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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

Nation's toughest personal info law about to take effect -- Government Computer News - 0 views

  • Businesses that hold personally identifiable information on Massachusetts residents have one month to comply with what security experts are calling the toughest data security requirements in the nation. The Massachusetts Data Breach Law, passed in 2007, goes into effect March 1 and requires personal information in networked systems to be protected with strong encryption, firewalls, antivirus and access controls.
  • The law was written in response to the theft of information on more than 45 million credit card accounts from TJX Companies in 2007
  • The law is designed to ensure “the security and confidentiality of customer information,” based on current industry standards, focusing on threats that can or should be anticipated. The regulations take into account the size of a business, the amount of resources available to it, the amount of personal data held and the sensitivity of the data. It covers paper and electronic records and requires physical and IT security.
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  • written information security plan (WISP). “Ninety percent of the clients I deal with on this law do not have a WISP.”
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    "Businesses that hold personally identifiable information on Massachusetts residents have one month to comply with what security experts are calling the toughest data security requirements in the nation. The Massachusetts Data Breach Law , passed in 2007, goes into effect March 1 and requires personal information in networked systems to be protected with strong encryption, firewalls, antivirus and access controls."
sandy ingram

VOA News - US Creates Military Cyber Command to Defend Computer Networks - 0 views

  • Lynn says the U.S. military now considers cyberspace an operational domain, just like land, sea, air and outer space. He says officials are working to develop military doctrine and procedures for cyberspace operations and to increase the department's expertise in cyber security. He declined to say what, if any, offensive actions the United States is taking, or might take, in cyberspace, but he did say this:
  • "One of the reasons we're looking at a Cyber Command is to unify all aspects of cyber defense, so that you don't separate out offense, defense, intelligence, so that all of the various aspects work together," said Lynn.
  • Lynn emphasized that the creation of Cyber Command will not militarize overall U.S. government efforts to protect American government and private computer systems. That effort will be led by a Cyber Security Coordinator - a new position President Barack Obama says he will soon create at the White House.
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  • The civilian effort will involve several agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the National Security Agency and the intelligence services, with help from the Defense Department. Lynn pledged it will not infringe on Americans' civil liberties - a concern some experts have expressed.
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    the creation of Cyber Command will not militarize overall U.S. government efforts to protect American government and private computer systems. That effort will be led by a Cyber Security Coordinator - a new position President Barack Obama says he will soon create at the White House. The civilian effort will involve several agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the National Security Agency and the intelligence services, with help from the Defense Department. Lynn pledged it will not infringe on Americans' civil liberties - a concern some experts have expressed.
sandy ingram

