Posts Tagged ‘encryption’
Thursday, July 2nd, 2015
I’ve been concerned with and writing about the information security and privacy risks involved with the data created, transmitted and processed by smart devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) for several years since they first started emerging (e.g., here) and will likely be writing on it even more in the coming months and years. According to a new IDC research report, the IoT market will grow from $655.8 billion in 2014 to $1.7 trillion in 2020 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.9%. Will privacy die in this IoT explosion? If IoT developers and manufacturers take action now, I’m optimistic that they can save privacy in the IoT explosion. (more…)
Tags:access logs, awareness and training, Dell, encrypt, encryption, Information Security, Internet of Things, IoT, IT compliance, malware, medical device, policies and procedures, power more, privacy, privacy compliance, privacy professor, privacyprof, program changes, risk management, security awareness, security logs, security training Rebecca Herold, toprank
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Friday, August 29th, 2014
Over the past few months I’ve been creating some social media marketing privacy guidelines and requirements for a couple of my large clients. Today I read a post from a fellow IBM Midsize Insider contributor, Jason Hannula, “Social Media: Enterprise Content or Customer Relationship Information?” It stated that “93% of marketers are using social media for business.” A large number of these are from small and midsize organizations. It is important for these organizations to not only keep Jason’s suggestions in mind, and follow the business’s data governance requirements, but also to make sure privacy is also appropriately addressed. Many, perhaps most, small to midsize businesses do not yet have social media privacy requirements in place. (more…)
Tags:data protection law, encryption, facebook, IBM, Information Security, information security risks, infosec, marketing, midmarket, privacy, privacy law, privacy professor, privacy risks, privacyprof, Rebecca Herold, social media, twitter
Posted in Marketing, privacy, Social Media | No Comments »
Thursday, July 31st, 2014
What is the difference between security and privacy?
Many of my clients are small and midsized businesses. They often express confusion over what each of these terms (neither of which have a universally-accepted definition) actually means, how they are different, and how they are similar. This is important for business leaders to understand so they can make appropriate decisions within their information security and privacy management programs. Especially in small and midsize businesses, where there may not be a specific position to address either of these important topics. Let’s start with considering at a high level the differences between information security and privacy. (more…)
Tags:data protection law, encryption, FIPs, GAPP, IBM, Information Security, information security risks, infosec, midmarket, OECD, PbD, privacy, Privacy by Design, privacy law, privacy principles, privacy professor, privacy risks, privacyprof, Rebecca Herold
Posted in privacy | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 11th, 2014
In the past couple of weeks I’ve spoken with five different small to mid-size organizations who have had a software or hardware vendor basically tell them, “Our product is HIPAA compliant! Use it and you will also be fully HIPAA compliant!” How can that be? In three words; it can’t be. Here’s what is most likely going on with those claims. (more…)
Tags:10X Medical Devices, compliance, data protection, encryption, firewalls, HIPAA, IBM, Information Security, infosec, midmarket, privacy professor, privacyprof, Rebecca Herold, risk assessment, risk management
Posted in HIPAA, Marketing, Privacy and Compliance | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, February 26th, 2014
Do you think the NSA is the biggest threat to your privacy? Certainly they are collecting a significant amount of personal data. And from the looks of it, with their new facility that may hold up to 12 exabytes (that’s 12,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes) of data, they appear to be planning to continue collecting, and keeping, more data. This is an important topic, and I’ll look at in more depth in an upcoming blog post. But for now, you need to know and understand that there are many other entities that are collecting data from you and your mobile apps in the same way as NSA is slurping it up, along with several other ways. (more…)
Tags:awareness, compliance, cybercrooks, cybersecurity, data protection, encrypt, encryption, IBM, Information Security, infosec, midmarket, Mobile apps, mobile device, non-compliance, NSA, personal information, personal information identifier, personal information item, PI, PII, policies, privacy, privacy laws, privacy professor, privacyprof, Rebecca Herold, risk assessment, risk management, security, surveillance, training, wearable device, wireless
Posted in Information Security, mobile computing, privacy | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 3rd, 2013
Encryption has been talked about a lot lately. I’ve gotten at least a couple dozen questions from my Compliance Helper clients in the past month. They can pretty much be boiled down to this question:
What encryption solution should we use?
