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sandy ingram

Study Finds Companies Struggle to Measure Effectiveness of the Compliance Function - 0 views

www.pwc.com/...PwC-Compliance-Week.jhtml

Privacy security compliance survey

shared by sandy ingram on 24 May 11 - No Cached
  • Senior compliance officers at more than 100 leading U.S. companies responded to 28 questions in four key areas critical for the compliance function: leadership, reporting relationships and structure; compliance function scope, focus and risk; metrics to gauge program effectiveness; and budget, staffing and resources. A major finding of the study: One of the biggest obstacles facing Chief Compliance Officers (CCOs) is measuring the effectiveness of their compliance functions - almost 40 percent of the companies surveyed said they make no attempt to measure the effectiveness of their compliance program.
  • “An effective compliance program is the cornerstone of cooperation credit allowed under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and stakeholders are demanding much higher transparency in how compliance risk is effectively managed,” said Miles Everson, PwC principal and global and U.S. risk and compliance leader.
  • “Without a clear measure of the compliance department’s effectiveness, much else is in jeopardy. Lacking this,
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • how does the board know that compliance risks are effectively addressed?  Let alone that the compliance function itself is effective? 
  • According to the study, a critical element to the compliance department’s success is the perceived stature of the CCO and his or her influence among other top leadership.
  • “It’s essential that the compliance function have visibility and direct access both to senior executives in the organization and to the board or one of its committees,” added Everson. “This access helps keep risk and compliance issues on the company’s agenda and lets key ethics and compliance issues surface in a timely fashion.”
  • The State of Compliance survey also provided another interesting glimpse into corporate compliance when it asked about reporting structures. Regulators have long preferred that a company’s top compliance officer report directly to the board, and just last year the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines were revised to state more clearly that CCOs should not be, nor report to, the general counsel.
  • PwC and Compliance Week also found that, over the next 18 months, CCOs anticipate significant challenges when it comes to risk - and that when issues arise, they expect the consequences to be severe.
  • When asked about several high-level categories of risk, such as compliance risk, security risk, reputational risk and others, 48 percent believed the likelihood of a compliance failure was high or very high. 
  • What's more, 65 percent of respondents felt the impact of a compliance risk event, should it occur, would be high or very high. 
  • Effective compliance programs need input and guidance from many different voices in the company (IT, internal audit, finance, security). It is in the company’s benefit for the compliance department to borrow resources from those teams to achieve its goals, rather than build its own expertise in each department.
  • sandy ingram on 24 May 11
     
    "The results of The State of Compliance: 2011, an inaugural study conducted by PwC US and Compliance Week, will be released today at the Compliance Week 2011 6th Annual Conference for corporate financial, legal, risk, audit and compliance officers in Washington, D.C. The report - the first of its kind - identifies a wide range of compliance issues confronting organizations today and will stay current as new companies participate, accurately reflecting the changing compliance landscape."
sandy ingram

Integrating Ethics and Compliance Into the Entire Organization - 0 views

tfoxlaw.wordpress.com/...e-into-the-entire-organization

Privacy Security compliance ethics integrating SMB Best Practice

shared by sandy ingram on 28 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • There’s no point investing in and implementing an ethics and compliance program unless the time is spent integrating the program into every aspect of an organization. The need for companies to develop effective ethics and compliance programs has been acknowledged by several government agencies- examples are the SEC in the US and the government in the United Kingdom. Both groups have recently passed legislation or made amendments to existing guidelines, focusing heavily on the importance of ethics and compliance at all levels of an organization- especially at the top.
  • Employees at each level contribute to the success of a company’s ethics and compliance program. Integrating ethics and compliance at each level helps ensure the message from the top makes it all the way down to the lower levels of the organization. Training, messages and other ethics and compliance initiatives must be developed to evolve with employees as they move through the company. That being said, employees at various levels need to be prepared to address different ethical issues they may encounter based on the role they play in the organization.
  • Integrating Ethics in the Middle  In many companies, employees report that the middle level is where ethics and compliance commitments break down. Since many of the lower level employees report directly to those in the middle, a commitment to ethics and compliance from middle managers is equally as important as it is at the top.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Top level managers can use a number of techniques to assist mid-level managers in understanding the role they play in creating an ethical workplace.
  • Integrating Ethics at Lower Levels Lower level employees are usually the ones on the frontlines acting as ambassadors for a company/brand. Ensuring the commitment to ethics and compliance is as strong at the bottom as it is at the top is critical to the success of a fully integrated ethics and compliance program.
  • One of the easiest ways to begin implementing ethics and compliance within lower levels is to provide new hires with extensive training on company expectations and ethics and compliance. During the interview process, ask questions related to ethical situations and decision making. This can be used as a way to ensure new hires are a proper fit with the existing corporate culture.
  • It’s important to remember that ethics training and implementation doesn’t stop here- this is just the beginning.
  • sandy ingram on 28 Nov 10
     