17 Steps to Cloud Migration -- Federal Computer Week - 0 views

  • “The trick is to determine which services, information, and processes are good candidates to reside in the Clouds, as well as which Cloud services should be abstracted within the existing or emerging SOA,” Linthicum said.
  • Do Your Homework Linthicum says to start with your Architecture and make sure you understand your organization’s business drivers, information already under management, existing services under management and your core business processes.
  • In that way you can begin to look where Cloud Computing is a fit according to Linthicum. You can look to migrate to the Cloud when:*The processes, applications, and data are largely independent.*The points of integration are well defined.*A lower level of security will work just fine. *The core internal enterprise architecture is healthy.*The Web is the desired platform.*Cost is an issue.*The applications are new.
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  • not all computing resources should exist in the Clouds and that Cloud is not always cost effective. It shows you need to do your homework before making any move. So, Cloud may not be a fit when the opposite conditions exist:*The processes, applications, and data are largely coupled.*The points of integration are not well defined.*A high level of security is required. *The core internal enterprise architecture needs work.*The application requires a native interface.*The cost is an issue.*The application is legacy.
  • external Cloud services should function like any other enterprise application or infrastructure resource and Cloud resources should appear native.
  • It goes without saying that as with any purchase, you should evaluate Cloud providers using similar validation patterns as you do with new and existing Data Center resources. You know there is going to be hype, but Cloud is not rocket science. If you feel you need to, hire a consultant as a trusted advisor.
  • CSC’s Yogesh Khanna told Summit attendees to embrace the business models that Clouds offer. Security barriers are all addressable not only through technology but also through policies. 
  • Be wary of the fact that there are a lot of Clouds out there. Some of the Public Clouds (e.g. Google’s or SalesForce.com) are proprietary in nature. Because this landscape is changing so fast, it is very important to maintain a level of flexibility and don’t fall prey to “vendor lock-in”.
  • “Look for some level of transparency that allows you to be certain exactly where your data is and who is seeing it,” said Khanna. “Have the flexibility to see where your data is at any given point and be able to monitor the health of the Cloud that’s delivering those services to you.”
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    What the government IT manager needs when getting ready to embark on their migration to the Cloud is a good template; one that defines a proven roadmap to follow.What Cloud Computing Summit attendees learned (and now you) is that help is on the way. Cloud and SOA expert Dave Linthicum has developed a step-by-step plan to help you scale the heights. He goes through them meticulously in his new book Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence In Your Enterprise: A Step-by-Step Guide. At the Summit, Linthicum outlined the plan. Afterwards he told 1105 Custom Media you can consider Cloud Computing the extension of SOA out to Cloud-delivered resources, such as storage-as-a-service, data-as-a-service, and platform-as-a-service.
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.
    • sandy ingram
       
      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

Futureofprivacy.org - Group hopes to shape nation's privacy policy - 0 views

  • Businesses, regulators and consumers are all confused about online privacy, yet technology keeps advancing, said the group's other co-founder, Christopher Wolf, who chairs the Privacy and Data Security Practice Group for Washington law firm Proskauer Rose LLP.
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    Group hopes to shape nation's privacy policy
sandy ingram

What's a Company's Biggest Security Risk? You. - WSJ.com - 0 views

  • Consider what happened in March at EMC Corp.'s RSA security unit, the maker of computer login devices used by thousands of other companies. A hacker sent emails to two small groups of employees that looked innocent enough, including a spreadsheet titled "2011 Recruitment plan." The message was so convincing that one employee retrieved it from the "junk mail" folder and then opened the attachment. Doing so introduced a virus inside RSA's network that eventually gave the hacker access to sensitive company data and enabled later attacks against RSA's customers.
  • Employees have more opportunities than ever to compromise company information. We not only screw up by clicking on emails from hackers that download viruses, letting them bypass corporate firewalls. We also open a Pandora's Box of security problems by circumventing company tech-support rules and doing work with personal gadgets and consumer-grade online services like Web email and cloud storage services.
  • Here's a look at what employees are doing wrong and how companies are trying to fight our bad habits
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  • Today, we make ourselves easy targets by posting troves of information about ourselves and our jobs online, say security experts. Blogs and professional networks such as LinkedIn are particularly useful sources for criminals, since many people share details about their roles at work, which can be used to help determine corporate hierarchies, among other things.
  • Hackers include dangerous traps in these targeted emails, such as links leading to malware or a Web page designed to dupe the employee into entering passwords. In the RSA attack, the emails included an attachment that took advantage of a previously unknown chink in Adobe Flash software to inject a virus into the company's systems.
  • As older systems that are focused on firewalls fail, corporate IT "needs a new defense doctrine," says RSA's head of identity protection, Uri Rivner. "You need to have security cover inside your organization, rather than your perimeter. You need to understand what your users are doing, and then spot any type of suspicious activity inside."
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    Hacking attacks against companies are growing bigger and bolder-witness a string of high-profile breaches this year at Sony Corp., Citigroup Inc. and others. But gone are the days when hackers would simply find holes in corporate networks to steal valuable data. Large companies have grown wise to the threat of hacking, and have spent the past 30 years hardening the perimeters of their networks with upgraded technology.
sandy ingram

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

  • 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,
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  • 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
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    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.
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