Cyber & Risk
Understanding cyber security has never been as critical as it is today.
The importance of having cyber security and risk mitigation strategies is now well-embedded in the corporate conscience, with more and more senior executives required to know their exact security posture and how to respond in the event of an incident.
In a complex world where new threat vectors appear almost daily, organisations must be ready. How well prepared are you?
IBRS can help organisations understand how resilient their systems are, develop incident response plans and get the right policies in place to ensure compliance with the most rigorous of security standards.
At AusCERT 2007, a software programmer from Australia’s Defence Signals Directorate delivered a fascinating presentation on a simple strategy they had developed to help manage the influx of malware, browser exploits and malicious web content. The strategy was designed around risk transference through personal accountability, rather than threat mitigation1.
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- James Turner
Conclusion: Both black lists and white lists are effective security measures, but these two approaches are opposites and therefore, have different issues and applications. If only a few items need to be forbidden, then a black list is adequate. But if only a few items need to be permitted, then a white list is the efficient way to enforce policy.
When used in conjunction with business policy and procedures for acceptable content, white lists can be a very powerful mechanism creating a culture of individual responsibility that enables users to access necessary business information while holding individuals to account for the information they access.
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- James Turner
Conclusion: In 20-30 years time Generation Y will be running not only IT departments (in whatever form that takes) but they will also be running other business units, and in fact entire organisations. How we engage with them, train them, empower them, and become mentors to them; will sculpt their ability to make decisions. It is vital that the hard-earned knowledge of the last 50 years of IT is not lost from lack of mentoring and succession planning by the retiring Baby Boomers. This research note looks past the immediate skills shortage and into the area of lost industry knowledge.
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- James Turner
Conclusion: Data leakage prevention (DLP) it is an information management tool, not a threat mitigation tool like anti-virus or intrusion prevention. The DLP market is still very immature, and the products are not integrated with other related technologies, such as: enterprise content management (ECM), enterprise rights management (ERM), and identity management systems. When the vendors who specialise in information management have integrated DLP into their existing suites, then the story will be compelling. We’re not there yet.
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- James Turner
Conclusion: Rather than resist selective sourcing, IT organisations should accept that many IT tasks are either highly repetitive or commoditised; and are not unique to your organisation. These tasks do not need to be done in-house and by IT professionals whose value is high because they know how to deliver quality while respecting organisational idiosyncrasies. Managed Service Providers (MSPs) could be an excellent ally in augmenting internal IT resources. Once freed from the routine tasks, internal IT staff can be assigned to high value tasks or implementing innovative solutions: these help organisations to become better at what they do.
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- James Turner
Conclusion: Privacy is now a public issue. Consequently, many of the recommendations for the Australian Privacy Act will likely be accepted because they reflect good practice, and are in harmony with international data privacy trends. However, these amendments to the Privacy Act will introduce added complexity and expense to the management of personal data.
The danger right now is that organisations may try to dodge the cost of compliance by doing as little preparation as possible. Widespread, legally mandated, disclosures of data breaches would wreak havoc with consumer confidence in online transactions. Australian organisations, both large and small, cannot afford that loss of faith.
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- James Turner
Conclusion: The combination of new requirements for quality control in software development and the looming skills crisis in Asia will drive multiple initiatives in the software industry. These initiatives include: vendor consolidation (particularly in platforms); a fundamental shift in the role of internal IT organisations; and an explosion of innovative and pragmatic mini-applications that are developed and owned by the business unit rather than traditional IT departments. Because these mini-apps are driven and owned by the business unit, they are more aligned to business needs than the current wave of mismatched ‘collaborative Web 2.0’ applications.
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- James Turner
Conclusion: At the start of the year a resurgence of interest in Identity Management was heralded as one of a series of IBRS technology predictions for 2007. Subsequent vendor activity1 has borne this out and more market activity is likely to follow.