    "One of the easiest ways to begin implementing ethics and compliance within lower levels is to provide new hires with extensive training on company expectations and ethics and compliance"
sandy ingram

http://www.corporatecomplianceinsights.com/2009/risk-based-fcpa-compliance-assessments/ - 0 views

www.corporatecomplianceinsights.com/...ed-fcpa-compliance-assessments

Best Practice Privacy Security corporatecomplianceinsights cybersecurity Compliance Fraud

shared by sandy ingram on 01 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Companies lacking an anti-corruption compliance program face great legal, financial, and reputational risks. Government investigators will have no sympathy for those who fail to devote sufficient resources to compliance.
  • sandy ingram on 01 Aug 10
     
    "The Need for Risk-Based FCPA Compliance Assessments How To Deal With Increasing FCPA Risks In a Time of Shrinking Budgets In a time of dwindling funds, growing risks, and increased government targeting of companies that cut compliance budgets, a proper anti-corruption assessment is a vital first step in creating a cost-effective compliance program When a warning comes straight from the mouth of the U.S. Government's lead prosecutor in a field directly affecting their bottom line, it is wise for businesses to pay heed. In an interview earlier this year with PBS's investigative journal, "Frontline," Mark Mendelsohn, the Deputy Chief of the U.S. Department of Justice's Fraud Section, which is charged with enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA"), offered advice to all American businesses dealing with the current global recession. "I think that companies need to be especially vigilant in this economic climate to not cut back [on FCPA compliance]," Mendelsohn said. "Our law enforcement efforts are not going to be scaled back, and so it would be, I think, a grave mistake for a company to take that path.""
sandy ingram

Spreadsheets are inadequate for risk and compliance assessment questionaires | OCEG - 0 views

oceg.org/...iance-assessment-questionaires

Security Privacy grc compliance audit assessment

shared by sandy ingram on 07 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • It gets worse . . . auditors and legal can step in and cry 'foul.' It is difficult to provide non-repudiation within spreadsheets in a scalable context. Basically, one can not go back and truly state that "this person answered this compliance (a legal process) on this date and time, and we know this is the original answer and it has not been modified." Spreadsheets do not have this level of authentication, access control and audit trail. GRC processes require a robust audit trail so that you know who answered a question and if that answer was modified - spreadsheets do not provide the functionality to cover this.
  • To replace spreadsheets I would look towards governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) management platforms. Vendors in this space include Archer Technologies, Axentis, BWise, MEGA, MetricStream, OpenPages, Paisley, and QUMAS. These vendors, and many more, have integrated content and workflow technologies to manage GRC assessment processes. They are a much better choice over the use of spreadsheets for GRC processes.
  • sandy ingram on 07 Oct 10
     
    Spreadsheets are a thorn in the flesh of risk and compliance. I have seen organizations with upwards of 40,000 spreadsheets collected for different risk and compliance issues (e.g., SOX, Basel II, Ethics), as control questionnaires are sent to nearly everyone in the organization. The questionnaires come back and the compliance team scratches their heads and says Now what? How do we manage and report on this data?
sandy ingram

