Endpoint Security Strategies for SMBs

SMBs have specific requirements when it come to IT security in general and endpoint security in particular: they need comprehensive policies, high-end technology, all downsized at a larger scale and a fair price. They don’t need cheap and unreliable solutions, they just need the best there is, adjusted to their size.

If you’d like to know more about what the IT security market has to offer, what challenges arise from the current business environment, which are the real threats SMBs face, how to properly asses the costs of a security breach, how easy it is to lose data or have it stolen, read the latest white paper published by CoSoSys, Easy Guide to Comprehensive IT Security Strategies for SMBs - High-End Endpoint Security, Data Loss Prevention and Portable Device Management at a Reduced Scale.

Brand New Security Breach Reported by the US Army

Ever since 2006, several cases of exposed sensitive data surrounding the US Army have kept the newspapers busy. A new such case has recently hit the papers, when a laptop computer was reported stolen from an Ary employee’s truck. The laptop contained personal information on about 900 soldiers from Fort Lewis. The information was released by Lacey police officials and quoted by The New Tribune.

As the theft might expose the Army employees to identity theft risks, the involved soldiers have been notified of the breach, said a post spokeswoman. According to Army officials, the employee, a civilian military personnel specialist, from whom the laptop has been stolen appears to have violeted Army standards and policies for protecting personal information and government property.

The Army is assisting Lacey police with the theft investigation and conducting its own review, said Catherine Caruso, a Fort Lewis spokeswoman.

“We’re not releasing anything more about what information was inappropriately compromised or about the soldiers whose information was involved,” Caruso said. “Clearly it was personal information regarding 800 to 900 soldiers from Fort Lewis. Beyond that, we’d rather not specify.”

Data Watchdog Warns of Poor Data Protection in UK Institutions

Data protection watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office has recently confirmed that it has served enforcement notices on two UKgovernmental institutions, HM Revenue and Customs and the Ministry of Defence.  The decision, made public in the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas’ annual report comes as a response to high profile data breaches occurring within the twe organizations.

According to IT Week, both departments will be compelled to provide progress reports detailing how they are improving data governance practices.

This piece of news comes shortly after the same office called for European data protection laws to be reformed to make them more business-friendly. The recommendation was made by the same Richard Thomas at the annual Privacy Laws and Business conference in Cambridge. Thomas said existing legislation was out-dated and increasingly ill-suited to the internet age.

Insider Attacks Double in the First Half of 2008

Security attacks caused by insiders have doubled in the last year, according to the latest report released by the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC). The Center found that almost 16 percent of breaches reported so far in 2008 were insider-born and went up from 6 percent in 2007. 11.7 percent of the attacks came from individuals outside the company, down from 14.1 percent in 2007.

According to Dark Reading, the ITRC’s data is consistent with other reports on insider incidents showing an increase of such attacks. Additionally, many experts believe that disclosure of all incidents is also on the rise, mostly due to the legal requirements put in place by many states over the last year.

Data stolen from laptops, thumb drives, and PDAs accounted for 20.2 percent of this year’s breaches so far, followed by accidental exposure by the organization (15.2 percent), and loss or theft by a subcontractor (13.5 percent).

Public Access vs. Private Records Protection

The European Data Protections Supervisor Peter Hustinx stated he was unhappy with the proposed law aimed at improving public access to EU documents. The European Commission proposed the law as a means to improve European government transparency.

Yet according to Computing.co.uk, Hustinx is concerned the security measures to protect personal data from public documents are inefficient. His concern was trigger when a reference to possible harm to “the privacy and the integrity” of the individual was deleted from the initial proposal.

“Public access on the one hand and privacy and data protection on the other are fundamental rights which represent key elements of good governance,” said Hustinx.

We’ll just have to wait and see what the will happen, and if the right to right to public access will win the battle, we could recommend some DLP solutions :).

UK SMEs Warned To Improve Security

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) warned that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are most likely to fail at effectively securing their data, which could subsequently lead to compromising a large portion of the UK economy.

Based on figures provided by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and quoted by Computing.co.uk, SMEs make up 51.9 per cent of annual turnover in the UK and over 99.3 per cent of businesses of existing businesses.

Meanwhile reported fraud cost UK businesses over £705m in the last six months, 74 per cent up on the same period last year and hitting £317m in April 2008 alone, says research from accountant BDO Stoy Hayward.

Banks and insurance firms saw suffered costs of more than £636m, or 90 per cent of the total cost of fraud in the first half of 2008 and management fraud accounts for 46 per cent of fraud cases, third party fraud accounts for 32 per cent, costing businesses a total of £541m.

HMRC Breach Caused By Poor Security

A formal inquiry on the now notorious security breach reported last October at HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has recently been published. The breach exposed 25 million personal records and has been proved to be caused by “major institutional deficiencies”, reports SearchSecurity UK.

The inquiry extensively details the operation procedures implemented at HMRC before the data breach. It also describes the circumstanced that have led to the loss of two CDs holidng personal and financial information on Child Benefit recipients.

The inquiry, led by Kieran Poynter of management consultants Pricewaterhousecoopers (PwC), concluded that “information security simply wasn’t a management priority as it should have been, and HMRC had an organizational design which was unnecessarily complex and crucially, did not clearly focus on management accountability.”

The report of the investigation provides a detailed blow-by-blow account of events leading up to the data loss, with extracts of emails showing who said what to whom. However, since the blame for the breach is attributed to cultural and organizational weaknesses, the staff members involved are given anonymity, and referred to only as employee A, B, C and so on.

Montgomery Ward Kept Customers in the Dark on Data Theft

In a security breach not yet reported to its customers, Montgomery Ward, an old-line merchant now operating as an internet retailer had 51,000 credit card numbers stolen. The private records have been stolen in December from an online database containing credit card account information.

According to SC Magazine, the furniture retailer operates on the internet on the Wards.com site and is actually owned b Direct Marketing Services.

Direct Marketing Services notified the major credit card brands of the incident but failed to alert customers. Now that the breach has been exposed, they’ve had a change of hart and are planning on letting all those affected know of the breach.

DCA Security Breach Exposes Private Records of 5,000

The state Department of Consumer Affairs has recently discovered a security breach exposing employees, contractors and board members to identity fraud. DCA has in response sent 5,000 letters warning those affected that the breach has compromised their names and social security numbers.

According to DCA spokesman Russ Heimerich quoted by Capitol Weekly, the breach occurred on June 5 or 6 when a Microsoft Word document was improperly transmitted electronically outside of the department. The document also contained the salaries and titles of everyone on the list, but Heimerich pointed out these additional details were public information.

Heimerich said the incident is still being investigated, and that he could not disclose who had received the document. He said that so far there is no evidence that any information has been used. It was not even clear the recipient had opened the document.

New PCI Standards Disregard Inside Threats

Starting June 30, new measures inserted in the Payment Card Industry (PCI) standard will be inforced. However, representatives of a database security firm point out that the new additions do nothing to address inside threats.

As Vnunet.com shows in a recent article, the new measures require that companies dealing with stored credit card and other consumer financial data either install firewalls around all internet-facing applications or have all customer application code reviewed for common vulnerabilities.

Secerno representatives showed that the new and “improved” standard does not address real threats effectively:

“The PCI Data Security Standard has the best intentions but, as is the case with many compliance directives, it barely addresses the most immediate and upcoming threats to consumer data,” said Paul Davie, founder of Secerno.

“It is generally inadequate for addressing the sort of internal threat that can be exploited easily, such as by general or privileged users.”

Other than completely ignoring ill willed insiders, the PCI standard also fails to regulate data encryption requirements, database security policies, measures of protecting data on private networks.