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Lock up your Data - or you might go to jail
posted on 23/07/2002

Companies risk falling foul of the law if they fail to protect their clients’ personal data from prying eyes, under newly enforced provisions of the Data Protection Act. Jason Kent of data security specialists Open Seas looks at the issues facing SMEs in our increasingly data-dependent world. Losing a laptop in the back of a taxi could be more than an embarrassment, if its hard disk turns out to contain confidential information about clients. Under recently enforced provisions of the 1998 Data Protection Act, company directors can face prison if electronically held records fall into the wrong hands. The ease and speed with which information can now be captured, stored and transmitted has its downside. In the past, when a company’s confidential data was stored in printed form, industrial espionage and theft was a laborious, risky exercise. Getting hold of physical documents usually involved breaking into the premises, copying them was time-consuming and problematic. Today, when ... [more]

Iris recognition is ideal for high security applications
posted on 11/06/2002

“Yes, we’re all individuals,” shouts the crowd in unison in the Monty Python film, Life of Brian. And the really funny thing is, they were right. Despite uncanny resemblances, phenomena such as identical twins and high degrees of similarity, we humans possess enough characteristics that differ for us to be able to truly say that we are all unique individuals. But, how do we prove this? Or more importantly get a machine to recognise these differences? This us where the newly emerging field of biometric systems comes in. ‘Biometrics’ originally referred to the use of statistical and mathematical models applicable to data analysis problems in the biological sciences. Analysis of data from agricultural field experiments to compare the yields of different varieties of wheat, for example. More recently ‘biometrics’ has been used to refer to the automatic identification of an individual based on their physiological or biological traits and this is more likely to be the sense now understo... [more]

Noble scheme to license security staff
posted on 17/05/2002

'GUARDSAFE', A GROUND BREAKING scheme aimed at licensing security staff working in Greater Manchester's Trafford Borough, has been launched. The new scheme is being run by the Trafford Park Security Initiative (TPSI) group consisting of Greater Manchester Police, Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council, Trafford Park Business Watch and Noble Security Services UK. It will mean that the officers will be trained to an industry standard.George Mensah, Noble SecurityWith its Guardsafe scheme, TPSI is encouraging manned security providers to obtain licenses for their staff now,... [more]

Don’t let fraud credit the criminals
posted on 02/04/2002

As plastic card usage and the number of cards issued continues to rise in the United Kingdom, so does the occurrence of credit card fraud. Here Brian Wilson, Managing Director of Endusis® looks at the scale of this security issue. Since 1966, when credit cards were first issued in the United Kingdom, card usage has grown every year, and in the past five years the number of cards in issue has grown by 32 per cent. According to figures published recently by the Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS) there are more than 42 million cardholders in Britain and almost 127 million plastic cards, including credit, charge, debit, cash (ATM only) and cheque guarantee cards. Unfortunately the unwanted by-product of this huge growth in popularity and usage is fraud. As card usage and the number of cards issued continue to surge in the UK, the cost of card fraud maintains its path of steady growth. In 2001, card fraud cost the UK a staggering £373 million. These are shocking stati... [more]

Protecting your assets from hackers and viruses
posted on 28/03/2002

Iain Franklin is European VP of Entercept Security Technologies. In this article he looks at how a company can protect its server and vital corporate data by establishing a layered security policy. A recent report by AMR Research, ‘Enabling Technology Spending Report, 2002-2003’ shows that security, once again, ranks as one of the top three IT technology investment areas. Even in the tight current economic climate, companies are aware that failing to protect their network from hackers, viruses and malicious activity can be seriously damaging to their business. It can affect the company’s ability to continue operating on a day-to-day basis, cause severe financial damage and can also irrevocably damage its reputation. With the steady growth in the number of websites and increasing levels of online trading, the web servers and applications which enable online activity must be heavily protected. Website defacement, denial of service attacks and browser-based hacks all leave the web se... [more]

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