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

www.scmagazineuk.com/...208893

SC organisations security awareness compliance best practices UK

shared by sandy ingram on 12 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • “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.”
  • sandy ingram on 12 Oct 11
     
    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

blogs.forrester.com/...formation_as_a_service_in_2011

compliance IaaS Privacy Security data forrester research Best Practice

shared by sandy ingram on 27 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • 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. 
  • sandy ingram on 27 Nov 10
     
    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

FTC Extends Enforcement Deadline for Identity Theft Red Flags Rule - 0 views

www.ftc.gov/...redflags.shtm

identity theft ftc extends Red Flags Rule Legal compliance information security

shared by sandy ingram on 21 Oct 10 - Cached
  • “Congress needs to fix the unintended consequences of the legislation establishing the Red Flags Rule – and to fix this problem quickly.
  • The Rule was developed under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, in which Congress directed the FTC and other agencies to develop regulations requiring “creditors” and “financial institutions” to address the risk of identity theft.
  • The resulting Red Flags Rule requires all such entities that have “covered accounts” to develop and implement written identity theft prevention programs to help identify, detect, and respond to patterns, practices, or specific activities – known as “red flags” – that could indicate identity theft.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The Rule became effective on January 1, 2008, with full compliance for all covered entities originally required by November 1, 2008.
  • Today’s announcement and the release of an Enforcement Policy Statement do not affect other federal agencies’ enforcement of the original November 1, 2008 deadline for institutions subject to their oversight to be in compliance.
  • If Congress passes legislation limiting the scope of the Red Flags Rule with an effective date earlier than December 31, 2010, the Commission will begin enforcement as of that effective date.
  • sandy ingram on 21 Oct 10
     
    FTC Extends Enforcement Deadline for Identity Theft Red Flags Rule At the request of several Members of Congress, the Federal Trade Commission is further delaying enforcement of the "Red Flags" Rule through December 31, 2010, while Congress considers legislation that would affect the scope of entities covered by the Rule. Today's announcement and the release of an Enforcement Policy Statement do not affect other federal agencies' enforcement of the original November 1, 2008 deadline for institutions subject to their oversight to be in compliance. "Congress needs to fix the unintended consequences of the legislation establishing the Red Flags Rule - and to fix this problem quickly. We appreciate the efforts of Congressmen Barney Frank and John Adler for getting a clarifying measure passed in the House, and hope action in the Senate will be swift," FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said. "As an agency we're charged with enforcing the law, and endless extensions delay enforcement." The Rule was developed under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, in which Congress directed the FTC and other agencies to develop regulations requiring "creditors" and "financial institutions" to address the risk of identity theft. The resulting Red Flags Rule requires all such entities that have "covered accounts" to develop and implement written identity theft prevention programs to help identify, detect, and respond to patterns, practices, or specific activities - known as "red flags" - that could indicate identity theft. The Rule became effective on January 1, 2008, with full compliance for all covered entities originally required by November 1, 2008. The Commission has issued several Enforcement Policies delaying enforcement of the Rule. Most recently, the Commission announced in October 2009 that at the request of certain Members of Congress, it was delaying enforcement of the Rule until June 1, 2010, to allow Congress time to finalize leg
sandy ingram

Healthcare Stimulus to Drive Compliance - 0 views

blog.courion.com/...e-Stimulus-to-Drive-Compliance

ARRA privacy security compliance HIPAA Healthcare

shared by sandy ingram on 25 Jun 09 - Cached
  • the requirements that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will impose on healthcare organizations
  • sandy ingram on 25 Jun 09
     
    specifically how they are required to prove audit compliance with respect to their use of electronic protected health information.
sandy ingram

