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Information Unleashed

Showing posts tagged with Data Loss Prevention
Showing posts in English
RSA Show Floor Survey: Mobility making it easier for insiders to take IP
Tim_Matthews | 14 Mar 2013 | 0 comments

The show floor at RSA was buzzing with discussion of attacks against critical infrastructure and state-sponsored attacks – the words hactivist and A.P.T. were uttered frequently.  But, while cyber-espionage was making headlines from the show, Symantec took the opportunity to survey information security pros on insider issues related to data access and mobility. The findings show that although 76 percent of businesses saw cyberattacks in the past year, increased use of mobile devices is making the insider threat more relevant than ever before.

It should come as no surprise that the top three motivators for the move to mobility are: business drivers, user demand and financial...

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The “Frenemy” Within – Insider Theft of Intellectual Property
RobertHamilton | 06 Feb 2013 | 0 comments

fren·e·my [fren-uh-mee] noun. Someone who is both friend and enemy, a relationship that is both mutually beneficial or dependent while being competitive, fraught with risk.

When it comes to taking your intellectual property (IP), employees are the less obvious player but they can be frenemy #1. In many cases, these trusted employees are moving, sharing and exposing sensitive data in order to do their daily jobs. In other instances, they are deliberately taking confidential information to use at their next employer. It’s not that these employees are inherently malicious – often they just don’t know it is wrong to do so.

According to a new Symantec survey...

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Without Ideas And IP You Are Nothing (Part 4)
MatthewEllard | 12 Dec 2012 | 0 comments

This is part of a four-part series on intellectual property. Other posts in the series may be found at Part one, Part two, Part three.

To conclude our series of blogs on the value of information and IP, we’re going to look at the ways in which information and IP – which has become so valuable to businesses – can be protected.

As the flow of information has shifted beyond the data centre, information management is more important than ever. To minimise information sprawl and its effects on the organisation, businesses can follow a few simple steps:

  • Focus on the information, not the device...
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Without Ideas And IP You Are Nothing (Part 3)
MatthewEllard | 12 Dec 2012 | 0 comments

This is part of a four-part series on intellectual property. Other posts in the series may be found at Part one, Part two, Part four.

In our series of blogs about the value of ideas and IP, we have covered the vital need to protect information and also the instances when protection is not appropriate – either because it hampers business processes or because the data has become old and therefore worthless.

What has become clear is that not all information is equal in value. Some is of very high value while other data can actually represent a cost to a business – either because it has to be stored and protected...

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Without Ideas And IP You Are Nothing (Part 2)
MatthewEllard | 12 Dec 2012 | 0 comments

This is part of a four-part series on intellectual property. Other posts in the series may be found at Part one, Part three, Part four.

In my last post discussing the value of an idea, it was argued that more attention needs to paid to understanding the value of intangible assets – information saved as digital records. A retailer wouldn’t leave its stock in an unlocked warehouse so why would – for example – an industrial designer leave plans and client details open to competitors via an unsecured USB drive or unencrypted email message?

While there are some simple...

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Without Ideas And IP You Are Nothing
MatthewEllard | 12 Dec 2012 | 0 comments

This is part of a four-part series on intellectual property. Other posts in the series may be found at Part two, Part three, Part four.

We live in a knowledge-based economy – where ideas are money. In fact, according to the Intellectual Property Office, the UK design industry alone is worth over £15bn a year to the nation’s coffers.

As a result, it has never been more vital for industry and individuals to protect the fruits of their intellectual labour. This includes customer information, financial or legal records, designs, written articles and records, or any number of other different types of explicit, recorded...

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Harbouring Information Sprawl!
John_Brigden | 27 Nov 2012 | 0 comments

Imagine half the value of your business being buried out of sight; or that value residing on the devices your employees took home at night, possibly to be lost or damaged. It’s a sobering thought—and one that’s all too real in today’s digital world.

According to the Symantec 2012 State of Information Report, almost half (46 percent) of an organisation’s information is being stored outside of its own data centre on devices beyond the corporate firewall. That could be anything from confidential customer information and sales opportunities, to crucial emails and financial reports. This ‘information sprawl’ is like setting a match to your business.

In the report, information sprawl was identified as the...

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The Enemy Within
fdesouza | 22 Aug 2012 | 0 comments

With all the headlines about criminals, hactivists (like Anonymous) and nation states stealing information from high profile companies, which group is responsible for the most data breaches?  To answer that question, and many others, Symantec and the Ponemon Institute teamed up to conduct the 3rd annual Global Cost of Data Breach Study [PDF], which looks at the trends and financial impact of data breaches on businesses around the world.

We released the results earlier this year and the answers surprised people.  In spite of all the headlines, insiders—employees, contractors and other people who have legitimately been given access to corporate information—were actually the leading cause of data breaches, accounting for...

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Putting a Face on Intellectual Property Theft
Rich Dandliker | 11 Jul 2012 | 1 comment

In the constant war for information security between businesses and cybercriminals, we are so focused on the faceless, outside enemy that we often fail to recognize potential double agents within our own ranks. With so many resources devoted to preventing hackers and cybercriminals from getting past our external network defenses, it’s easy to neglect internally based intellectual property (IP) theft.

IP theft is staggeringly costly to the global economy: U.S. businesses alone are losing upwards of $250 billion every year. As it turns out, IP thieves are most often either current or former employees.  We trust most of our employees to do the right thing, but the malicious actions of a single person can jeopardize the health of the business and jobs for everyone.  

A research review by Drs. Eric D. Shaw and...

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Don’t Look to Anti-Hacking Laws to Protect your Company from Malicious Insiders
Tim_Matthews | 12 Jun 2012 | 1 comment

 

In a recent court case U.S. v. David Nosal, Judge Alex Kozinski ruled that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the nation’s anti-hacking law, applies to people accessing data by circumventing technological access barriers, but it does not extend to employees violating their employer’s restrictions on the use of that information. Under the new interpretation, an employee who has valid credentials to access company data and then misuses that data, however inappropriately, cannot be prosecuted under the CFAA. However, an employee who has valid credentials to access a company computer, but hacks into company data for which he does not have authorization can be prosecuted under CFAA.

The reason for the new interpretation, according to the ruling summary, was that using the CFAA to take action against employees that violate use restrictions could lead to prosecution...

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