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sandy ingram

California Department of Public Health Breach Fines and Legally Defensible Security : I... - 0 views

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    The California Department of Public Health ("CDPH") recently announced its imposition of $675,000 in fines to six hospitals that had reported security breaches involving medical records (since January 1, 2009, the CDPH has issued fines totaling $1.1 million). The story has been extensively reported on in the media . You can listen to the CDPH's press conference here. The total number of records exposed was only 244, for an average fine of around $2,766 per record. To put that in perspective, if a California hospital suffered a breach involving 100,000 medical records, using the average stated here, their potential fines could be $276 million (assuming no cap for fines and penalties -- the relevant laws do have a cap of $250,000 per incident).
sandy ingram

Anthem Blue Cross Cops to Massive Data Breach - www.esecurityplanet.com - 0 views

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    "We were told by a third-party vendor that all security measures were in place,"
sandy ingram

McAfee Security Insights Blog » Blog Archive » Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) - 0 views

  • APT is the new way attackers are breaking into systems.
  • APT is a sophisticated, mercurial way that advanced attackers can break into systems, not get caught, keeping long-term access to exfiltrate data at will. 
  • APT focuses on any organization, both government and non-government organizations.
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  • While the threat is advanced once it gets into a network, the entry point with many attacks is focused on convincing a user to click on a link.
  • Advanced attacks are always changing, recompiling on the fly and utilizing encryption to avoid detection.
  • Advanced attacks are always changing, recompiling on the fly and utilizing encryption to avoid detection.
  • Today attacks are nonstop. The attackers are persistent and if an organization lets its guard down for any period of time, the chance of a compromise is very high.
  • Attackers want to take advantage of economy of scale and break into as many places as possible, as quickly as possible. 
  • Therefore the tool of choice of an attacker is automation. Automation is not only what causes the persistent nature of the threat, but it is also what allows attackers to break in very quickly.
  • Old school attacks were about giving the victim some visible indication of a compromise. Today it is all about not getting caught.
  • the problem with the APT is that it enters a network and looks just like legitimate traffic and users.
  • Based on the new threat vectors of the APT, the following are key things organizations can do to prevent against the threat:
  • APT is only going to increase in intensity over the next year, not go away.  Ignoring this problem just means there will be harm caused to your organization.
  • The ultimate way to make sure an organization is properly protected is to run simulated attacks (i.e. penetration testing, red teaming, ethical hacking) and see how vulnerable an organization is and, most importantly. how quickly you detected it.
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    One of the main reasons organizations are broken into today is because they are fixing the wrong vulnerabilities. If you fix the threats of three years ago, you will lose. APT allows organizations to focus on the real threats that exist today. While APT is important, we need to clear the smoke and hype, focusing on why it is important and what it means to you. Instead of just using it as a buzz word, if we understand the core components of APT, we can use it to improve our security. In APT, threat drives the risk calculation. Only by understanding the offensive threat will an organization be able to fix the appropriate vulnerabilities.  What is APT?
sandy ingram

Extending Your Enterprise Risk Management Program #grc #smb - 0 views

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    In today's economic climate, many organizations outsource parts of their business to take advantage of cost savings and solution-expertise. However, as vendor relationships increase, it becomes more difficult to manage them. The risks assumed by outsourcing can be significant without a vendor management program. According to the Ponemon Institute Study - 2009 Security Mega Trends, an average of 50.5% of organizations who outsourced sensitive and confidential data to third parties experienced a security incident or data breach as a result of outsourcing. In this 1-hour live webcast, Michael Rasmussen, President at Corporate Integrity, will share his insights on the importance of vendor management, as well as his recommendations of best practices for defining and executing an effective strategy. Chris Noell, EVP of Product management of TruArx, will then provide a brief overview of how GRC tools such as TruComply can automate key vendor management activities and enable these best practices. In this session, you will learn about: *The importance of vendor management and how it applies to your business *Best practices for defining and executing an effective vendor management strategy *How you can quickly and cost-effectively establish a mature vendor management program
sandy ingram

Deloitte | E-Discovery: Mitigating Risk Through Better Communication | Deloitte Discove... - 0 views

