Yesterday I was at the Iowa State Fair literally all day; from 8am to around 8:30pm. Despite the 95 degree extremely humid weather it was such a fun day! The cloudy skies and nice breezes helped a lot. We didn’t get to probably half of the exhibits and activities. And I was *VERY* disappointed I didn’t see any of the at least 4 presidential hopefuls who were on the grounds; the place is so big I guess we were always in the wrong place at the right time.
Archive for the ‘Privacy and Compliance’ Category
SMB PCI DSS Issues at the State Fair
Thursday, August 16th, 2007U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security Makes 14 Privacy Impact Assessments Available
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007I am a huge proponent of privacy impact assessments (PIAs); basically risk assessments for privacy. PIAs can reveal gaps in privacy practices, along with the information security practices used to protect privacy. They are important and effective exercises for all organizations that handle personally identifiable information (PII).
Bad Advice from the Uninformed and Inexperienced Hurt Information Security & Privacy Efforts
Sunday, August 12th, 2007The results of the poll for this past week show that 91% believe information security and privacy training and awareness is important, but 9% believe it is not necessary to effectively safeguard data.
Well, I’ve had some very interesting conversations in the past few years, usually while at conferences and when chatting with vendors, who were emphatic about how awareness and training is “a waste of time and money.” As the results of my very unscientific poll show, while this opinion may be a very small percentage, it still could significantly impact information security program efforts based upon the folks who are putting down the awareness and training…the influence they have on non-infosec corporate decision makers could be very damaging to overall efforts…
Avoid Being Sued And Losing Customers: Don’t Go Changing Your Privacy Policy Willy-Nilly!
Friday, August 10th, 2007Many organizations dangerously change their posted privacy policies often, and often without giving notice to their customers. It is important to always keep in mind that your posted privacy policy is a legally binding contract with your customers. You cannot agree to do one thing with your customers’ personally identifiable information (PII) when they start doing business with you and then change that agreement without notifying and allowing your customers to agree to that change.
You Will Be Judged By The Company You Keep: 4 Good Reasons (And More) To Ensure Your Business Partners Have Good Information Security Programs
Thursday, August 9th, 2007Over the past few years I have done well over a hundred business partner security program reviews for organizations who wanted to ensure that the organizations to whom they were entrusting their sensitive data, or other business processing, had appropriate security and privacy policies, practices, training and were generally trustworthy.
Boiling Down PCI DSS Compliance; It’s Really Just Common Sense Information Security
Wednesday, August 8th, 2007I subscribe to many (sometimes I think too many) assorted email newsletters that cover a wide range of compliance issues. One came through today from the IT Compliance Institute with the subject line, “PCI fails, Fidelity breach, death by upgrade, more‚Ķ”
PCI fails? Sounded interesting so I went to their story about it.
(Title corrected on 8/9; thanks Grit!)
77% Polled Believe Privacy Is Possible
Tuesday, August 7th, 200777% of those participating in my completely unscientific blogsite poll from last week indicated privacy is still possible.
Privacy in the 21st Century is Captured Well in This Year’s GSW Logo Competition Winner
Sunday, August 5th, 2007Global Security Week (GSW) is September 3 – 7 this year, and the topic is Privacy in the 21st Century.
All the GSW logo entries were nice, but I think the winner of the GSW logo competition, Emily Hoelscher, captures the essence of privacy quite well. I really like how Emily incorporated both physical and data issues into her design.
The Many Languages of Security and Privacy
Friday, August 3rd, 2007I’ve done a lot of information security and privacy awareness and training work since 1990. I continue to do a lot; not only because of the *REAL* importance it has to the success of security and privacy efforts, but also because it is something I love doing.
Privacy Poll Closing *SUNDAY*…Please Click a Button!
Thursday, August 2nd, 2007Thanks to those of you who have taken the privacy poll on the right-hand side of this page! If you haven’t yet…please, pretty please, do! I had planned for this to close on Friday, but now it will close on Sunday. I’ll post a new poll weekly to run from Monday through Sunday, and each week afterwards.
