Data Protection: Implementing an Effective Company-Wide Strategy
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(Source: Arsenal Digital)  Implementing a data protection program has always been a challenging task, but never more critical than now, as companies are required to meet new regulatory requirements for safeguarding data, and more as data is stored outside the main office. In fact, due to the growth of remote office and mobile computing, critical company data is widely distributed across enterprise networks, with no backup or disaster recovery plan in place. As such, the top remote office support issues companies face today are backup and restoration of data, disaster recovery, and compliance, according to the IT research firm IDC.At the same time, companies must be concerned with the cost of downtime, regulatory penalties for data loss, and customer confidence issues if data is compromised, corrupted or lost. As a result, companies increasingly are turning to remote data protection services. Arsenal Digital has created a Remote Data Protection Kit that helps IT managers plan and carry out a remote data protection plan. The kit discusses: -Remote office data protection: Impact of service quality on productivity, company revenue, and IT costs -Keeping the doors open: Understanding the business consequences when data is not accessible. -Data Protection for SMBs: Beyond Tape Backup
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Analysis No delay in EC anti-trust compliance
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(Source: Computerworld) In October/November 2007, Computerworld invited data protection decision-makers at large organizations to participate in a survey on the data protection issues at their organization.  The following report represents top-line results of that survey and is meant to serve as a brief benchmarking tool for data protection decision-makers at large organizations seeking information about their peers' data protection environments.
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(Source: Tandberg)  Understand the basic principles of automating data backup, what components are needed and the benefits and costs involved with Data Protection for your organization in this new white paper.
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As the TJX Companies data leakage incident seeped its way further toward becoming the Exxon Valdez of corporate information spills this week, researchers reinforced the notion that businesses continue to make a mess of electronic data security because they fail to foster adequate internal communication.A new report from Ponemon Institute -- which has produced a series of studies into corporate data leakage over the last several years -- concluded that the various people in charge of collecting, protecting, and managing sensitive information inside large businesses typically don't collaborate sufficiently. Those constituencies also have widely differing views regarding their respective roles in safeguarding the content, the report contends.Echoing comments made by a number of security policy experts in recent months, the study highlights the fact that companies are likely failing to protect data based on broken business processes -- at least as much as they may be succumbing to complex technological challenges.Just as many software developers complain that their applications are left vulnerable to attack because business teams refuse to wait long enough for the programs' underlying code to be made secure, the results of Ponemon's survey of 3,600 IT security and marketing executives -- located in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany -- illustrate a distinct lack of organizational coordination in the name of protecting data.For instance, only 30 percent of the marketing workers interviewed for the study said they actually consult security teams before collecting and using sensitive information, while 80 percent of the IT security employees surveyed indicated a belief that they are typically involved in such decision-making.In addition, while only 53 percent of IT security workers surveyed said their companies have well-coordinated data protection policies, only 32 percent of those workers who handle the information said their employers are doing an adequate job. Some 45 percent of security workers don't feel that their data-handling rules get in the way of business objectives, while only 21 percent of the people using the content feel that such policies represent roadblocks to their productivity.And in yet another blow to the perceptions of security workers, only 21 percent of the marketers using sensitive information interviewed by Ponemon said that security teams play a leading role in defending the content.At the heart of the matter is the issue of poor collaboration between all the involved parties, according to the research firm. Only 29 percent of those interviewed said their companies' current policies would be adequate to handle a major breach within 24 hours of its occurrence.Based on the results, Ponemon contends that organizations with substandard data protection collaboration policies were twice as likely as to have had a data breach within the last two years.Therein lays the ultimate proof of collaboration's impact on data protection, said executives with Microsoft, which sponsored the research report."We expect the data threat environment to continue to evolve, and at the same time, clearly, there's a long way to go based on where we are today," said Brendon Lynch, director of privacy strategy at Microsoft. "There's this major issue around the degree to which marketing professionals consult with these other involved parties; they see the policies as getting in the way of business objectives, and they're not interacting with security or privacy specialists based on that, which undermines the process change that companies are already