  • The Deloitte Forensic Center’s analysis of the E-Discovery: Mitigating Risk Through Better Communication survey results1 identified three interrelated challenges. They are: Communication Awareness Readiness
  • At the heart of e-discovery are two corporate functions that historically have had little in common, and tend to speak their own technical languages: legal and IT
  • Neither can be truly effective in the e-discovery process without a clear understanding of the other, yet communication and coordination between these two departments appears to be unclear to many survey participants: More than one-third of respondents (36 percent) don’t know the answer to how their legal and IT departments communicate.
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  • Deficient communication and a lack of coordination between departments can lead to an organizational lack of awareness about e-discovery.
  • Awareness Issues
  • Communication Hurdles
  • According to the survey, more than one-third of respondents, including C-suite, (36 percent) don’t know how committed their company’s C-suite is to finding a solution for e-discovery issues.
  • Only 20 percent of respondents think legal resources are appropriately allocated to e-discovery
  • Many companies also lack the resources and sophistication to manage e-discovery effectively.
  • For respondents that say their firms are challenged by e-discovery, the most common complaints are: a lack of funds to address e-discovery requirements (25 percent
  • Of those respondents with an opinion, 62 percent say their company is concerned about e-discovery challenges posed by social media web sites and blogs
  • Given the extensive use today of social media such as Facebook and Twitter during employees’ work and personal time, this suggests an e-discovery challenge that may require attention by many companies.
  • Three Years from Now
  • E-discovery is anticipated to become harder: 44 percent of respondents expect e-discovery challenges, along with government rules and regulations, to increase over the coming three years
  • Mismanaged e-discovery has led to many tales of litigation woe, involving sanctions, lost cases and fines. Improper ESI management, as the Sedona Conference points out, is simply bad business.
  • Five Areas of Potential Improvement
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    "As the volume of electronically stored information (ESI) rises rapidly, improving the understanding among the C-suite, legal and IT functions is key to controlling costs and better managing e-discovery risks."
sandy ingram

First HIPAA Settlement - Whose next? - 0 views

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    As we previously mentioned, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal filed the first HIPAA-related lawsuit. That lawsuit has now been settled, also a first. The settlement agreement [PDF] between the State of Connecticut and the defendants (Health Net) is the result of the loss of a computer disk drive that had unencrypted health information for 1.5 million health plans. Health Net, under the terms of the settlement, has agreed to pay $250,000 to the state of Connecticut, offer 2 years of credit monitoring to those affected, obtain identity theft insurance and reimburse those affected for security freezes. They will also be required to greatly improve their security measures.
sandy ingram

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

  • 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.
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    "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

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

  • 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.
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  • 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.
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    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

House Cybersecurity Caucus Launches Website - 0 views

  • Content, for now, is meager. A list of tips for individuals to secure their personal computers is found in the website's resources page as well as links to Langevin's and McCaul's press releases regarding cybersecurity in the site's media center.
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    The House Cybersecurity Caucus has established a website.
sandy ingram

United States, Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Didn't See That Coming? Why Many Em... - 0 views

  • Daniels Midland employee who embezzled millions, to the bookkeeper in Maine who took thousands from the church's coffers. The current rough economy and easy access to sophisticated technology are potent ingredients for creating the perfect storm for organizational fraud.
  • Enabling technologies like sophisticated color printers, remote access to linked computers, and data-capturing viruses have played a significant role in how employees can commit and conceal fraud. Even without accessible technology, the lack of segregation of duties and "less paper" (making for fewer paper trails) in the working environment make it easier for employees to commit fraud.
  • While technology and the economy may facilitate fraud, it is an employee's motivation and opportunity that are the most important elements in understanding fraud risk. Motivation (also known as incentives or pressures), opportunity, and rationalization of the fraudulent behavior are the three critical elements necessary for fraud to occur
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  • UNDERSTANDING THE ELEMENTS OF FRAUD
  • Incentives/pressures
  • Opportunity
  • Rationalization
  • Opportunity
  • Using the Fraud Triangle Theory gives us a means to understanding and deterring fraud by identifying and mitigating the elements necessary to enable fraud. Removing weak internal control systems and replacing them with stronger systems, observing employee behavior, and modeling behavior from the top down, can reduce a company's fraud risk tremendously.
  • Opportunity
  • Rationalization is the final component of the 3
  • Opportunity is the one area that an employer can best control
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    "Didn't See That Coming? Why Many Employers are Vulnerable to Employee Fraud"
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

