You may have heard about this in the news over the weekend: apparently the Army psychiatrist turned Islamic extremist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in November 2009 could've been prevented had the FBI and Army been communicating with one another.Sadly the same poor communication exists in the corporate world. Along the same lines of this incident, based on what I see in my security assessments I can confidently ...
Continue Reading...Seriously, it's time to kill the #KillSwitch bill that I've written about recently. It's dangerous, it's not what America is about and it's only going to make things worse for our country, our economy and our personal liberty.Here's some more details along what you can do about it today:http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/new-initiative-kill-the-kill-switch-bill...
Continue Reading...The people rioting in Egypt against their oppressive government and the subsequent blocking of the Internet is an interesting issue that has a global reach. Foreign policy aside, have you stopped to think about the ramifications of the cybersecurity "kill switch" bills that our measly politicians are trying to force upon us?As I wrote previously, the proposed Rockefeller-Snowe Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (Senate Bill 773) and Lieberman-Collins-Carper Protecting Cyberspace as ...
Continue Reading...Here are a couple of #cybersecurity pieces I authored for TechTarget's SearchCompliance.com regarding the proposed Rockefeller-Snowe Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (Senate Bill 773) and Lieberman-Collins-Carper Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 (Senate Bill 3480):Why the Cybersecurity Act is better for government than businessIs the latest cybersecurity bill an Internet takeover by the fed?You know how I am about government growth and its intrusion into the free market. ...
Continue Reading...Here's a short piece where I was quoted by Rod Scher in Processor magazine (a very good trade rag by the way) on the Ponemon Institute's Billion Dollar Lost Laptop study.Not only are the numbers astounding, this is a big problem that's growing every day - crying out for our attention....
Continue Reading...There are many IT services firms - including some run by friends and colleagues of mine - who perform something called "network assessments". The outcome of these assessments - which are usually aimed at SMBs - is to determine the overall health of your network and computing environment, supposedly including security.First, let me be clear that these are legitimate services to see where your network stands. That's fine and dandy ...
Continue Reading...This is a big, big day for the future of the United States of America. The people spoke in the last election telling the jokers in Washington that we don't want their "hope and change" that's running this country into the ground. Today our new Congress gets rolling. But what's it going to lead to? I have my fingers crossed that we won't see more of the same old Big ...
Continue Reading...Watch this intense video of the psycho at the Florida school board meeting firing at the superintendent who supposedly signed the papers leading to his wife losing her job.Shows that you've always got to have an escape route. Be it with information security, driving down the road, or attending a meeting such as this.Of course, this was a situation in a government school building where only the criminals can have ...
Continue Reading...Check out this video of the Metrodome collapsing over the weekend. Let this be a reminder that no matter:how much engineering goes into a systemhow much attention to detail the contractors pay during constructionhow much insurance coverage you havehow detailed and "water tight" your contracts arehow many fail-safe features are available "just in case"...that bad things can and will happen. Be it in a building or on your network there's ...
Continue Reading...Last week I wrote out some talking points in preparation for a TV interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on the WikiLeaks issue and what businesses can do to keep their information secure. At the last minute they ended up not doing the segment so I thought I'd post my perspective here:The leaks are not the problem – it’s the choices and all the events to lead to information being ...
Continue Reading...