Cracking Down on ID Theft: A Case for Cloud Computing - 0 views

www.healthcareinfosecurity.com/articles.php

Privacy security compliance Best Practice PCI-DSS HIPPA Red Flags Rule

shared by sandy ingram on 01 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • The PCI Security Standards Council created the criteria, but the five leading credit card companies each maintain their own compliance and enforcement programs
  • and each has its own way to validate compliance.
  • In many cases, banks or merchant service providers are now sending letters to organizations that have smaller payment card transaction levels and asking them to prove they are compliant by completing a self-assessment questionnaire,
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • If an organization can meet all of the requirements of PCI, it's going to be in great shape when it comes to HIPAA security compliance,"
  • The PCI standard applies only to those systems and applications used for storage, processing or transmission of cardholder data,
  • any organization that accepts credit and/or debit cards must comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, but many hospitals and clinics have overlooked this obligation, says security expert Tom Walsh
  • Red Flags Compliance
  • sandy ingram on 01 Apr 11
     
    In many cases, banks or merchant service providers are now sending letters to organizations that have smaller payment card transaction levels and asking them to prove they are compliant by completing a self-assessment questionnaire, he explains.
sandy ingram

HITECH now specifically requires the business associate to notify their partner so that... - 0 views

www.technewsworld.com/...alth-IT-Post-HITECH-70443.html

Breach Law healthcare compliance HHS notification hitech hipaa

shared by sandy ingram on 02 Aug 10 - Cached
  • The total impact to the institution is difficult to quantify. Obviously no organization wants the negative press. It's the kind of thing that loses patients and makes the institution less appealing when trying to attract physicians.
  • Under the breach notification requirements of the HITECH Act (Title XIII of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act), lost or stolen unencrypted records such as these requires notification to Health and Human Services for the public posting of the institution to HHS' "wall of shame," or public list of breaches involving more than 500 individuals. If you go to the HHS website right now, you'll see this incident listed there -- along with an ever-increasing laundry list of other institutions in the same boat.
  • This very public example of HITECH in action underscores just one of the many ways that the law has altered the way that healthcare does business. While the full impact of the law won't be seen for quite some time to come, we're starting to see some radical changes in the way that hospitals approach security and compliance.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Security Breaches From a provider point of view, probably the biggest impact from a security and compliance standpoint stems from the relatively strict breach disclosure requirements within the law. Covered entities not only need to notify in writing the individuals whose data was lost, but they also are required to notify HHS of the data loss.
  • Vendor Impact In addition to expanded disclosure provisions for business associates, HITECH also changes the landscape for them in that they now have a higher bar to meet in terms of their own security requirements
  • Under the law, business associates now have to meet the same bar as covered entities when it comes to the security rule.
  • However, covered entities are not alone in shouldering the burden of these more stringent rules. Business associates also have a role to play under the new provisions. Business associates now need to make sure that they report possible breaches to partners/customers and that they provide enough data for the covered entities to tell who was impacted and what type of data it was -- in other words, enough data for covered entities to fulfill their disclosure obligations. Whereas in the past a breach might occur at a business associate with nobody at the covered entity the wiser
  • HITECH now specifically requires the business associate to notify their partner so that the individuals impacted can be apprised.
  • Clearly, as applications move outside of the provider (for example, due to cloud computing) and more and more vendors move in to participate, rising numbers of vendors, hosting providers, and other service providers find themselves becoming "business associates" and inheriting security requirements that they're unfamiliar with. Even vendors not specifically targeting the healthcare market may find themselves in the direct path of the regs and obligated to change how they do business in response.
  • Vendors seeking to court healthcare clients will now need to pitch not only functionality but a compliance message as well.
  • sandy ingram on 02 Aug 10
     
    Just a few weeks ago, Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center learned a hard lesson. If you didn't see the news reports, the N.Y.-based healthcare provider notified over 130,000 individuals that their records -- including diagnostic information, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and other information of use to identity thieves -- was potentially lost."
sandy ingram