Microsoft cloud computing & cloud services - So much more than just BPOS - Microsoft Pa... - 0 views

  • Windows Azure - flexible, familiar environment to create applications and services for the cloud.
  • Windows Intune - simplifies how businesses manage and secure PCs using Windows cloud services and Windows 7
  • Microsoft Office Web Apps - online companions to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, giving you the freedom to access, edit, and share Microsoft Office documents from virtually anywhere.
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  • Microsoft SQL Azure - provides a highly scalable, multi-tenant database that you don't have to install, setup, patch or manage.
  • Microsoft Exchange Online - highly secure hosted e-mail with "anywhere access" for your employees.  Starts at just $5 per user per month.
  • Microsoft Forefront Online Protection for Exchange - helps protect businesses' inbound and outbound e-mail from spam, viruses, phishing scams, and e-mail policy violations.
  • Microsoft SharePoint Online - gives your business a highly secure, central location where employees can collaborate and share documents.
  • Microsoft Office Live Meeting - provides real-time, Web-hosted conferencing so you can connect with colleagues and engage clients from almost anywhere – without the cost of travel.
  • Microsoft Office Communications Online - delivers robust messaging functionality for real-time communication via text, voice, and video.
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online - helps you find, keep, and grow business relationships by centralizing customer information and streamlining processes with a system that quickly adapts to new demands.
  • Windows Live ID - identity and authentication system provided by Windows Live that lets you create universal sign in credentials across diverse applications.
  • Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) - brings together online versions of Microsoft's messaging and collaboration solutions, including: Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting, and Office Communications Online.
  • Hopefully in the information above, you can see that when it comes to Microsoft cloud computing and Microsoft cloud services, BPOS is just one aspect and offering available, but it goes far beyond just that.  Whether you are a business or a partner, the opportunity that cloud computing/cloud services and Microsoft brings to you are very exciting and continue to expand each and every day.
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    The journey leading up to where we are today has been taking place for 15 years now, starting way back with Windows Live and Hotmail. Since then, the services and offerings served up online through cloud from Microsoft have continued and expanded. Today, there are a number of cloud based solutions available, enabling individuals and businesses around the world to do so much. Here's a look at some of these, with links to more information about each and trials of these for you:
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

SurveyHigh storage costs, long backup windows, litigation risk and inefficient eDiscove... - 0 views

  • Enterprises are retaining far too much information. Seventy-five percent of backup storage consists of infinite retention or legal hold backup sets. Respondents also stated that 25 percent of the data they back up is not needed for business or should not be kept in a backup.
  • Enterprises are misusing backup, recovery and archiving practices. Seventy percent of enterprises use their backup software to implement legal holds and 25 percent preserve the entire backup set indefinitely. Respondents said 45 percent of backup storage comes from legal holds alone
  • Differences in how IT and legal respondents cited top issues for lack of an information retention plan Forty-one percent of IT administrators don’t see a need for a plan, 30 percent said no one is chartered with that responsibility, and 29 percent cited cost.
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  • Storage costs are skyrocketing as over retention has created an environment where it is now 1,500 times more expensive to review data than it is to store it,
  • Backup is not an archive, and it is not recommended to use backup for archiving and legal holds
  • Enterprises should also develop and enforce information retention policies (what can and cannot be deleted, and when) automatically. Automated, policy-driven deletion creates less risk than ad-hoc, manual deletion.
  • Paper policies that are not executed can be a litigation risk.
  • Enterprises should deploy data loss prevention technologies to measurably reduce their risk of data breaches, demonstrate regulatory compliance and safeguard their customers, brand and intellectual property.
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    MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - August 4, 2010 - Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today released the findings of its 2010 Information Management Health Check Survey, which highlights that a majority of enterprises are not following their own advice when it comes to information management. Eighty-seven percent of respondents believe in the value of a formal information retention plan, but only 46 percent actually have one. Survey results also found that too many enterprises save information indefinitely instead of implementing policies that allow them to confidently delete unimportant data or records, and therefore suffer from rampant storage growth, unsustainable backup windows, increased litigation risk and expensive and inefficient discovery processes.
sandy ingram

