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...

YOUR PROVIDER IS HACKED, YOU'RE ASSURED OF NO FINANCIAL LOSS. BUT ARE YOU SAFE?...

[UPDATED 20th FEBRUARY 2014] In the aftermath of the Santander and Barclays KVM hacks, @GrahamCluley kindly invited me to post my comments on his blog.
A few weeks on, I have some updates which you may find interesting…

GAZING AT 2013: THE RIGHT FOCUS AND THE RIGHT LANGUAGE...

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Well, it’s the New Year, and I wish you all the best for a fantastic 2013! I can’t believe my last post was in November! And it’s already the end of January! So I thought I’d get in quickly with my two pennies worth of crystal ball gazing before it becomes unfashionable... What did we learn from 2012? Are there any interesting market trends? How does it affect security? What is the current state of information security and how is it shaping up? Are we getting any better? If any of these questions spark your interest of if you’d just like to see if my Nostradamus impression has something in it, read on...

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 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!