif., decided to try Nextpoint, a cloud-based program for attorneys. He had previously spent $10,000 to $12,000 a year licensing software that would organize materials before a trial. The problem was he needed it just a few times a year. By contrast, Mr. Tracy pays for Nextpoint only when he uses it, and he anticipates spending just $4,000 to $6,000 a year on the service.
  • "If you already have tight control over your company, your expenses may drop 10% to 20%,"
  • Despite the savings, there are risks. Security breaches, for instance, can happen if the cloud provider isn't reliable. "If they make money directly from you, then they will want to secure [your information]," Mr. Enderle says. "If they make it through advertising," they may be more likely to sell the information to advertisers, he says.
  • Others fear that they might lose their information, or have to spend a lot of time transferring data, if they want out.
  • "So make sure it's the right provider and that you're ready to be in it for the long haul."
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    "A growing number of small-business owners are expected to try cloud computing services next year, hoping to trim costs and stay up and running if disaster strikes. Cloud computing refers to any service that operates over an Internet connection, allowing immediate access from any computer or mobile device with Web access. Business owners can access software or store information-such as customer contacts, accounting data and presentations-and leave the technical maintenance to the cloud provider. "
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