Archive for September, 2007

The Need to Partner Privacy and IT Efforts *FINALLY* Makes The News!

Sunday, September 30th, 2007

I have long been promoting the concept…more accurately, the NEED…of having IT/Information Security and Privacy (often in the legal area) work closely together in order to not only result in each area being the most effective and efficient in their efforts, but also to ensure no conflicting messages are being sent and no gaps in addressing these issues exist. It is additionally good for and improves business to have these areas work closely together; there are at least 20 overlapping topics these areas work on. Unfortunately too often the Privacy and IT/Information Security areas do not even come closely to working together.

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A Hospital Actively Enforcing HIPAA Requirements!

Saturday, September 29th, 2007

It is great to see a story published about a hospital, actually any type of organization that is a covered entity (CE), that is actively and seriously trying to be in compliance with HIPAA requirements.

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4 Drivers For PCI DSS Compliance

Friday, September 28th, 2007

September 30 (why’d they pick a Sunday?) marks the compliance date for Level 1 organizations to be in compliance with PCI DSS.
Last week I had a nice conversation with Joe Lindstrom from Symantec about the deadline that will fall over this weekend.

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DHS Exploding Generator Shows Dire Need For Better Computer Security

Thursday, September 27th, 2007

Scanning the news this morning, this CNN headline caught my eye, “Mouse click could plunge city into darkness, experts say
The first sentence is compelling:

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18 Common Security and Privacy Work Area Vulnerabilities

Wednesday, September 26th, 2007

In 1990 when I was an internal auditor I was tasked with determining the overall information security posture of my company. One of the things that I decided would be a good thing to do was to go to the offices Saturday and Sunday evening when there would be the fewest personnel around. I wanted to look at their work areas to see what type of information security risks I could find that were a result of the work habits of the personnel.

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Canadian Privacy Commissioners Release TJX Investigation Report

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

Yesterday the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the Office of the Information and Prrivacy Commissioner of Alberta released their “Report of an Investigation into the Security, Collection and Retention of Personal Information” concerning the TJX breach. The investigation was performed to determine if, and if so to what extent, the incident was a violation of Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and/or the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA).

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Security and Privacy Pros Believe…Yes! Privacy Still Does…Or At Least Can…Still Exist!

Monday, September 24th, 2007

Last Friday I had the pleasure of discussing the question of, “Do We Have Privacy Anymore” with a group of highly regarded information security and privacy pros, including:

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Use COSO for SOX and Other Compliance Activities

Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

On September 17 the COSO “Guidance on Monitoring Internal Control Systems” discussion document was released, with public comment on the paper being accepted until October 31.

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A Military Grade Encrypting Self-Destructing USB Drive Makes A Great Gift!

Saturday, September 22nd, 2007

This morning I was doing some of my Christmas gift shopping…yes, I like to get mine done early! 🙂 Any way, I’m thinking about getting an Ironkey encrypted USB drive for some of my relatives who are in dire need of protecting their information better.

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ISO/IEC 17799:2005 By Another Name Is Still The Same

Friday, September 21st, 2007

I’ve been doing some compliance gap analysis work comparing the policies of one of my clients with ISO/IEC 17799:2005. It was renamed in July of this year to ISO/IEC 27002:2005. So, along with the name change, did the content also change? Having the 2005 tacked on the end of the new name would seem to possibly indicate not. Hmm…

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