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Issue
September 2007
Welcome to the September edition of BH
Consulting's Security Watch Newsletter. In this month's issue we provide some
updates to what has been going on in BH Consulting, talk about best practises
for wireless security, discuss cross platform identity management, provide an
overview of backup and recovery appliances and outline how to use the correct
certificate template for client certificates. We also provide some other
interesting resources together with some free material from this year's
Global Security Week
seminar.
About BH Consulting
BH Consulting was founded in answer to demands for an independent consulting
firm to assist clients gain a competitive edge by achieving IT Operational
excellence in deploying, managing and securing their IT infrastructure. With
over 20 year’s experience, we provide you with access to in-depth expertise,
experience and technical know-how. Backed with our quality processes and
commitment to deliver, BH Consulting provides clients with quality solutions at
cost effective rates.
 Support
Focus Ireland
If you have found any items in our
Security Watch Newsletter to be of use to you we ask that you
make a donation to
Focus Ireland who
work tirelessly supporting the homeless throughout Ireland. Focus Ireland
aims to advance the right of people-out-of-home to live in a place they call
home through quality services, research, and advocacy. The objectives of
Focus Ireland are to respond to the needs of people out-of-home and those at
risk of becoming homeless, through a range of appropriate high quality services,
to provide emergency transitional and long-term accommodation for people
out-of-home, to campaign and lobby for the rights of people out-of-home
and the prevention of homelessness. No sum is too small and all is
put to excellent use.
BH CONSULTING NEWS
BH Consulting's New Offices
In response to the increasing demand for our services and to facilitate future
growth, we have moved premises to the
LINC Centre on the Institute of Technology
Blanchardstown's campus. If you are in the area feel free to call in and
pay us a visit.
Brian Honan Attended ENISA Workshop
on CERTs.
Through his work with the Department of Communications in researching how best
Ireland should establish a Computer Emergency Response Team, Brian Honan
recently attended an "invitation only"
seminar hosted by ENISA in Porto. The
focus of the seminar was the "Mitigation of Massive Cyberattacks" and
proved to be very informative and beneficial. It is hoped the information
gathered will assist in the further development of a Computer Emergency Response
Team here in Ireland.
Brian Honan Presented at COSAC 2007.
Our Senior Consultant, Brian Honan, addressed
the 14th COSAC
International Computer Security Symposium in September of this year.
Brian presented to the symposium the lessons learnt from his work trying to
establish an independent, trusted and vendor neutral Computer Emergency Response
Team to provide services to businesses, organisations and citizens in the Irish
Republic.
BH Consulting Take Part in Enterprise
Ireland's Podcast Series on Information Security.
Enterprise Ireland run a series of podcasts
aimed at SMEs to help them better understand some of the issues they face with
regards to deploying and managing technology. Brian Honan was invited to take
part in the latest
podcast to discuss IT security and how it can
be addressed by SMEs. SMEs face the same security challenges that larger
organisations face but often with fewer or indeed no resources in-house. The
other speaker invited to attend was Mike Harris, Director in Ernst & Young’s
Risk Advisory Services practice.
In this
podcast Brian and Mike discuss some of the key
challenges facing SMEs and provide pointers on how to address those challenges.
Issues discussed include;
- Spam
- In-House IT & Outsourcing
- Instant Messaging
- Viruses, Zombies and protecting SMEs
- Customer Data
- Setting policies & the Data Protection Act
- What should SMEs Address?
The
podcast is available at Enterprise Ireland’s OpenUP
website.
Don’t forget our free whitepaper, the “Computer
Security Assurance Checklist”, which is designed for managers as a
checklist to determine if their Information Security is being addressed.
Brian Honan Addressed the Leinster CPA
Society
The Leinster Certified Public Accountants Society
invited our senior consultant, Brian Honan, to address their September
meeting with a talk on the current state of information security. Brian
presented to the society the latest trends in computer crime and how the
society members can best defend themselves and their customers from these new
threats. The
presentation is available for download from the
whitepapers section
of our website.
Brian Honan to be
Keynote Speaker at Microsoft Events
October sees Brian Honan being the keynote speaker for two
Microsoft Ireland seminars focusing on
information security. On October 11th,
Microsoft is running a
IT Professional Security Training Event, while
the seminar on October 12th will be a
Developer Security Training Event. These
seminars are free of charge and Microsoft have an interesting line up for both
days.
BH Consulting
Published in Running Your Business Magazine.
The recent issue of the Small Firm's Association's magazine,
Running Your Business, contains an article written by our Senior Consultant,
Brian Honan. Brian provides the readers of Running Your Business with a "Guide
to Securing Information Systems".
