Posts Tagged ‘privacy breach’

New Benchmark Research Report Released Today from IT Policy Compliance (ITPC): “Taking Action to Protect Sensitive Data”

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007

Today IT Policy Compliance released a new benchmark research report, “Taking Action to Protect Sensitive Data.”
I had the great oppportunity to not only have a sneak peak at the report, but also to speak yesterday about the report with Jim Hurley, the Managing Director for IT Policy Compliance who authored the report, and Heriot Prentice, Director of Technology at The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) which is one of the sponsors for the IT Policy Compliance site.

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How Good are the Security Practices for “America’s Most Admired Companies 2007”?

Tuesday, March 6th, 2007

Yesterday CNN reported the results of the FORTUNE 2007 survey of business people for the companies, in any industry, they admired most.
The rankings were based upon 8 key score areas:

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Insider Threat Example: Wal-Mart Fires “System Technician” for Snooping On Text Messages and Taping Phone Calls

Monday, March 5th, 2007

Today CNN reported Wal-Mart fired a systems technician who was “intercepting text messages of people who were not Wal-Mart employees and for recording telephone conversations with a New York Times reporter without authorization.”

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Maine Seed Company Website Hacked: Demonstrates SMB Vulnerability & Questions Hacker Safe Seals

Saturday, March 3rd, 2007

This is the time of the year that thoughts turn to gardening as seed catalogs start filling the mailboxes. I enjoy having fresh-grown vegetables from my garden; nothing is better than a deep red, ripe, juicy Big Boy Beefsteak tomato right off the vine. These seed companies are overwhelmingly small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Many have gone online in the past few years, bucking the century-long tradition of depending primarily upon postal mail for their sales.

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Vermont State Privacy Breach Follow-up: Penetration Testing Reveals No Additional Vulnerabilities

Friday, March 2nd, 2007

After the January Vermont State privacy breach through a remote attack that compromised Social Security numbers and bank account numbers for nearly 70,000 people, Governor Jim Douglas ordered a security review of the computer systems.

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Addressing Web-Based Access and Authentication Challenges

Friday, March 2nd, 2007

Many incidents occur through access control and authentication vulnerabilities. Just consider the recently reported Fruit of a Loom incident that allowed easy access to 1,006 names and Social Security numbers of former employees. It is likely poorly constructed and inadequately tested applications controls resulted in this breach, not unlike so many other breaches that have occurred.

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Punitive Actions Pursued Against Professor in Japan Who Had PII About 8,800 on Disk That Was Stolen

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

The differences throughout the world with which personally identifiable information (PII) privacy breaches are penalized is always interesting to me.
Today it was reported that the

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RINBOT/DELBOT Virus Running Rampant In the Wild: Exploits Anti-Virus Software Vulnerabilities Allowing Access to Business Networks

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

CNN reported today that Sophos was warning new strains of RINBOT, also known as DELBOT, could be stealthily be infecting business networks worldwide.
What can this new version do?

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Audit Reveals Poor Computer & Data Disposal Practices At Idaho National Laboratory

Thursday, February 22nd, 2007

Yesterday Government Computer News reported bad computer disposal methods at the Idaho National Laboratory that leaves confidential and restricted data, including nuclear details, vulnerable.

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Laptop Theft: Financial Company Given $1.9 Million Penalty Following Incident for Inadequate Security Program

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007

For the first time, the United Kingdom financial regulators, the U.K. Financial Services Authority (FSA), gave a financial institution, the Nationwide Building Society, the U.K.’s largest “building society” (a member-owned mortgage lending and banking services institution) a penalty for poor data security, issuing a ¬£980,000 ($1.9 million) fine based on their response to the 2006 theft of a laptop computer containing sensitive customer data according to a February 14 notice from the FSA.

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