IT Spending Healthy in 2010
Forrester Research and Gartner have each released forecasts for IT spending for 2010. The latter forecast is most recent, stating that worldwide IT spending will grow 5.3% in 2010 and will continue to grow as we move into 2011. The IT industry is seeing steady growth in hardware sales (5.7% growth), though enterprise hardware spending will increase to levels still below that of 2008
The Ministry of Defence in the UK has just released statistics about the number of data loss incidents in 2009 and thus far in 2010. So far, the figures are down from those in 2008, but this arm of the government still suffered 347 data loss incidents in 2009 and has had 71 incidents in the first 2 months of 2010 .
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MoD Data Loss in 2009 & 2010
Michael Overly of CSO Online put together a fantastic point-by-point explanation of how to draft more effective security policies. It’s a quick and dirty summation of key points you should consider in your policy creation process. In brief, they include: The policy should be understandable by all The policy should explain why it is important – and why all in the company consider it so The policy should lay out repercussions for failure to comply Employees should sign the policy The policy should be reviewed and updated often Do you have an effective security policy?
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Effective Security Policies
There has been much discussion on leak testing and our engineering team put together the following short explanation regarding the why's and wherefore's regarding what has become a controversial subject. While Sunbelt Software appreciates the unique value of independent security testing, we are skeptical of just how meaningful personal firewall “leak testing” really is. The key assumption of “leak testing” — namely, that it is somehow useful to measure the outbound protection afforded by personal firewalls in cases where malware has already executed on the test box — strikes us as a dubious basis on which to build a security assessment
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A Short Treatise on Leak Testing or Are There Leaks in Leak Testing
A SunbeltSecurityNews Exclusive: Layered defense We asked Sunbelt Software's Support Manager to help us out on how to create a layered defense for the average home user. I liken Home Layered Security more that of bundling up for cooler weather, imagine each security step as another layer of clothing. Simultaneously, that old acronym K.I.S.S.
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Layered Defense for the Home User
Continuing to highlight great information found in the “2009 Annual Study: Cost of a Data Breach” by the Ponemon Institute, and sponsored by PGP , we focus this week on a nugget that is reminiscent of a key step recommended in the MyLaptopGPS white paper “ Multi-Layer Laptop Security .” The breach report notes that “forty-two percent of all cases in this year’s study involved third-party mistakes or flubs.” Furthermore: Data breaches involving outsourced data to third parties, especially when the third party is offshore, were most costly. This could be due to additional investigation and consulting fees. The cost per compromised record for data breaches involving third parties was $217 versus $194, more than a $21 difference
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Tip of the Week: Ensure Security Policies and Safeguards Extend to Third Parties
On March 24th, Absolute Software and Intel will be hosting a webinar on how anti-theft technologies work together to secure your mobile devices. By providing intelligent, automated, policy-based protection against loss or theft of laptops, anti-theft technology and IT asset manage tools help protect patient data and minimizes organizational risk.
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Register for our Upcoming Webinar
If you are a long-time reader of the Absolute Software blog, you’ll recall the 2009 study we sponsored with the Ponemon Institute – The Human Factor in Laptop Encryption. We have now followed-up that with a 2010 study looking at the US, UK, Canada, Germany, France and Sweden markets. The study shows that business managers are continuing to ignore laptop security procedures above and beyond encryption
Safeware partners with MyLaptopGPS to provide unrivaled protection for laptop and desktop computer owners. Columbus, OH ( PRWEB ) March 15, 2010 – Safeware, The Insurance Agency Inc
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Safeware Insurance Announces Strategic Partnership with MyLaptopGPS
Our featured webinar for the month is on Worry-free Strategies for School Laptop Management , hosted by Absolute’s Geoff Glave and Joe Fives, Director of Technology and Information Services for the Kansas City Kansas Public School District. This school district has learned how to use Computrace to track over 6,000 macbooks, successfully – and securely – implementing a laptop program that supports the education program. You will have a chance to learn about everything from grant approvals to theft rates and even recovery stories! Head on over here to learn more and to register to watch.
