Posts from ‘Uncategorized’
“Estimate how many pieces of sensitive files and data your company has … Now multiply that by $204. I’m sure you’ll agree that the ROI on the time and resources spent to protect company data are well worth the investment.”
Hugh Garber – in a July 28th, 2010 blog
Hugh and the rest of the world have been talking about the 2010 Data Breach Report from Verizon Business that was released last week.
One of the many frightening figures given was that “96% of breaches were avoidable through simple or intermediate controls.”
Here’s a bit of a catch 22 though, in a recent article by Stuart Sumner of Computing, he says that “while technological advances can provide more capable security, they can also often provide opportunities to cyber criminals.”
What can we do?
Here’s where things get … interesting, and leaves me thinking that perhaps Cyberdyne Systems isn’t such a fictional company after all (yes, that’s a “Terminator” reference – c’mon “cyborg” is in the title of this post)
Sumner suggests that CIO’s can fight back against these data breaches with enforced encryption, reporting and biometric technology, and that “selecting the correct blend of tools to protect the business is key for CIOs today, and encryption and end point security can help.”
The concept and practice of biometric technology is not new to us, and it seems that the case can be made that biometric technology is truly becoming a necessary solution for all businesses.
The article is a quick read on what CIO’s can do to help fight data breaches and it makes a motivating case for biometric technology.
In writing this blog post I find myself interested in your thoughts on that, is biometric technology something that your company would benefit from?
How does a night of rocking out with Aerosmith and J. Geils sound?
No, you don’t have to “Dream On“, but you do have to “Walk This Way” and enter for your chance to rock out with the Bad Boys of Boston … and before you ask, no – you don’t have to be that corny, I’m just “Living On The Edge!”
All you need to do is tell us why you LOVE WS_FTP, and you can win two VIP tickets to see Aerosmith and the J. Geils Band at Fenway Park in Boston on August 14th!
Create, Upload and Win – 3 easy steps to enter into this contest.
1. Create: A short video (less than 2 minutes), explain why you love WS_FTP & why you want to rock out with Aerosmith. Anything goes, so get creative!
2. Upload: Upload your video to the Ipswitch WS_FTP Facebook page by August 9, 2010 to enable us to view your video.
3. Win: One winner will be announced on August 11, 2010! The Aerosmith concert is scheduled for August 14, 2010 at Fenway Park in Boston.
Click here for the official rules, and you’ll definitely want to check out some of the entries.
Best of luck to you! Rock on!
“Right at the moment a Safari user visits a website, even if they’ve never been there before or entered any personal information, a malicious website can uncover their first name, last name, work place, city, state, and email address.”
Jeremiah Grossman, founder and CTO of WhiteHat Security
Here’s another new threat to your personal information, and another example how no company is exempt from security breaches.
According to an article written by Thomas Claburn of InformationWeek: “a flaw in the implementation of Safari’s AutoFill mechanism can be exploited to grab Mac users’ names, street addresses, and e-mail addresses.”
“[The] entire process takes mere seconds and represents a major breach in online privacy,” says Jeremiah Grossman who believes that “the security flaw may reside in the open-source WebKit engine used by Safari and that the flaw may be present in older versions of Google’s Chrome browser, which also relies on the WebKit engine.”
The article and Grossman’s own blog are worth checking out as it was once all too rare to hear the words “Apple” and “security flaw” in the same sentence.
“We are sorry for any concern we are causing anyone at this time.”
It’s pretty certain that those are 13 words that no CEO ever wants to have to say. Just ask Richard H. Aubut, president and CEO of the Weymouth hospital.
Seems that some computer files containing the personal information of about 800,000 people might have been misplaced or possibly lost or maybe even stolen.
We’re talking about information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, medical record numbers, patient numbers, health plan information, dates of service, diagnoses, treatments relating to hospital and home health care visits … just to name a few pieces of personal information, you get the picture.
800,000 records. 800,000 reasons why Managed File Transfer is important. Just ask Richard H. Aubut, president and CEO of the Weymouth hospital.
Seems that somewhere in the process of these 800,000 records being shipped to a contractor to be destroyed, and actually getting to the contractor to be destroyed they disappeared.
Boston.com has some information worth reading.
Forgive the obvious Ipswitch plug here, but c’mon, any one of these solutions could help any CEO avoid having to say those 13 words.
So, that’s today’s 800,000 reasons why MFT is important, and how to avoid those 13 words. As a special bonus for you, here’s 7 words you’d surely like to steer clear of:
“We are still searching for those files.’’
Just ask Richard H. Aubut, president and CEO of the Weymouth hospital.
We’ve all been to the company meeting where tons of sports metaphors have been thrown about. From the in-depth analysis of how the company is just like the Patriots, with the CEO being Tom Brady, all the way to the simple comparison of your department being just like the Celtics starting five.
Rajon Rondo, Doc Rivers - Boston Celtics
I always wondered if Doc Rivers, during a time out, explained a play and used the analogy of Kevin Garnett as the VP of Marketing, or even better something like this:
“Rajon, you need to protect the ball when passing, don’t throw it into traffic. Think like Ipswitch’s safe and secure file transfer. You know, using 256-bit AES encryption …”
You get the idea.
So, what happens when sports and a common business issue like data security have a nice pick and roll and drive to the hoop for two?
Bill Brenner (Senior Editor at CSOonline/Magazine/IDG Enterprise) has an interesting Q&A with The Boston Celtics VP of Technology, Jay Wessel. Some noteworthy stuff regarding security, Apple’s MacBook Pro, Exchange-supported iPhones, and some cloud-based services.