attempting to enact."As part of its connection with the study, Microsoft is pushing the notion that companies should merge their security and data privacy operations to simplify the process of interaction between the various constituencies.Some 80 percent of all respondents to the Ponemon study said that they would support further combination of those teams to improve coordination of their data defenses."We feel that most companies need to be more holistic and bring these types of roles together," said Lynch. "All of these workers are critically important to better locking down the data, so they need to look at developing appropriate-use cases, and how to better fulfill business objectives while maintaining protection."The study is just the latest expert opinion to highlight the fact that despite the ever-expanding range of security technologies available to enterprises to protect sensitive data, many organizations could be well served to start with a review of their internal policies.In addition to getting business teams to work more closely with security and privacy pros, some experts contend that organizations could improve security risks quickly by merely retrenching the settings of their network and IT systems.Many critical infrastructure systems are installed with the idea of getting an operation up and running first, with plans to bolster security after the fact, and never readdressed, said Paul Williams, chief technology officer at IT security services provider Global Security Management.Reviewing networking gear settings to ensure that they have been sufficiently obscured, along with tweaking the features of other systems crucial to protect external attack is another way that companies can significantly bolster data security with little to no capital investment, he said."Before you learn how to defend a network, you have to take a walk on the wild side and see how you can break in yourself," said Williams. "Most networks can be made more secure by simply taking the time to go back and see how things were installed and whether or not the settings were changed in a way that promotes security; people typically look to technology solutions to address these problems, but they could begin helping themselves significantly at relatively no cost."In a presentation delivered at the Gartner IT Symposium earlier this month, analyst Neil MacDonald told attendees of the show that they could save money on their security projects if they continue to push for a more thorough, process-driven approach to data protection on a high level within their organizations."This can't be about managing a set of projects, it has to be about improving process," MacDonald said. "At the end of the day, the idea of tagging every piece of data in an enterprise for the sake of protecting it is unfeasible; it sounds great on paper, but the problem is a monumental effort with new information coming in all the time, it's not a process that's sustainable."
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(InfoWorld) - Experts gathered for the ongoing InfoWorld Enterprise Data Protection Forum in New York today said that companies need to get a better handle on all the factors that make their sensitive information susceptible to attack and become more proactive with their overall defensive strategies if they are to improve on their current security status. In a panel presentation featuring leading security executives and consultants, experts highlighted a need for businesses to study all the elements that contribute to classifying their most valuable information as truly sensitive. Protecting records whose value is immediately apparent -- such as social security and credit card numbers -- isn't enough as companies must also shroud any related data that can be used to create an individual profile that could be used to carry out identity theft or other forms of fraud, the speakers said. By defending all the contextual data that can be used to create such a picture, enterprises can greatly reduce their risk and move beyond more obvious strategizing, said C. Warren Axelrod, chief privacy officer at financial services giant U.S. Trust. "What's interesting in financial services is that it is the combination of data that becomes valuable information when it comes together to create an identity," Axelrod said. "If you are just going to file away social security numbers with no way to tie them to identity, they're actually pretty innocuous; but even if you just have a way to associate that information to a phone number or other data, someone can put things together." Axelrod said for the record that "data protection is a contradiction in terms," and that the process will never be perfected, based on the nature of IT systems and the need for businesses to easy retain access to important information.Â  The only way to effectively improve data security is to create a governance hierarchy that allows IT workers to better classify all types of information and to elevate protection of anything that can be used to create an individual portrait, he said. IT consultants agreed, saying that they are advising their customers to use contextual data to help carry out their regulatory compliance projects with greater efficacy. "It's the context that data is used in that qualifies it for regulatory oversight," said Peter Robinson, senior manager for financial services information security at BearingPoint. "You have to protect both the data and all this other information." Perhaps the biggest challenge facing enterprises today in improving their overall data security strategy is becoming more proactive about trying to expect attempted misuse or theft of information, and putting more intelligent tools in place to defend themselves before those situations arise, said Pamela Fusco, chief security strategist at consultancy FishNet. Fusco, who chaired the panel, is also a former chief security officer at