Isolated comments... » Security

Oh dear….

admin — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 00:37:50 +0000

We all know the old saying about people in glass-houses … when operating in a particular industry, one has to be extra careful to ensure that we are paying attention to the little things – that includes the tiny little things like website favicons! At this stage pretty much every dog in the street assumes that in a web-browser, when a wee little “lock icon” is present in the toolbar, it indicates a secure connection. In the Data Protection and Security sector, we take this kind of thing quite seriously – after all, security has to be built on a foundation of trust. When you go to a website then, and see this right next to the web-address, what are you to think!?

Mmm, oh yea, a run through a spell-checker would be a good thing as well my friends..

For the record, here’s the secure lock icons for Internet Explorer: and Firefox: . Unfortunately they are not both at standard locations in the respective browsers – a pity really! #Fail!

Cinderella finds her slipper…

admin — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 19:34:00 +0000

There is a lot of interest at the moment in security, data loss prevention and data protection in general. While the media interest surrounding data breaches continues and reputations are slowly torn at the edges, some interesting things have happened recently that are pointing towards a very interesting future ahead for those of us involved in the sector. I’m not going to go into much detail – suffice to say that the unfolding storm that is Wikileaks has focused the attention of Corporate leaders on the issue. Couple this with serious fines imposed this year in relation to data loss by the Information Commissioner in the UK (£160k), the UK Financial Regulator (£2.28m) and most recently the award of $1.3bn (yes, read that again, its billion!) won by Oracle against SAP for software/data theft in the US. Finally, in November, the German Data Protection Authority imposed a fine of €200k for using customer data for marketing purposes without consent.

Suddenly it seems security is being taken seriously – its no longer the Cinderella in the room. In these turbulent times it beholds every executive to examine their processes carefully and ensure that they mitigate risk and the untold damage that security breaches can do by embedding solid security principals right in the centre of the organisation. Neil MacDonald of Gartner wrote a very interesting article earlier this year where he talked about the importance of getting away from focusing on data loss prevention and instead looking at data lifecycle protection, in the article he reiterated a clear conclusion: “Data protection is the process of identifying and understanding where and how sensitive information is created, consumed, processed, moved, shared, stored and retired and protecting it throughout this lifecycle.” And that is really what it is all about – Data Protection is not about silver bullets, its not about raising impenetrable steel walls, its about embedding security and data protection in at every stage of the business process – clearly it makes good business sense, and it absolutely can add value when done correctly. Data Protection is tightly linked with Data Quality and our colleagues over at Castlebridge Associates have been flying this flag for a long time. The Information Commissioner of Ontario Canada, Dr. Ann Cavoukian has been advocating a system called “Privacy by design” for a long time. She has a free eBook available which is a very good primer and worth reading.

In the meantime, we will go back to solving the big problem – making compliance easy, one ~~slipper~~ step at a time…

Watch this space!

Something free (and worthwhile!)

admin — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 20:17:36 +0000

Yes its a bit late to be broadcasting it, but, if you happen to be free on Thur 18th around Dublin you could do a lot

worse than head over to the IRISS Conference 2010. Thanks to a number of very generous sponsors admission is free.

If you are at all interested in security, it promises to be a very interesting day with a really top notch panel of speakers on tap!