Endpoint Protection

Guardian Technologies has joined the Security Innovation and Technology Consortium (SITC). The SITC is a not-for-profit membership organisation dedicated to supporting the development of innovative and technologically sophisticated security solutions, backed by the South East of England Development Agency (SEEDA). 

Membership includes a vast array of security organisations dedicated to innovation in security and related technologies. Rupert Beeby, the Managing Director of Guardian Technologies Ltd, said “I am delighted that Guardian Technologies has been accepted for membership of the SITC and look forward to working with many different security focused organisations in the advance of security technology and services”.

Paul Osborne, SITC Company Secretary, said “‘I am delighted that you are able to join this initiative. Welcome to SITC!”

For more details on the SITC then please visit  www.securityintech.com

In the light of robust or even increasing security budgets, more companies are moving into the security space. It seems that the dominance of specialist security companies is being challenged by more mainstream players.

Glasshouse Technologies Inc. normally associated with services in data storage, information management and virtualisation are expanding their managed services portfolio into security. At the beginning of June 2009, they launched two services providing security insight and clarity into the organisational IT environment. The two services under the Optics Brand are Optics for Security: Vulberability Management and Optics for Security Information Management.  Both offered as managed services, Glasshouse has some clever technology behind these services to deliver real value. The fundamental benefit is the dashboard view into the environment with excellent drill-down to specific areas for further analysis. The service Optics for Security Information Management obtains log file information from a multitude of points and compiles them into complete vaulnerability exposures or attack profiles. A major problem that most organisations face is turning the thin information provided from a server log of a ‘denial of service’ error into the fat information of where, when, how many times, location of IP address, etc. This normally takes a security analyst several hours or days to collect this information. With the Glasshouse service, all this information is presented and provided.  Traditional security services tend to focus on the management of network switches, perimeter securtiy, IDS, etc. It seems that Glasshouse has bypassed the mundane activities and gone straight for the value areas where organisations are willing to pay. It will be interesting to see how the market develops and how the competition react to obtain more of the outsourcing budget.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8072524.stm

At the end of May a laptop was stolen from NorthgateArinso, a software company working for The Pensions Trust with 109,000 details including names, addresses, dates of birth, employer, national insurance numbers, salary details and, in the case of those receiving their pensions, their bank details too.  But don’t worry the laptop was password protected. Not sure if I am one of the people whose details were on the laptop but I can rest easy that it was password protected!!!

There are two important points to make:-

• Joe Public has no control on his or her personal information and where it ends up. Personal details are handed to every contractor, software vendor to use as test data or whatever and you and me have no say in it or knowledge of where are details actually are
• Password protection is a joke! The person responsible for protecting over 100,000 names and details with just password protection should be sacked. The drive can be removed from the laptop, mounted on another system, probably on a linux OS and there you are!!

When are organisations going to get serious about security! Reading more of these breaches is get

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8107737.stm

Great story of Parcel Force, due to problems with their website have been publishing names, addresses, signatures of parcles that are unrelated to the user query. A fraudster could make hay with the information to steal identities.

However, it is worth noting that information in an organisation is like water in a leaky bucket. It will find its way out through any weakness. What is you were storing acid that even a single drop escaping would cause serious problems. Critical data is like the acid - it can cause significant damage and for some time.

Organisations must look at what they are storing and protect ALL ways of exit including all endpoints. A website is an endpoint as it is where the organisation meets the world.

First we have the MPs expenses that have been released under the FOI Act and their release has resulted in pages of blacked out entries which fall under the Data Protection Act! It is quite clear that the two acts contradict each other or at least the distinction between what can be released and what cannot becomes very blurred.

In the opinion of endpoint protect, the Data Protection Act must take precedence as release of personal information is far nore damaging than withholding it. Clearly proper policies are required that define the information within an organisation such that physical controls can be mapped to the policies.