Latest Data management and data security News

SMBs open to significant legal issues over data ownership
posted on 18/06/2010

Many SMBs are now truly embracing social networking applications by adopted them within their overall marketing strategies. But it is almost impossible to track who owns this data as social data content is aggregated from site to site. A survey by SpamTitan Technologies has highlighted the failure by small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to adopt formal corporate social media policies. And SMBs could thus be storing up legal trouble for themselves in the not too distant future, warned the Purdy FitzGerald law firm. SpamTitan's Q1 2010 audit of 200 SMBs worldwide revealed that while almost all allowed Internet access and some social networking applications in the workplace almost half (49 per cent) admitted they had not taken even basic steps towards a social media policy such as deploying a Web filter. “As business embraces social networking as a way to propagate messages and build their brands the line dividing personal and company data is becoming increasingly blurred,” sa... [more]

How do you protect your data when it's out of your hands
posted on 16/06/2010

What’s not to like about laptops? They’re powerful, connected, portable, have great graphics and sound – and they don’t cost much more than their desktop counterparts. So it’s no surprise that laptop shipments rose by 16% in 2009. Unfortunately, their portability makes them easier to lose, not to mention prime targets for opportunistic theft. Analyst firm Gartner says that 10% of laptops are stolen annually. That’s over 500,000 laptops globally. This also highlights a big issue with the majority of security software suites that are available for laptops. They’ll protect you, your data and your online identity against viruses, spyware, phishing and other Internet threats – that is, until you lose the laptop, or have it stolen. Then what should you do? Unless you never put sensitive information of any kind on the laptop, never ask it to remember logins and passwords for banking or shopping websites, and rigorously delete cookies or form data every single day, you have a big ... [more]

The vulnerability of information stored on digital photocopiers and high-end laser printers
posted on 15/06/2010

Today's copiers and printers harvest images of every scanned, faxed and printed document. The vulnerability of information stored on a computer hard drive has been recognised as a security risk for some time, but did you know that digital photocopiers and high-end laser printers also include a hard drive which can store and log all of your activity? Think for a moment about the vast quantities of information that you routinely print and copy: personnel files, financial reports, legal documents and commercial contracts – even your own passport. Now imagine this highly sensitive information falling into the hands of an unscrupulous third party. Unless you take action, every time a digital copier or high-end laser printer leaves your control, all the data stored on its hard drive will go with it and you run the risk of falling victim to identity or data theft. Some copiers now include built-in systems which encrypt copied files so that they cannot be recovered. However this solution is ... [more]

What laptop users should do to defend their data
posted on 14/06/2010

The steady stream of advances in brute force decryption techniques - which started when Russia's Elcomsoft released the first versions of its Password Recovery suite of utilities around 18 months ago - means that laptop users must now raise their game when it comes to encryption. And, says Andy Cordial, Origin Storage's managing director, as Russian password decryption specialist Elcomsoft's advances clearly show, it can only be a matter of time before further advances are possible. "Elcomsoft's Password Suite shows how it possible to dramatically speed up the rate at which an application crunches its way through password combinations using advanced hardware techniques," he said. "You only have to look at some of the latest software from Elcomsoft, such as Advanced PDF Password Recovery to realise that it's now possible to recover a 40-bit RC4 password-coded Adobe PDF file in a matter of minutes," he said. "And if you look at the specification of this package, you begin to reali... [more]

It is critical organisations like the Electoral Commission implement a central workable and secure solution
posted on 10/06/2010

Back in March 2010 we submitted six key questions under the Freedom of Information Act to the UK Electoral Commission. We wanted to find out how they are protecting eligible voter information and monitoring access to the Registers. We have now finally (weeks after the 20 working days deadline) received a reply. Initially we asked whether they had a product in place which allowed them to monitor and log access and changes to information on the electoral roll register/database. They replied stating that they don’t. Apparently local authorities manage their own electoral registers meaning that there is no central point of control at all. They are sent secure updates on a monthly basis by each individual local authority – how this is done (over email, USB etc.) wasn’t stated. The Commission did not divulge details on whether each local authority had a product in place to monitor and log access either. We also asked how many people had access to the Registers and whether this was review... [more]

Other Security news and resources