financial services bellwether Citigroup. "We don't write a law unless something happens first, as with seat belt laws. We write regulations because something happens, but those are reactive," Fusco said. "Most consultants feel as if we're in reactive versus proactive mode for data protection and integrity." Regulations like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act have proven less effective than legislators might have initially hoped they would be at improving overall data security because businesses have focused on meeting the terms of the guidelines versus boosting their overarching protection schemes, Fusco and other panelists agreed. However, some industry-driven security requirements, such as the PCI (payment card industry) standard forwarded by credit card issuers, have had the desired effect, experts said. Well-written guidelines can help make the difficult task of convincing senior executives to increase their IT security budgets easier, alleviating one of the most significant challenges of the entire data protection process, according to Steve Peltzman, chief information officer at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. "We had to spend a lot of time and money on [PCI], but now I'm thankful for it because I don't have to go through the same routine of convincing everyone that this effort is important," Peltzman said. "The credit card companies got together and made it more expensive for us not to deal with [data protection], which is a good example of industry coming together to create a standard that's actually good." In a seemingly-rare occurrence, the security experts agreed that the creation of an additional, worldwide data protection standard -- as proposed to the assembled group by FishNet's Fusco -- could prove useful in furthering their efforts to secure attention and funding for their data protection strategies. For global companies in particular, establishing such a global guideline could be effective, they said. "The international difference in data protection priorities is an issue. If it could be resolved to where we could get universal classification and more people building innovative solutions, that could be a big benefit," said Erich Mueller, security analyst for Allstate Insurance. BearingPoint's Robinson agreed that such a standard could provide much needed support for security pros. "Anything that can advance the understanding and foster the culture of security in the executive suite is a positive. We've all been trying to do things like this for ourselves for years," Robinson said. "A standard that can help shorten the education cycle and get us where we need to be is something that I would support."
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Company releases a key-management product aimed at helping companies manage encrypted systems more efficiently.
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Modella intraprende azione legale per violazione privacy
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(Source: Palm) This white paper identifi es security threats to corporate data on mobile devices and details how mobile devices can become a "backdoor" to the enterprise. This paper also details how immediate action can be taken to defend against these threats and which issues an IT security manager should be aware of while planning a comprehensive handheld security policy.
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Societa' rilevata e' specializzata nelle soluzioni software
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Dear Sir, you personal data has been made public... The European Commission has published proposals for a law change that would force telecoms firms to notify regulators and customers of all breaches of their data security.â¦
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Componente Garante Privacy critica proposta di Visco
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For the first time, the general public is hearing almost daily reports of theft and exposure of sensitive nonpublic personal information.  What can we do to eliminate data insecurity?  Download this white paper to learn how emerging internal and external threats bypass traditional perimeter security measures to gain access to the crown jewels-enterprise data.
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The data protection server is designed to simplify and reduce the backup and recovery process for businesses.
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Today, many people rely on computers to do homework, work, create, etc., so it's important to take special care with your data storage. This week you'll learn about how to protect your data and prevent intrusions.  By Vincent Deguzman. 0919
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Businesses and non-commercial entities have much to consider when it comes to securing their web applications and the data they keep on customers and patrons.
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(Source: Arsenal Digital)  When deciding on a data protection solution, budget limits, service quality, and compliance requirements all weigh on the minds of IT leaders. A single overlooked issue can mean the difference between disaster and continuous operations. In this Webcast, Doug Chandler of IDC will explain how many companies have evaluated their data protection choices in today's market and made a successful transition from in-house backup and recovery operations to service-based solutions. The presentation will cover: - Critical factors to consider when comparing in-house backup solutions with data protection services- The economic, technological, and legal Issues driving the increased popularity of on-demand data protection services - What this trend means to your organization Featured Speakers:Doug Chandler, Program Director- Software and Services, Research, IDC Brian Reagan, CMO, Arsenal Digital