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Issue
Summer 2008
Welcome to the latest edition of BH
Consulting's Security Watch Newsletter. It has been a busy summer
for us here and we have a number of exciting items in this issue and for future
issues as a result. In this month's issue we
provide some updates to what has been going on in BH Consulting, alert you to
the upcoming Global Security Week Cyber Crime conference and provide you with some updates on the latest
news happening in the world of information security.
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.
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.
BH CONSULTING NEWS
Cyber Crime Seminar to be
Held in Dublin
 Global
Security Week,
in conjunction with
BH Consulting
and
Vigitrust,
is pleased to announce a free seminar on the theme of “Cyber Crime – Don’t
Become a Victim” to be held on the 10th of September 2008.
The
theme this year is intended to highlight how businesses and individuals can
become victims of Cyber Crime and what steps they can take to protect themselves
from this rapidly growing crime. In light of recent criminal attacks against
various organisations in Ireland, the timing of the seminar could not come at a
more opportune time.
To
discuss this topic, a number of key speakers will present at the meeting on the
topic. Speakers will include members of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation
and the industry experts in the field of information security and cybercrime.
A
panel discussion will follow, whereby the speakers will answer questions from
the audience.
Location
The seminar will be hosted at
Jurys Croke Park
on Wednesday the 10th of September from 2:00 p.m.
Registration
Registration is free and open to anyone concerned with Cyber Crime. Places can
be booked by contacting either Brian Honan on 01-4404065 or emailing
Brian
"Managing
Information Security with ISO 27001" Training Course
The next
“Managing Information Security with the ISO 27001
Information Security Standard”
is scheduled to take place in the
Centre for Software Engineering
on October the 20th and 21st. If you are interested in attending or
require more information you can
contact us or find details on the course
on the
Centre For Software Engineering’s website.
In the News
The summer months brought a flurry of news items relating to
information security with a number of high profile incidents being discussed on
the airways and in the press. Our senior consultant, Brian Honan, was interviewed
a number of times over the summer.
Focus Ireland Annual Golf Tournament.
The Focus Ireland annual golf outing
was held on Thursday the 3rd of July in the
Luttrellstown Castle Golf and Country Club.
BH Consulting entered a team into the event in
what I like to think of as the true Olympian spirit, that is
we were there to participate rather than win. Despite
the typical Irish summer weather, i.e. it rained for the
whole day, it was still a very enjoyable time. This was
thanks largely to the excellent staff in Focus Ireland who
organised and ran the event and kept us all in good spirits.
While our team did not come
near the prizes for the team event I am happy to say
that one of the team did win the longest drive competition.
I would like to thank my fellow team members for putting up
with my golf and for helping making the day as enjoyable as
it was.
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.
Don't forget to visit our
Security Watch Blog to keep up to date with the latest information
security news.
LATEST THREAT LEVELS
Get more information on the latest updates on current threats at
our online resources page;
FEATURES
Irish Data Protection Commissioner
Releases Audit Report Into Department of Social & Family Affairs
The Data Protection Commissioner
recently published the
audit report it conducted into
the Department of Social and Family Affairs. The
report highlights a number of “serious concerns” relating to the
security of personal details of over 300,000 people whose avail of the services
of the Department.
Some of the key findings include;
- Claim forms stored in insecure areas.
- Data extracts from the Department’s systems onto PCs from
where it is stored in an insecure spreadsheet. This spreadsheet in turn
could easily be copied onto a USB thumb drive or simply emailed out of the
organisation.
- Weak passwords in use on systems containing sensitive
information.
- Data sent to other agencies, such as the Garda National
Immigration Bureau, on CDs and not encrypted.
- Weak auditing in systems makes it very difficult to
determine who done what.
- Lack of control over endpoint security to prevent data
leakage using USB devices such as memory sticks, MP3 players and iPods.
While the
report does focus on the Department of Social and
Family Affairs it does contain lessons that all companies can learn and is well
worth the time taken to download and read the
report.
Latest NIST
Publications
Over the summer months the US National Institute of
Standards and Technology, NIST, released a number of publications that are well
worth reading;
The above publications are well worth taking the time to
download and review.
Cyber Crime and Small
Businesses in Ireland
The
Small Firms Association
released their 6th annual crime survey which focuses on how
crime impacts on small businesses in Ireland. An
interesting point in the
press release
highlights that the companies surveyed reported an increase
in online crime with the average cost on an incident being
€2,250 and it appears the largest cost was €6,000.
Worryingly though the survey also stated that
26% of companies surveyed reported they had been the victim
of online scams. These were either 419, advance fee or
business directory scams, clearly highlighting a major need
for these companies to receive appropriate security
awareness training.
FREE SECURITY SCAN
In partnership with
Qualys, BH Consulting
are offering 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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