Gartner points out the security you don't need
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London -- The plethora of security technologies on the market are enough to overwhelm even the most knowledgeable IT managers, but in sorting through all of the options, it may be helpful to look at what is not needed, according to Gartner Inc. research detailed hereÂ at its IT Security Summit conference.
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Gartner analyst advises IT executives to avoid Apple's iPhone like the plague and to actively keep it away from their company networks.
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Gartner analyst David Smith told LinuxInsider that many of those who switch from dominant browser Internet Explorer do so because of security concerns.
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(InfoWorld) - Using a credit card at a gas station could pose more of a risk for data theft than shopping online, as point-of-sale terminals have emerged as a weak link in the security chain, according to a Gartner analyst. When a card is swiped, point-of-sale (POS) terminals often collect and store the data held in the magnetic stripe on the back of a credit card, said Avivah Litan, a Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst. Retailers are often unaware that their POS applications collect so much information. In the hands of sophisticated hackers and counterfeiters, the data collected from the magnetic stripe is enough to create a replica card. "It's almost more dangerous to go to the gas station than it is online," Litan said at Gartner's Identity and Access Management Summit in London on Monday. "The data is just sitting there. No one even thought about what data is on a POS controller." Retailers' network configurations are partly to blame. Many are using the Internet to transmit data in place of dial-up networks, and many have incorporated wireless access points into their networks using WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy), Litan said, which is not considered a strong form of encryption. Hackers lurk in parking lots looking for weak networks to penetrate. Since the POS terminals are linked via IP, once a hacker has accessed a network they can try out neighboring IP addresses until they locate a store of data, Litan said. Data breaches that occur offline are common. Of 160 breaches investigated for one major credit card brand, 128 took place in the brick and mortar world where the card was physically present for the transaction, rather than being used online or over the telephone, according to Gartner. To strengthen security, card brands such as Visa and Mastercard are pressuring retailers to comply with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard, a code of best practices created by the card industry. The standard forbids the storing of magnetic stripe data on POS terminals, and Visa plans to start fining retailers in the coming months if they don't comply, according to Gartner. Implementing security is cheaper in the long run than having a data breach, which can be expensive and hurt a company's reputation. Gartner calculates that a data breach costs companies around $300 per exposed account because of investigations, fines and lawsuits. On the other hand, beefing up security costs around $16 per account for the first year, and that cost falls over time, according to Litan. The short-term forecast for POS security doesn't look great, however. Gartner predicts that by next year, most attacks against retailers will be directed at their POS terminals, and only 30 percent of POS software will be compliant with the prevailing security standards by 2009. "The thieves always find the path of least resistance," Litan said. Â
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IT security professionals need to take steps to properly manage how employee-owned consumer devices are used in the workplace, analysts warned at Gartner&#39;s IT security summit in London this week.
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Unpatched vulnerabilities may leave computers open to remote attacks.
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New technologies will make existing information security measures obsolete over the next five years, according to analyst Gartner.
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That plastic card, the one with the lousy photo that's jammed into your wallet or purse, isn't just a license to drive. It's the green light to buy a drink, the ticket to federal benefits, the must-have document to get aboard airplanes. Now it's also the flash point for an argument about how best to balance America's security needs with worries that personal privacy could be swept away.
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