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Watch Our School Laptop Management Webinar
There’s been a lot of buzz about the website PleaseRobMe – so much, in fact, that the site has been down every time I went to see it in the last week! The site, by aggregating public location-based check-ins, highlights just how many people are asking for their homes to be robbed. How? By advertising just where they are – a restaurant, theatre, etc
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Please Rob Me
Do you really spend much time coming up with passwords for the variety of different websites that you utilize? Do you ever think about whether or not they’re really secure? Now if its some unimportant website that just happens to need a password, then maybe its not a big deal, but if its something like your online banking, then I think that you should definitely pay a little more attention.
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Worst Possible Passwords
Who Breached: Ontario Teachers Insurance Plan Number Affected: 8,600 Information breached: Social Insurance Numbers How: laptops stolen On December 3rd, laptops containing the private information (names, address, social insurance numbers) of about 8.600 Ontario teachers was stolen from the Waterloo offices of the Ontario Teachers Insurance Plan. Those affected were notified of the breach in mid-January.
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Ontario Teachers Affected by Data Breach
Five Computrace equipped laptops were stolen from an office burglary in late 2009, though with a little help from the Absolute Theft Recovery Team, police recovered four soon after. These recoveries pointed directly to a suspect, resulted in an arrest, and conveniently, an informant. Police were tipped off to a second suspect, who Absolute was able to confirm as the unauthorized user of the fifth machine
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Absolute Recovers Laptop…And Then Some
Mashable put together a popular article recently entitled “3 Ways Educators Are Embracing Social Technology”. The article talks about the challenges teachers face with budgets and small class sizes alongside changing technologies. The article also talks about how these new technologies are being embraced to fight back against the onslaught of problems.
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Educators Embrace Social Media
Twitter has decided that certain passwords are so bad that they cannot be used to log on to the popular site. It’s interesting since the list is concise and contains both the predictable and obscene, but it’s the mundane words (including one of my own favorite passwords) that are so intriguing. When I first heard about this list, I was initially irritated by Twitter’s attempt to assert control over what users choose as their passwords but, after reading through the 370 banned terms, I realize that this list could (and possibly should) be used by everyone when choosing a password for any site. Some examples include banana, twitter, cookie, 111111, monkey and zzzzzz.
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370 Passwords Banned by Twitter
Today we made the big announcement at CES in Las Vegas that LoJack for Laptops is bringing the Intel® Anti-Theft Technology (Intel® AT) remote locking and messaging capabilities to consumers – the first computer theft recovery, data protection and IT asset management solution to do so! What this means: you will now have a combined solution for theft recovery, remote data delete and *NEW* remote lock down and message display capabilities!! Prior to an Intel AT enabled computer going missing, a LoJack for Laptops customer can set the frequency with which a computer must check in with Absolute monitoring servers before Intel AT automatically locks it.
As we head into a new decade, we all have the opportunity to take stock of where we are and where we want to go. Of course, aside from personal goals, we can also consider this a great time to take stock of the security issues in our lives too – both in personal and business settings. So, what are your goals for 2010?
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What Are Your 2010 Security Resolutions?
Sephen Watt, the 25-year-old man who has admitted to providing the “sniffer” program used to hijack the credit card numbers associated with the TJX breach , has been sentenced to 2 years in prison and 3 years of supervised release. In addition, he will have to pay over $170 million in restitution.
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TJX Sniffer Creator Sentenced
Absolute’s recoveries often lead police to more than just stolen computers…check out a few of this week’s top recoveries: –> A laptop disappeared from the locked desk of a corporate customer, leading police to believe that the thief was internal to the victim company. Indeed, the unauthorized user that Absolute identified was a current employee, and also discovered, was a longtime suspect for past office thefts – but the company simply did not have the intel to prove it. Now armed with the information provided by Absolute, police were able to attend the employee’s residence
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Absolute’s Top Recoveries of the Week