Many of the small and mid-size businesses I help, and many start-ups of any size, are under the assumption that if they get one encryption solution, it will (more…)
Tags:awareness, breach, cloud, compliance, cryptography, data protection, encrypt, encryption, HTTPS, IBM, information management, Information Security, information technology, infosec, IT security, midmarket, non-compliance, personal information, personal information identifier, personal information item, PHI, PII, policies, privacy, privacy breach, privacy laws, privacy professor, privacyprof, Rebecca Herold, risk assessment, risk management, security, SSL, systems security, TLS, training
Posted in Information Security | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 1st, 2013
“Sometimes I feel like…somebody’s watching me! And I have no privacy!”
(The Rockwell hit from…quite appropriately…1984.)
Each day, we are tracked by the ‘smart’ systems, mobile apps, personal communication devices and other surveillance platforms that have become commonplace in our daily lives. In an effort to educate more people, and businesses, about the data trails they are leaving behind (and the companies, data bureaus and marketers who are sniffing out that trail), I created this new infographic (more…)
Tags:awareness, big data, breach, compliance, data protection, encrypt, encryption, IBM, Information Security, information technology, infosec, Internet of Things, IT security, midmarket, monitoring, NIST, non-compliance, NSA, personal information identifier, personal information item, PHI, PII, policies, privacy, privacy breach, privacy laws, privacy professor, privacyprof, Rebecca Herold, risk assessment, risk management, security, social network, surveillance, systems security, training
Posted in Miscellaneous, privacy | No Comments »
Thursday, September 26th, 2013
I’ve received numerous questions from various news outlets, clients and colleagues since the published revelation that the NSA was getting the assistance of encryption vendors to decrypt messages throughout a very wide range of activities. A lot of folks are now throwing their hands in the air, claiming that encryption is now no longer effective, and planning to use something completely different. Hmm…wait! Don’t throw out the encryption baby with the unsafe practices bathwater yet. Encryption is still an effective, and necessary, information security control to use. The following are (more…)
Tags:awareness, BA, BAA, breach, business associate, CE, compliance, covered entity, data protection, encrypt, encryption, HIPAA, HITECH, IBM, Information Security, information technology, infosec, IT security, midmarket, monitoring, NIST, non-compliance, NSA, Omnibus, personal information identifier, personal information item, PHI, PII, policies, privacy, privacy breach, privacy laws, privacy professor, privacyprof, Rebecca Herold, risk assessment, risk management, RSA, security, social network, surveillance, systems security, training
Posted in government, Information Security | No Comments »
Friday, August 30th, 2013
Over the past week a few reporters who were following up on a recent breach of 9 million patient records for stories they were writing asked me basically the same question amongst all their others, “What are the barriers that stop healthcare organizations from encrypting their devices?” One of the resulting stories, by Marianne McGee, has been posted at HealthCareInfosecurity. During my work with a wide range of small to large organizations, in a wide range of industries, I’ve found there are some common reasons why encryption is not implemented. Here are the top four I’ve run across. (more…)
Tags:awareness, BA, BAA, breach, business associate, CE, compliance, covered entity, data protection, encrypt, encryption, HIPAA, HITECH, IBM, Information Security, information technology, infosec, IT security, midmarket, monitoring, non-compliance, Omnibus, personal information identifier, personal information item, PHI, PII, policies, privacy, privacy breach, privacy laws, privacy professor, privacyprof, Rebecca Herold, risk assessment, risk management, security, social network, surveillance, systems security, training
Posted in HIPAA, Information Security | No Comments »
Thursday, May 17th, 2012
I was recently speaking with a friend on the phone, and she said, “I just had the most embarrassing thing happen! I had one of my Facebook friends send me a text teasing me about reading a rather sleazy article on TMZ. I did not know what she was talking about! So, I went to my Facebook page, and sure enough, down the timeline there was an article I had only briefly gone to the previous day after clicking a headline about moms on Google news and landed on a page; I quickly got off of when I saw it. I was so embarrassed to see that my brief visit to the page had been posted on my Facebook page! I don’t even go to TMZ on purpose, why is Facebook suddenly tattling on me when it accidentally went there?” (more…)
Tags:audit, big data, breach, breach response, change controls, compliance, DailyMotion, data analytics, data mining, encryption, facebook, foursquare, frictionless sharing, gartner, IBM, Information Security, information technology, infosec, IT security, Keywords: personal information, Metacafe, midmarket, Netflix, non-compliance, personally identifiable information, PII, policies, privacy, privacy breach, privacy professor, privacyprof, protected health information, Rebecca Herold, security, security engineering, sensitive personal information, Socialcam, SPI, spotify, systems security, Viddy, Washington post, WPO, Zuckerberg
Posted in Miscellaneous | 2 Comments »