Smaller companies challenged to comply with Massachusetts' data privacy rules - Mass Hi... - 0 views

www.masshightech.com/...usetts-data-privacy-rules.html

compliance Privacy Security Massachusetts proofpoint

shared by sandy ingram on 10 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • The regulations, which went into force in March, are intended to protect a consumer’s personal information from identity theft and other privacy breaches and to spell out steps that businesses must take to ensure data is secured. Some large companies — particularly those in the finance and health care industries that are already subject to data security laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) — had privacy measures in place, which helped get them ready for Massachusetts’ regulations. However, for many smaller and midsize companies that have not been subject to data security laws before, complying with the rules is a longer and often more painful process.
  • some businesses that are complying with privacy regulations for the first time and have limited in-house technology expertise “are running around with their hair on fire, trying to figure out what to do first,”
  • “We’ve seen a substantial uptick in activity in clients seeking guidance in how to comply,” said Carlos Perez-Albuerne, a partner at Choate Hall & Stewart LLP. “There’s a whole swath of businesses that never had to deal with anything like this before.”
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Under the regulations, organizations — no matter where they are based — that store personal information about Massachusetts residents have to write security policies detailing how the data will be protected, encrypt the data when it is stored on laptops or other portable devices or transmitted over public networks, and monitor their systems for breaches.
  • Believed to be among the most stringent data privacy regulations in the U.S., the rules have lawmakers and businesses taking note. The regulations are now driving computer security policy agendas across the country, said Mark Schreiber, a partner at Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge who chairs the firm’s privacy and data protection group. “The impact is much broader than we ever imagined. Who would have thought it would have catalyzed so much activity?” he said. “This will be with us for decades or longer.”
  • Since March, Cutugno Court Reporting and Sten-Tel Inc., a Springfield-based firm that provides document management and transcription systems, has spent “easily into the six-figure realm” on technology and consulting services to comply with the privacy regulations, said Blake Martin, the company’s CIO.
  • To date, state regulators have not yet taken any public enforcement actions against organizations that have failed to comply with the rules. The state attorney general’s office, which is charged with enforcing the regulations, and the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation, which developed the regulations, have been focusing on compliance efforts, reaching out to trade groups, bar associations and others to spread the word.
  • sandy ingram on 10 Nov 10
     
    "Eight months after the state's tough, new data privacy regulations went into effect, many businesses are still sorting through the rules and working to bring their firms into compliance. "
sandy ingram

Data breach laws, e-discovery increase compliance duties - - 0 views

www.fiercecio.com/...2010-04-17

data breach laws Compliance privacy security ediscovery identity theft

shared by sandy ingram on 20 Apr 10 - Cached
  • The Massachusetts law applies not only to businesses in the state but to any company that keeps personal data on the state's residents. George examines two parts of the law that are particularly notable because they require action to avoid breaches--not just notify victims after the fact.
  • Businesses are required to have a working information security program for protecting personally identifiable information, and they must submit a written information security program to the state. They also must encrypt data in motion and at rest, including information on portable devices such as USB drives, laptop computers and smartphones.
  • A second complicated--and evolving--area of compliance is e-discovery, which is the process of handing over electronically stored information requested during a lawsuit.
  • sandy ingram on 20 Apr 10
     
    States are getting tougher when it comes to trying to protect their residents' personal data from breaches, and a new law in Massachusetts raises the bar by setting a fine of $5000 per record lost. As Randy George at InformationWeek reports, a company could be fined $1 million for losing one laptop with personal data on just 200 residents of the Bay State
sandy ingram

Top regulatory compliance trends that will affect IT in 2009 - 0 views

searchcompliance.techtarget.com/...9142,sid195_gci1359326,00.html

Privacy Security Compliance Enforcement Best Practice

shared by sandy ingram on 18 Jun 09 - Cached
  • More enforcement coming Deputy Attorney General Dave Ogden also was among those who see a renewed emphasis on "prosecuting financial crimes aggressively" in the months ahead. Reflecting Ogden's assessment, former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty said that money laundering, fraud and tax issues are also receiving increased enforcement action. McNulty pointed to the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), which mean that more information now must be disclosed and acted upon
  • sandy ingram on 18 Jun 09
     
    More enforcement coming SOX 404(b) will matter FCPA compliance Focus on risk management
sandy ingram