"Managing
Information Security with ISO 27001" Training Course Scheduled for
November 2007
BH Consulting and the
Centre for Software Engineering are hosting a
two day course
“Managing Information Security with the ISO 27001
Information Security Standard”. This course provides a framework that
will enable those responsible for securing sensitive information assets using a
quality based approach to identify key assets and how best to manage the
associate threats and risks.
The subjects covered include:
- Overview of information security
- Introduction to the ISO 27001 Information Security
Standard
- Identifying key information assets
- Identifying risks
- Strategies for mitigating and managing risk
- Implementing appropriate security controls
- Monitoring the effectiveness of security controls
Anyone interested in the above course can
contact us or find more information available
on the
Centre For Software Engineering’s website.
Global Security Week Seminar Held In Dublin
This year's
Global Security Week
seminar on the theme of “Privacy in the 21st Century” was held on 5th
September 2007 at Jurys Croke Park. We had an excellent seminar with great
contributions from the speakers and those who attended. We would like to
express out thanks to the keynote speakers Tony Delaney, Assistant
Commissioner - Office of the Data Protection Commissioner and Caspar Bowden,
Chief Privacy Advisor -
Microsoft EMEA.
The
following are copies of the presentations in PDF format;
The
occasion was also used by Brian Honan to
call on the Irish Government to implement Data Security
Breach Disclosure Laws in Ireland.
BH Consulting's Involvement
As part of BH Consulting's involvement with Global Security Week, we are
offering a
free vulnerability scan. If you wish to avail of this offer,
please
contact us for more information or click
here.
BH CONSULTING WEBSITE UPDATE
We strive at BH Consulting to provide information that is
relevant and useful in securing and running your business. To this end we
provide a range of free whitepapers available for download
free from our
white papers page.
The following whitepapers have been uploaded to
our website;
Information Security, What is it and Why Should I Care? -
Presentation to Leinster CPA Society.
( 392KB)
Global
Security Week Seminar
Introduction - Brian Honan ( 353KB)
Privacy and the ISO 27001 Information Security Standard -
Brian Honan ( 538KB)
A Standards Based Approach to Ensuring Customer Privacy
( 538KB)
LATEST THREAT LEVELS
Get more information on the latest updates on current threats at
our online resources page;
FEATURES
CIS
Release Benchmarks for Virtual Machines
The
Center for Internet Security have released version 1.0 of their
benchmarks for securing Virtual Machines.
CIS produce many excellent resources on how to secure various operating systems
and devices on your network and this is another valuable guide in that series.
Anyone considering deploying Virtual Machines in their environment would do well
to review this
guide first... Click
Here
for more
Cross-Platform Identity Management Solutions for Single Sign-On
Heterogeneous authentication software solves many companies' basic need for
single sign-on (SSO) functionality in all their IT systems. If your company is
subject to regulations that require SSO—some companies, for example, have
interpreted the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act as a requirement for this
functionality—you'll want to learn the ins and outs of this software. The three
applications that we chose to evaluate in... Click
Here for more.
Wireless Best Practices
Chances are, you've got a wireless network that you're not entirely in control
of. Or perhaps you've carefully deployed wireless in your environment, and
you've mistakenly believed that you could just set it and forget it. You can do
that with many computing technologies, but beware doing it with wireless! I
spoke recently with Charles Thompson, manager of sales engineering at Network
Instruments, and he gave me some best practices to share... Click
Here
for more.
Using the Correct Certificate Template for Client Certificates
Q: Can Encrypting File System (EFS) certificates and Web application client
certificates conflict with one another? In our environment, we use EFS to secure
the My Documents folder on laptops. We also have a key business partner whose
extranet requires some of our users to install a client certificate for secure
Web-based access to logistics information. One such user’s client certificate
recently expired, so I deleted it and requested a new...
Click
Here
for more.
Backup and Recovery Appliances
Web Abstract: Backup and recovery appliances ensure that you can recover lost or
corrupted data. Backup and recovery appliance features to consider include
whether the appliance requires agents, supports a heterogeneous environment,
offers point-in-time/point-of-failure... Click
Here
for more.
FREE SECURITY SCAN
In partnership with
Qualys, BH Consulting
are offering a for a free Network Security Scan so you can check how healthy
your network is. To find out more about what this service can do for you, visit
our free
Network Security Scan.
Alternatively contact
us or visit our website to get more details on our
risk assessment service.
This issue of Security Watch is being brought to you by BH Consulting.
If you have found this issue to be of use please support our drive to raise funds
for
Focus Ireland.
Each
Security Watch eNewsletter, and the special Security Alert issues, are produced
independently by the Windows IT Pro Custom Media Group and is distributed by
various Microsoft security partners. Each eNewsletter contains up-to-date
information about security strategies, technologies, and alerts. Each Security
Alert contains the latest information about security threats.
Additional news courtesy of
Silicon Republic,
Cnet,
Silicon and
Zdnet
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