Archive for the ‘Information Security’ Category

Insider Threat and Cowboys: The Wall Street Journal Tells Your Personnel How To Get Around Your Security

Tuesday, July 31st, 2007

Oh, boy, reading this Wall Street Journal story, “Ten Things Your IT Department Won’t Tell You” brought back some memories of personnel who went to great lengths to get around security requirements!

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Retail Locations Have Unique Challenges With PCI DSS Compliance

Friday, July 27th, 2007

I’ve been intrigued lately with PCI DSS compliance. It has all retailers on edge, has multiple vendors drooling, and has spawned new laws and bills, such as in Minnesota and Texas. I’ve had interesting discussions about it with those who process credit card payments, and I’ve been doing some research into the various issues.

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Compliance and Information Security: Common Sense Confirmed

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

So many times I’ve heard business leaders complain that the data protection requirements within the multiple laws and regulations only hurt business; that they are not necessary and have no true impact on really protecting data…they are just bureaucratic hoops forced upon businesses to placate the politicians’ constituents by lawmakers who know nothing about the nuts and bolts of implementing information security…and that the cost of compliance is only hurts the business’ bottom line.
Hmm…

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Confusing Folks: PHR, PHI, PII, NPPI, and Dozens of Other Acronyms…It’s Still All Personal Information

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

I really enjoy reading survey results. I can’t help myself. Whether the surveys are well-done, sloppy, long, short, statistically accurate or obviously statistically invalid, I still find them interesting. Especially when they cover what the general public and non-IT/non-infosec person thinks or knows about information security and privacy, or some industry-specific issue.

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Insider Threat Example: Payroll Employee Threatens To Illegally Use Other Employees’ PII If Not Given a Good Review

Sunday, July 22nd, 2007

Here’s another example of the insider threat similar to situations that I’ve heard of happening many times throughout the years through conversations with folks at conferences and other professional meetings.

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Norman Borlaug: A Great Role Model for the Power of One

Thursday, July 19th, 2007

I have heard many information assurance (IA) professionals, when they are feeling frustrated, angry, or whatever other negative feelings we all have at one time or another, say what they are doing is not making a difference, or say they feel they are looked down upon by others in their organization as a “necessary evil.” They often feel that one person cannot make a difference.

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UK Annual Privacy Report: Businesses Need To Give Individuals Access to Their PII, and More Awareness and Training Is Needed

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

Monday I talked about France’s 2006/2007 CNIL privacy report. The United Kingdom (UK) also recently released their 2006/2007 data protection report.

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Carnegie Mellon’s Data Privacy Head Urges Development of New Privacy Technologies

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007

I enjoy reading Scientific American Magazine. And I especially am interested in reading their articles that touch upon, or directly address, information security, privacy or compliance. It is always nice to see the views of practitioners, educators, researchers and others who are not on the typical information security circuit of publications.

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Privacy Not Only Requires Securing PII, It Also Requires Keeping the Trust of Your Customers

Tuesday, July 10th, 2007

Recently I was speaking with a client about a new Internet e-commerce application they were testing, and I asked them to give a demonstration. One of the questions I asked while watching was whether there were any ways in which someone could get information about customers’ orders. After doing some various tests, a screen popped up showing a database of names, item descriptions, and other information related to the orders. The billing information, such as credit card number, was *NOT* within this database, but the names and mailing addresses were; these were used for the indexing links to the database.

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