Are you ready for a data breach? | Healthcare IT News - 0 views

www.healthcareitnews.com/...are-you-ready-data-breach

data breach HITECH DHS Risk Assessment Compliance

shared by sandy ingram on 23 Jun 10 - Cached
  • sandy ingram on 23 Jun 10
     
    The handling of data breach incidents has become a way of life for healthcare providers and with other HIPAA covered entities. With the passage of the HITECH Act last year, there are now substantial penalties that can be levied, up to $1.5 million. This fact, combined with a requirement to notify the Department of Health and Human Services as well as the media for data breach incidents that affect over 500 individuals has, for the first time, resulted in public records being kept for such incidents. If you oversee privacy, compliance, or IT for a hospital system, a group practice, a health insurance company, other covered entities, or even one of their business associates, the HITECH Act and its privacy and data breach provisions require your close attention. While many people know that HITECH generally creates requirements for data breach notification, there are at least four things you may not know about HITECH that you really should: The requirement for a mandatory incident-specific risk assessment for every incident The fact that HITECH notification provisions do not pre-empt state notification laws Encryption of data does not necessarily alleviate the risk of data breach If your business associate exposes your protected health information (PHI), you are responsible
sandy ingram

FTC Delays Enforcement of Red Flags Rule Fifth Time at the request of Congress - 0 views

www.hipaa.com/...-ftc-red-flags-rule-fifth-time

compliance FTC Red Flags Rule

shared by sandy ingram on 17 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • “The Commission urges Congress to act quickly to pass legislation that will resolve any questions as to which entities are covered by the Rule and obviate the need for further enforcement delays.  If Congress passes legislation limiting the scope of the Red Flags Rule with an effective date earlier than December 31, 2010, the Commission will begin enforcement as of that effective date.”
  • The issue regarding the delays in FTC enforcement relates to “scope of entities covered by the Rule,” as indicated in the FTC news release.  Congress is taking action[2]:
  • “House lawmakers in October [2009] passed H.R. 3763[3], which would exclude from the Red Flags guidelines meaning of ‘creditor’ any healthcare, accounting, or legal practice with 20 or fewer employees, as well as any other business which the FTC determines knows all its customers or clients individually; only performs services in or around the residences of its customers; or hasn’t experienced incidents of ID theft, and identity theft is rare for businesses of that type.  An identical bill, S.3416 was introduced in the Senate on May 25 [2010].” A lawsuit was filed in federal court on May 21, 2010, to accomplish a similar objective of narrowing scope of entities covered by the Rule. 
  • sandy ingram on 17 Sep 10
     
    "At the request of several Members of Congress, the Federal Trade Commission is further delaying enforcement of the 'Red Flags' Rule through December 31, 2010, while Congress considers legislation that would affect the scope of entities covered by the Rule.  Today's announcement and the release of an Enforcement Policy Statement do not affect other federal agencies' enforcement of the original November 1, 2008 deadline for institutions subject to their oversight to be in compliance….
sandy ingram

Medical-data breach said to be major; involves nearly two-thirds of the insurers' subsc... - 0 views

www.philly.com/...a_breach_said_to_be_major.html

Security Privacy compliance cybersecurity breach

shared by sandy ingram on 21 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • The security failure, one of the several largest in nearly two years, involves nearly two-thirds of the insurers' subscribers. It became known only after The Inquirer requested information Tuesday evening. The insurers said the drive was missing from the corporate offices on Stevens Drive in Southwest Philadelphia. It noted that the same flash drive was used at community health fairs. "That seems grossly irresponsible," said Dr. Deborah Peel, a Texas psychiatrist who heads Patient Privacy Rights, an advocacy group.
  • The news of the breach comes at a time when there is more emphasis - and billions of dollars in federal funding - to develop protocols for electronic medical records, with information being shared among providers, insurers, and consumers.
  • Paul Stephens, director of policy for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, said that data breaches in the finance and retail sectors tended to involve more people, but that health data are very sensitive and may also contain payment information.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Until The Inquirer asked for information, the company had not disclosed the data breach to affected members, most of whom live in Philadelphia and nearby counties
  • The federal website explaining the law says that breaches must be reported "without unreasonable delay and in no case later than 60 days."
  • They would not say how they know the computer drive was lost, not stolen. They would not comment on the riskiness of taking the drive to health fairs, nor would they say whether the data on the drive was encrypted.
  • sandy ingram on 21 Oct 10
     
