Posts Tagged ‘Information Security’
Monday, September 22nd, 2014
Most of the 250+ organizations I’ve audited, and the hundreds of others I’ve had as clients, hate documentation. At least creating documentation. So, they don’t do it, or they do it very poorly. Or, they document things they don’t need to, and fail to document the important things. And then, considering all that documentation, they often don’t retain it long enough, or forget where they put it.
Last year I wrote an article about legal retention length requirements. Now I’m focusing on the types of compliance activities organizations need to document, and then the need to retain that documentation for the appropriate periods of time. (more…)
Tags:BA management, compliance documentation, data protection law, documentation, facebook, HIPAA, Information Security, information security risks, infosec, marketing, midmarket, privacy, privacy law, privacy professor, privacy risks, privacyprof, Rebecca Herold, social media, twitter, vendor management
Posted in HIPAA, Privacy and Compliance | 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 »
Monday, August 25th, 2014
Many marketing professionals have a common temptation; they want to send as many marketing messages to as many people as possible, and they would love to send it to all folks who have ever been customers or clients of their business, and often times actually want to simply send to everyone whose email address they can obtain in any way.
Privacy professionals make many efforts to guide marketers on what is acceptable and not acceptable. After all, (more…)
Tags:choice, data protection law, FIPs, GAPP, IBM, Information Security, information security risks, infosec, marketing, marketing privacy, midmarket, notice, OECD, PbD, privacy, Privacy by Design, privacy law, privacy principles, privacy professor, privacy risks, privacyprof, Rebecca Herold
Posted in Marketing, privacy | 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 »
Monday, July 21st, 2014
Early this month I was happy to discuss synthetic identity theft on the Great Day show. I briefly talked about how synthetic identity theft was also committed in the U.S. using business employer identity numbers (EINs). Crooks often target small and midsize businesses for this type of crime. After the show I got a lot of questions asking for more information about synthetic EIN identity theft. (more…)
Tags:business identity theft, EIN theft, Great Day, IBM, ID theft, identity theft, Information Security, infosec, midmarket, privacy, privacy professor, privacy risks, privacyprof, Rebecca Herold, synthetic identity theft
Posted in identity theft, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Thursday, June 26th, 2014
Big data analytics are being used more widely every day for an even wider number of reasons. These new methods of applying analytics certainly can bring innovative improvements for business. For example, retail businesses are successfully using big data analytics to predict the hot items each season, and to predict geographic areas where demand will be greatest, just to name a couple of uses.
The power of big data analytics is so great that in addition to all the positive business possibilities, there are just as many new privacy concerns being created. Here are ten of the most significant privacy risks. (more…)
Tags:big data, big data analytics, IBM, Information Security, infosec, Internet of Things, IoT, midmarket, privacy, privacy professor, privacy risks, privacyprof, Rebecca Herold
Posted in privacy, Uncategorized | 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 »
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2014
There are many new small and mid-size business start-ups who are offering a wide range of online services, mobile apps, and smart devices. There are also many businesses that have been around a long time that see an opportunity and so are expanding into these areas. I’ve spoken with many such businesses, and they often make two common privacy mistakes: (more…)
Tags:data protection, IBM, Information Security, infosec, marketing, midmarket, PIA, privacy, privacy impact assessment, privacy professor, privacyprof, Rebecca Herold, risk assessment, risk management
Posted in privacy, privacy impact assessment, Privacy Incidents | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 21st, 2014
Even with the number of privacy breaches increasing, and with numbers of privacy sanctions coming from the FTC and other regulatory agencies and courts snowballing for companies doing irresponsible things with personal information, putting growing numbers of individuals at risk of identity fraud as well as physical safety risks, companies are still asking for way too much unnecessary and sensitive personal information purely for their marketing purposes.
And too many online media outlets, often reporting on or promoting these marketing efforts, are perpetuating these very bad privacy practices. Then, so they will not upset their advertisers, they actually are deleting comments that point out how bad those marketing and data collection practices are. I recently just experienced such a situation with (more…)
Tags:ABC News, birth certificate, children’s identity theft, cybersecurity, Dairy Queen, data protection, Disney, IBM, identity theft, Information Security, infosec, marketing, midmarket, Pierson Grant, privacy professor, privacyprof, Rebecca Herold, risk assessment, risk management
Posted in Marketing, PIA, privacy | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 16th, 2014
The OpenSSL Heartbleed vulnerability has resurrected the age-old debate of whether or not open source code is more or less secure than proprietary code. Before putting on your open source or proprietary jerseys and launching into this (frankly not-very-productive) fight, first consider a few things. (more…)
Tags:heart beat, Heartbleed, IETF, Information Security, information security incident, open source, OpenSSL, proprietary, Seggelman
Posted in Information Security | No Comments »