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

  • “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. 
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    "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

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

  • 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.
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    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

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

  • 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.
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    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

The security laws, regulations and guidelines directory - 0 views

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    "This directory includes laws, regulations and industry guidelines with significant security and privacy impact and requirements. Each entry includes a link to the full text of the law or reg as well as information about what and who is covered. The list is intentionally US-centric, but includes selected laws of other nations that have an impact on US-based global companies. "
sandy ingram

SURVEY BY KROLL ONTRACK: One out of Two businesses do not erase sensitive data. - 0 views

  • "Three-fourths of businesses are deleting files, reformatting or destroying drives, or 'do not know' how they are erasing sensitive data. Deleting files from a hard drive only marks the files to be rewritten, which may never occur. Furthermore, reformatting the drive only removes the entries in the index or table of contents that point to the data. And, physically destroying a drive is not a guaranteed method of protection, as Kroll Ontrack has been recovering data from severely damaged drives, such as the Columbia space shuttle, for more than 25 years.
  • "Surveying more than 1,500 participants from 12 countries across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific regarding their data wiping practices also revealed that four in 10 businesses gave away their used hard drive to another individual and 22 percent do not know what happened to their old computer.
  • Only 19 percent of businesses deploy data eraser software and fewer, 6 percent, use a degausser to erase media. When asked if and how businesses verify their data has been deleted, very few (16 percent) reported relying on a product or service report to confirm all of their data had been wiped.
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  • "Reports that verify or confirm what the tool and/or service did are critical," concluded Reinert. "Not only do they inform you of what has been wiped, but they should identify the serial number as well as the make and model information of the wiped hard drive, the date and time of when the information was wiped, and a listing of how much information was wiped."
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    "According to a recent global survey on data wiping practices, Kroll Ontrack, the leading provider of information management, data recovery, and legal technology products and services, found less than half of businesses regularly deploy a method of erasing sensitive data from old computers and hard drives. Of the 49 percent of businesses that are systematically deploying a data eraser method, 75 percent do not delete data securely, leaving most organizations highly susceptible to data breaches, which plague businesses at least once a year according to the 2010 Kroll Ontrack Annual ESI Trends Survey and cost an organization an average of $6.75 million per breach according to the 2009 Ponemon Cost of Data Breach Study."
sandy ingram

City and County of San Francisco Adopts Microsoft Cloud Solution: This solution will he... - 0 views

  • “The City and County of San Francisco has always been forward-thinking in leveraging technology to improve the services it provides,” said Gail Thomas Flynn, vice president of U.S. State and Local Government at Microsoft Corp. “We are excited at the opportunity to equip and support the employees of San Francisco with the tools they need to better serve the people of San Francisco.”
  • Several competing solutions were examined based on criteria that included price, security, functionality, flexibility, SLA-backed service, proven record for support, and integration with existing infrastructure and tools.
  • “By moving to the Microsoft platform, we not only get immediate improvements to our system, but we gain a disaster-resilient system that provides the most modern information tools, with solid support provisions that can scale with the needs of our constituents,” San Francisco Chief Information Officer Jon Walton said.
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    "SAN FRANCISCO - May 18, 2011 - The City and County of San Francisco today announced that it will upgrade and consolidate its multiple citywide email systems used by more than 23,000 employees as part of its ongoing efforts to improve the quality and efficiency of its services and reduce IT management costs. "A key part of serving a community as diverse and vibrant as ours starts with making the right investments in information technology," San Francisco Mayor Edwin M. Lee said. "It is our responsibility to make decisions that are fiscally responsible, forward-looking, and improve the services that city and county employees provide to our constituents.""
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