    A computer flash drive containing the names, addresses, and personal health information of 280,000 people is missing - one of the largest recent security breaches of personal health data in the nation. "We deeply regret this unfortunate incident," said Jay Feldstein, the president of the two affiliated Philadelphia companies, Keystone Mercy Health Plan and AmeriHealth Mercy Health Plan. The breach, which involves the records of Medicaid recipients, is the first such Medicaid data breach in Pennsylvania since at least 1997, according to the state's Department of Welfare, which has oversight. "We take compliance [with federal privacy laws] very seriously," department spokeswoman Elisabeth Myers said Wednesday.
sandy ingram

Outgunned: How Security Tech Is Failing Us -- InformationWeek - 0 views

www.informationweek.com/...showArticle.jhtml

Security Privacy compliance cybersecurity Best Practice

shared by sandy ingram on 11 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Thing is, the pitch is less believable these days, and the atmosphere is becoming downright hostile. We face more and larger breaches, increased costs, more advanced adversaries, and a growing number of public control failures.
  • -U.S. businesses continue to hemorrhage credit card numbers and personally identifiable information. The tab for the Heartland Payment Systems breach, which compromised 130 million card numbers, is reportedly at $144 million and counting. The Stuxnet worm, a cunning and highly targeted piece of cyberweaponry, just left a trail of tens of thousands of infected PCs. Earlier this month, the FBI announced the arrest of individuals who used the Zeus Trojan to pilfer $70 million from U.S. banks. Zeus is in year three of its reign of terror, impervious to law enforcement, government agencies, and the sophisticated information security teams of the largest financial services firms on the planet.
  • sandy ingram on 11 Oct 10
     
    Information security professionals face mounting threats, hoping some mix of technology, education, and hard work will keep their companies and organizations safe. But lately, the specter of failure is looming larger. "Pay no attention to the exploit behind the curtain" is the message from product vendors as they roll out the next iteration of their all-powerful, dynamically updating, self-defending, threat-intelligent, risk-mitigating, compliance-ensuring, nth-generation security technologies. Just pony up the money and the manpower and you'll be safe from what goes bump in the night.
sandy ingram

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

www.prnewswire.com/...acy-in-jeopardy-106945528.html

Privacy security compliance HITECH survey ponemon

shared by sandy ingram on 02 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • "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."
  • sandy ingram on 02 Dec 10
     
    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

VIDEO The Business Center Is Your Link to #compliance Law - 0 views

business.ftc.gov/...ss-center-your-link-to-the-law

Law business center CEO Best Practice

shared by sandy ingram on 23 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • sandy ingram on 23 Nov 10
     
    "The Business Center Is Your Link to the Law The Business Center is your link to the law. It gives you and your employees the tools you need to comply. Learn how you can use the free resources to enhance compliance and build your customers' trust."
sandy ingram

Information Security Clauses and Certifications - Part 1 : Info Law Group - 0 views

www.infolawgroup.com/...uses-and-certifications-part-1

Privacy Security Best Practice

shared by sandy ingram on 21 Jan 10 - Cached
  • What contractual information security provisions should you consider, as a customer or as a vendor or business partner, when the contract contemplates the exchange of protected information? What do security standards and audits entail for a vendor, and what do they offer for a customer?
  • With heightened liability and compliance risks associated with handling protected categories of data, it is becoming more common to see contractual requirements holding vendors accountable for information security or requiring them to conform to a specified information security standard
  • sandy ingram on 21 Jan 10
     
    Outsourcing business and IT functions often means outsourcing compliance and liability risks as well. When a service contract involves protected categories of personal information, both parties need to understand the security requirements and risks. The contract should allocate responsibilities to prevent and respond to security breaches. The contract may also set expectations more precisely by incorporating a written security policy or referring to a widely accepted information security standard, sometimes accompanied by a requirement for a third-party security audit or assessment
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