Info Sec & Privacy Days/Weeks/Months

June 15th, 2009

As I’ve mentioned a few times before, I’m in the final lap of finishing the 2nd edition of my book, “Managing an Information Security and Privacy Awareness and Training Program.” Woo hoo!
Over the weekend I updated “Appendix N – Designated Security and Privacy-Related Days.” Here are the days, weeks and months I’ve found are devoted to raising awareness about various info sec and privacy issues (this is in a much nicer-looking table format in my book)…

Read the rest of this entry »

FTC’s New Red Flags Rules FAQ

June 11th, 2009

Today the US FTC released “Frequently Asked Questions: Identity Theft Red Flags and Address Discrepancies.”
Here are a couple important things to take away from this FAQ…

Read the rest of this entry »

Healthcare Worker Gets 1 Year In Prison For Posting HIV Victim’s Medical Records On Internet

June 10th, 2009

Today a report discussed how a healthcare worker obtained medical information about a patient with HIV that was then posted on the Internet…

Read the rest of this entry »

Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) & Privacy Threatening Technologies

June 9th, 2009

I’m doing research while working on the 2nd edition of my book, “Managing an Information Security and Privacy Awareness and Training Program“…

Read the rest of this entry »

Audits Show Things At a Moment in Time; Silly To Sue For Breaches That Happen 1 Year After Audit Conclusion?

June 8th, 2009

There has been much written in the past week about Merrick Bank suing the audit firm, Savvis, because a breach occurred at CardSystems in 2005 even though Savvis had given passing marks for the CardSystems audit that Merrick Bank hired them to perform in 2004 to ensure they were following Visa’s Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP); basically a forerunner of the current PCI DSS program. Savvis found that CardSystems was following the CISP requirements. Within a year after the audit, CardSystems experienced a major breach that basically put them out of business.
I have had the great privilege to work as an IT auditor early in my career, for a while as an internal auditor at a large multi-national financial and insurance company, and then doing periodic audits since in various organizations in a wide range of industries since. All wonderful learning experiences!
There are a couple of important points that the judge in this situation should consider, and the lawyers in this case should understand:

Read the rest of this entry »

Great InfoSec and Privacy Info and Resources This Week On Twitter

June 5th, 2009

I got my week’s issue of Time magazine in the mail today, and lo-and-behold the cover and feature story was about Twitter!

Read the rest of this entry »

Not Providing Training and Awareness Is The Dumbest Idea For Information Security

June 4th, 2009

As time goes on, and more and more information security incidents and privacy breaches occur, I continue to hear otherwise smart people say silly and completely wrong statements about the need (or lack of) for information security and privacy training and awareness!

Read the rest of this entry »

Rights for Privacy Breach Victims

June 3rd, 2009

I received a provacative question on Twitter last week from idExperts, “If you had a wish list of rights for identity theft victims, what would that be?”
Sounds like a great blog topic! 🙂 Here are my thoughts…

Read the rest of this entry »

Common InfoSec & Privacy Training Mistakes

June 1st, 2009

I’ve been reviewing some of the information security and privacy training and awareness content for some organizations; some large and some small. Most of the training is ineffective…

Read the rest of this entry »

Insider Threat: Horrible Tragedy Highlights Need For Policies & Training

May 27th, 2009

I got the June 1 issue of Newsweek today, and something that’s bothered me ever since I first heard about it was on page 4…

Read the rest of this entry »