Organizations are getting very serious about how they react to a data breach of confidential information. On January 10, 2013, an employee of a contractor who processes Medicaid prescription transactions lost a USB drive with about 6000 patients’ names, Medicaid identification number, age and recent prescription drug use history. Less than a week later, she was fired.
The organization affected was the Utah Department of Health. It uses Goold Health Systems to process pharmacy claims for Utah’s low-income health program. The breach occurred because a Goold employee copied a report containing the confidential information on 6000 Medicaid enrollees to an unencrypted USB drive. She left the company facilities with the thumb drive in her possession. She copied the report to the thumb drive because she was having trouble uploading it to a secure file server, which is the normal process. She planned to upload it later. According to Goold, doing this is against company policy.
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It’s the start of a new year and time to review all the passwords you use. I was prompted to do this by an incident where I think an account of mine was hacked. Unfortunately we all have to use passwords to get into our computers, smartphones, tablets and websites we use. Security experts are working on better authentication systems using biometrics, open authentication systems like OAuth, OpenID and others, but widespread adoption is still years away. For the moment we are stuck with our passwords.
One of the biggest security threats to companies in 2013 is default or weak passwords. In the past year, about 90 percent of successful data breaches analyzed by Verizon started with a weak or default password, or a stolen and reused credential. One egregious incident was the hacking of Mat Honen last year that exploited social engineering and poor password recovery policies. With a little ingenuity people can guess weak passwords, especially when you use a default password, like “admin” or something simple like “123456”.
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As the holidays wind down for 2012 and we spend time with our families, many of us will use our mobile phones and tablets for everything. According to recent research by Gartner, businesses and consumers will buy about 1.2 billion smartphones and tablets in 2013 to add to what’s already out there. We all use mobile devices because they are convenient and provide fast access to information. They are convenient for accessing documents, searching for information, and communicating with everyone. Just look around the next time you are in a store or mall. Everyone is clicking on something.
The use of mobile devices has exploded as more employees want to use their own devices at work. This has become a nightmare for some IT departments as they try to provide convenience and still keep corporate information secure. Rather than fighting the trend, many organizations are creating bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programs that embrace employee-owned devices. BYOD policies govern mobile device usage while maintaining a secure computing environment.
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It must be the holiday season because the spam in my Inbox has gone up tenfold. Every spammer on earth (and maybe some from elsewhere, who knows) is getting into the act. There are the usual deals on Viagra and weight loss, but the ones that sound like legitimate bargains are the ones to worry about.
Just today I got one from zBiddy-Deals. I opened it and it looks like some great deals on consumer electronics. Fortunately for me, the deals look a little too good, so I know it’s bogus. A brand new iPad for $40? I don’t think so.
I also got one from Overstock, or so I thought. Overstock.com is a legitimate site with great deals on everything from furniture to laptops. They have remaindered or overstocked items from retailers or online stores. You can find deals of 20% or even 50% on some things, but not a $500 item for $40.
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According to recent research by Gartner, people around the world will buy about 1.2 billion smartphones and tablets in 2013. That will account for around 70% of all devices sold.
This accounts for businesses and all of us using personal smart devices in our daily lives. Just to give you an idea of how ubiquitous this is becoming, this morning I was at my local garage getting my car inspected and a very elderly gentleman was sitting next to me on an iPad with a keyboard. He was watching some family videos and checking a few things on the web. The television was on in the waiting room, but no one was paying attention. Everyone was on a phone or tablet, including me.
“For most businesses smartphones and tablets will not entirely replace PCs, but the ubiquity of smartphones and the increasing popularity of tablets are changing the way businesses look at their device strategies and the way consumers embrace devices,” said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. “In 2016, two-thirds of the mobile workforce will own a smartphone, and 40% of the workforce will be mobile”.
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