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- Rob Mackinnon
Conclusion: The securing of online banking through one time passwords delivered via SMS: provides two factors of authentication, is cheaper to deploy than tokens, increases the customers’ sense of security, and introduces online banking customers to the idea of secure banking on their mobile phones.
However, introducing a widely adopted, variable-cost, service like one time password via SMS is not sustainable because it is inevitable that the cost of the SMS service will exceed the cost of online fraud, which is already at very low levels1. Until mobile banking and EMV smartcards become more commonplace, banks should choose the better strategy of using SMS authentication, as it supports the product roadmap for online and mobile banking.
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- James Turner
Conclusion: Easy venture capital money and a highly fragmented market are driving consolidation in the Managed Service Provider (MSP) industry.
Whether your MSP is the target or the buyer, the M&A activity will be accompanied by organisational changes and strong pressure from the VCs to maximise returns. In the low margin MSP industry, this could have implications on the MSPs’ willingness to retain the resources which provide the resiliency that you need. In any outsourced relationship, it is advisable to clearly define the service being sourced, the service level expectations and to perform due diligence on the capabilities of the service provider that enable them to deliver this. In a consolidating market, IT organisations need to pay even greater attention to these activities.
Commoditising your infrastructure and technology achieves two important outcomes: standardised skills, which are easier to find; and easier transition to (and between) MSPs as they also have resource constraints.
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- James Turner
Conclusions: Microsoft’s new BitLocker feature, available in select versions of Vista, offers easy access to ‘whole disk’ encryption, which benefits several areas including; identity management, data security, and asset management.
While BitLocker is a workable and well-integrated security feature, it is not a complete solution to data protection requirements. Whole disk encryption products have limitations and must be viewed as a part of a wider security initiative.
BitLocker’s benefits and limitations must be evaluated and factored into Vista migration plans, especially for organisations looking towards virtualisation and mobility.
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- James Turner
Conclusion: Dedicated IT security people are too expensive for SMB organisations. The market trend is towards outsourcing security tasks, and the SMB market must embrace this. Large organisations (500+ people) should make internal security people the managers of internal security programs, and managers of the relationship with managed security service providers (MSSPs) and outsourcers. Security is an operational responsibility which should be shared by everybody in an organisation.
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- James Turner
Conclusion: Effective and responsible management of IT security should concern executives at the highest levels of management. Leading practice suggests, but does not mandate, separation of the IT security function from the IT management function. One of the ways that this can be achieved is with the appointment of a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) with total accountability for all IT security matters within the organisation. A pro forma Position Description for the CISO role is provided herein.
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- Rob Mackinnon
Conclusion: Last month I wrote advising IT practitioners to learn the language of risk management, particularly in the context of ANZ/NZS 4360:2004. The article also contained advice to ensure that IT has a place at the decision-making table when considering the implementation of corporate risk management software.
An assumption was made in the article that in your organisation some corporate risk management initiatives were already under consideration. However, suppose this is not the case. How can the IT practitioner pitch a case for an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) project as a strategic system? This article provides a guide for doing so, allowing the IT practitioner to assert leadership in a burgeoning area of corporate practice.
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- Rob Mackinnon
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- Kevin McIsaac
Conclusion: In business and government, the subject of risk continues to be a hot topic. It’s covered regularly by the commerce and technology-oriented sections of the media and is increasingly being discussed and actioned at Board and executive levels. Because of the corporate appetite for risk methodologies and tools, a burgeoning IT industry has developed providing risk management software.
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- Rob Mackinnon
Conclusion: Organisations that do not treat information security risks seriously could pay a heavy price if a major incident occurs and they are unprepared to deal with it.
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- Alan Hansell
In April new Federal anti-spam legislation will ban local spammers from operating; otherwise they could face penalties of over a million Australian dollars a day. According to the Coalition Against Unsolicited Bulk E-mail, the purpose of putting this legislation in place is to stop spammers, and make Australia appear credible when looking to other countries to adopt the same type of law.
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- Guy Cranswick
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- Nobody
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- Nobody
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- Brian Bowman