COMPLIANCE vs SECURITY: MUSINGS ON THE VERIZON PCI COMPLIANCE REPORT 2015

Well, it’s the start of all those analytical reports for 2015 and I'm glad that this one is out to give us an account on PCI across the world…
In this year’s report, for an account of breaches in 2014, we have a new addition on the analysis of usage of compensating controls and compliance sustainability… Interestingly, whilst compliance across the case load showed an increase of 80% for companies that validated compliance, it still represented only 20% of organisations assessed, and unfortunately, many fall out of compliance rather rapidly with nearly a third of organisations falling out of compliance less than a year after successful validation… It’s the old potato again: those organisations that haven’t embedded security in their DNA will only ever treat it as a compliance exercise and forget about it until the next time an assessment is due...

WHY DO DATA BREACHES HAPPEN? Clues from the Verizon DBIR 2014...

The always eagerly awaited Verizon DBIR 2014 was released earlier this year. As always, with a nice cup of coffee and some smooth jazz playing in the background, I will endeavour to distil the essence of this always excellent publication... Well, this year, the DBIR departs from just analysing data breaches to looking at 63,347 confirmed security incidents, of which 1,367 were confirmed data breaches (compared to 621 for 2012) across 95 countries (compared to 27 in 2012). This gives far greater richness to the data set and the insights that can be derived from it (rightly so, the DBIR team notes that incidents need not necessarily result on data loss to have a significant impact on an organisation – I couldn’t agree more!). Also don’t miss the month by month review of the major incidents of 2013 on pages 3 & 4, that’ll get you in the mood...

DON'T BE A TARGET... ON RETAIL POS, BANKS, EMV & WINDOWS XP...

McAfee Labs' latest report reveals that hackers are using basic 'off the shelf' malware to target retail POS systems, a very topical subject, I’m sure you will agree... But we have to remember that the breaches mentioned in the McAfee report took place in the US, and there is one notable difference between retailers there and those in Europe: the US haven’t yet adopted EMV (aka Chip & PIN)...

A CONSOLIDATED VIEW ON DATA BREACHES IN 2012 - PART 2...

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It seems that many of you found my previous post of interest, so as promised, here’s the second part. But first, let’s all have a look at this 2min 48s video: Security Threats by the Numbers from the Cisco 2013 Annual Security Report. Unsurprisingly, the Trustwave GSR highlights that e-commerce sites were the most targeted asset, accounting for 48% of all investigations...

A CONSOLIDATED VIEW ON DATA BREACHES IN 2012 - PART 1...

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It’s that time of year again where we try to make sense of all the new research and statistics. Today, I give you the Trustwave 2013 Global Security Report which analyses 400 data breach investigations (compared to 300 in 2011) across 29 countries (compared to 18 in 2011). Unsurprisingly, 96% of the breaches involved the theft of customer records (payment card data, PII, email addresses), compared to 89% in 2011. Closer to home, this is confirmed by the CIFAS Fraudscape report published in March 2013, where, whilst total fraud in the UK only showed a 5% increase since 2011, abuse of identity fraud increased by a whopping 17.1%, correlating to the Trustwave report showing that out off all client-side attacks observed, 61% targeted Adobe Reader users via malicious PDFs, clearly pointing to social engineering.

VERIZON DBIR 2012 - some context...

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The Verizon DBIR 2012 was released last week and I am sure you have seen a lot of blog posts, articles and tweets on the subject... So let me try and put a different perspective on it: many of you will have heard me say that the DBIR is the “gift that keeps on giving”, and yes, it is! But as with every report, statistics and opinions always have to be put into the right context... The conclusions are not surprising, but there are quite a few little nuggets in the report that are worth examining...

To start with, I am glad to see that the analysis now offers some separate insights in relation to SMEs and larger organisations, as some of the issues can be different depending on size. The case load is also bigger this year (855 incidents compared to 761 in 2010) and known compromised records studied were also greater (3.8 million in 2010 compared to 174 million in 2011 - mostly due to the return of the “mega breaches” in 2011 after a relatively quiet 2010).

UNDERSTANDING CLOUD SECURITY: PART TWO...

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I thank you for your attention on the previous post where we had a look at security considerations for the three main cloud service models commonly referred to as SPI (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS). As promised here’s part two looking at other cloud implementation considerations, namely:

• Cloud deployment model: public vs. private vs community vs hybrid deployments,
• Cloud location: internal vs. external hosting or combined,

UNDERSTANDING CLOUD SECURITY: FINDING THE BOUNDARIES...

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It seems that my previous post on compliance and third parties struck a chord with a few of you... So I guess it’s about time I dedicated some time to “The Cloud” specifically! Over the past couple of years, we have seen a lot of hype and confusion as to what The Cloud really means and what it can do for you. I think we have now reached the stage where there is perhaps a bit of disappointment that The Cloud, due to inflated expectations, is perhaps not a miracle...

COMPLIANCE IN THE DIGITAL ERA: WATCH OUT FOR THE 3rd PARTY...

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By 2015, there will be more than more than 15 billion interconnected devices on the planet, twice the world population. In that period, the total amount of global Internet traffic will quadruple. (Cisco(R) Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast (2010-2015), June 2011)

It is estimated that every year in the UK, identity fraud costs more than £2.7 billion and affects over 1.8 million people (National Fraud Authority, October 2010).

Every year, we share more of ourselves online...

THE TRUTH BEHIND DATA BREACHES...

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I was pleased to see the release of the Trustwave 2012 Global Security Report as I find it always a very good source of information! This year’s report analyses 300 data breach investigations across 18 countries and, unsurprisingly, 89% of the breaches involved the theft of customer records, including payment card data and other personally identifiable information such as email addresses.

INCIDENT RESPONSE – HAVE YOU GOT A PLAN?

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So, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced a couple of days ago the release for comments of draft Special Publication (SP) 800-61 Revision 2, Computer Security Incident Handling Guide. How very timely that was! With 2011 dubbed the year of the data breach, and the fact that it takes 3 to 8 months on average for an organisation to discover they have been breached, what better New Year’s resolution than to have an effective Incident Response Plan?...

EU DATA PROTECTION LAWS – WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?...

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After yesterday’s post on data protection, I thought it would be logical to follow with some info on the EU proposal for new data protection laws...

17 years ago, the EU’s 1995 Data Protection Directive set a milestone in the history of personal data protection, and whilst its principles are still valid, the differences in the way that each EU country implements the law have led to an uneven level of protection for personal data. In addition, the rules were introduced when the Internet was still in its infancy and the digital age has brought with it increasing and sometimes unexpected challenges for data protection. With social networking sites, cloud computing, location-based services and smart cards, we leave digital traces with every move we make. Evidently, we now need a new set of rules that is future-proof and fit for the digital age.

THE RISE OF THE NEW CISO: RISK MANAGEMENT vs COMPLIANCE

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For those who didn't attend PCI London on 25th January 2012, I reproduce here the article I wrote for their magazine, I hope you find it of some use... :)

THE RISE OF THE NEW CISO: RISK MANAGEMENT VS COMPLIANCE

Last year at PCI London 2011, my article for this magazine was about the need to move from Compliance to Risk Management and I hosted a panel of industry experts from Visa Europe, MasterCard, the PCI SSC, IRM plc as well as representatives from John Lewis plc and the Home Retail Group. It was undeniable that retailers and merchants in general, have felt the need for some while to invest where business value can be derived. The concept of risk management, when it comes to looking at Payment Security, undeniably struck a chord!