Data breach issues can’t be solved by IT departments alone

Dave Jevans, chairman of IronKey and the Anti Phishing Working Group, looks at why locking down internal systems is not enough to combat sophisticated cyber criminals.

Although the threat from cyber criminals has existed for decades, the sheer volume of successful attacks on high profile brands during the last six months has highlighted an urgent need to protect against data breaches.

Having read a recent Gartner blog which stated that many of the of the IT security improvements they’ve seen over the past five years are fast becoming obsolete in the face of more sophisticated cyber attacks, turning the tables on the bad guys won’t be easy.

James Bellini: Life in the cloud will mean data breaches

This article was taken from the October 2011 issue of Wired magazine.

The first myth about cloud computing: despite the hype, the cloud is nothing new. Back in 1961, futurists such as John McCarthy were talking of “computation as a utility”; the first definition of “cloud computing” is credited to Ramnath Chellappa in a Dallas lecture over 14 years ago. And if you accept today’s industry concept of “a dynamically provisioned resource driven by user demand”, then early steam-driven mainframes were cloud personified. They still are: surveys show most mainframe executives see their big iron as a key part of future cloud plans.

What is different is the sheer size of the future-data challenge. The best analogy is electricity. In The Big Switch, Nicholas Carr says that in 1900 the US boasted over 50,000 private power plants, supplying countless factories and mills. Then some bright guys at Edison created a public electric grid that all could plug into — and the economics of business were transformed.

Disaster recovery and data protection

An effective backup strategy takes equal account of both perspectives.

Companies generally pursue two different directions when it comes to strategies concerning the backup and recovery of their data. While disaster recovery strategies, on the one hand, are directed towards protecting the whole system, by contrast the area of data protection addresses individual data. An effective strategy takes equal account of both perspectives.

Small and medium-sized companies can gain more flexibility through integrated solutions, which unite disaster recovery and data protection.

SMEs, the Cloud and the Difference Between Disaster and Disaster Recovery

by By Pete Lamson, E-Commerce Times

The cloud is increasing the effectiveness of small businesses. For example, companies are calling on efficient Web-based services and applications to manage such critical tasks as accounting, customer relationship management, document creation and communication. In addition, cloud storage can simplify a company’s data-protection process in a number of ways.

Many small-business owners may not realize that the cloud plays a big role in their business operations, and its importance is growing every day. I’m often asked, “What exactly is the cloud, and why does my company need it?” Simply put, the cloud hosts resources and applications that are accessed through the Internet, and it now offers small businesses access to powerful capabilities that once were only within reach of larger corporations.

Managing Records Means Managing Assets, Risks and Cost

Data is an asset — and a risk, which is why companies are starting to pay more attention.

Employees are producing records at a record pace in the form of emails, instant message chats, spreadsheets, documents and reports. Those records are posing a challenge for companies as they run out of disk storage and are forced to decide what to save, what to toss, where to store and how to create a formal policy that manages records while meeting compliance standards.

To do that, record management is becoming a group effort among the legal, compliance, IT and records management offices.

Outsourcers look to data security transparency for competitive advantage

Reports of data breaches and malicious attacks on companies have been rife and now outsourcers are scrambling to reassure their clients, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

It has become vital for companies which provide administration and data services to other businesses to explain how they operate and protect their services to establish and maintain credibility.

According to PwC, an increasing number of outsourcers are working to reassure their stakeholders through an independently assured report that all their processes are robust and client data is safe.

These third-party service organisations are looking to stimulate greater trust among their clients through increased transparency in their controls and turn this into competitive advantage, said PwC.

Digital Agenda: Commission consults on practical rules for notifying personal data breaches

Brussels – The views of telecoms operators, Internet service providers, Member States, national data protection authorities consumer organisations and other interested parties are being sought by the European Commission on whether additional practical rules are needed to make sure that personal data breaches are notified in a consistent way across the EU. The revised ePrivacy Directive (2009/136/EC), which entered into force on 25 May 2011 as part of a package of new EU telecoms rules, requires operators and Internet service providers to inform, without undue delay, national authorities and their customers about breaches of personal data that they hold (see IP/11/622 and MEMO/11/320). The Commission wants to gather input based on existing practice and initial experience with the new telecoms rules and may then propose additional practical rules to make clear when breaches should be reported, the procedures for doing so, and the formats that should be used. Contributions to the consultation are welcome until 9th September 2011.

Should I scan or should I store?

By Andrés Bruzzoni

With the rise of the digital era, many companies are scanning their old paper files and accessing them through their computers. After all, it is a fast and easy way to access any of their records. But when is it the right option to run this kind of project, and when is it better to keep the hard copy securely stored off-site?

Digitization is Different than Digital Preservation: Help Prevent Digital Orphans!

The following is a guest post by Kristin Snawder, a 2011 Junior Fellow working with NDIIPP.

USB-drive Graveyard, by Ben and Laura Kreeger, on Flickr

“If it’s scanned, then it’s preserved, right?  I mean, it’s in the computer now so that’s all I need to do!”

I’ve heard this response when I ask if something is digitally preserved and it raises concerns.  Lumping scanning together with digital preservation causes confusion and I want to take this opportunity to shine a light on some of the differences between the two.

Scan all you want, but think about preservati­on, too.

While scanning can be a prelude to digital preservation, the two are distinct.  It is quite possible to launch a scanning project, perhaps with temporary funds, and stop when everything is digitized.  So now what about those poor digital files sitting on a hard drive somewhere?  Do we forget about them?  The answer, sadly, may be yes.  As a colleague put it, these files are now orphans with no one to watch over them and ensure their future.

And the Longest-Running Digital Storage Medium Is…

Most storage media are but blips in the history of computers.

From here...

Magnetic tape has been used as a storage medium continuously from one of the first contemporary computers onwards – the UNIVAC, in 1951. That gives it 60 years of unbroken use, from gigantic reel-to-reel rolls of the stuff to tape cartridges that might one day hold 70 terabytes apiece.