Government Information Security Podcast

As we approach the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., Kevin Sullivan, a former investigator with the New York State Police, reflects on lessons learned and steps industries still need to take to ensure a tragedy like 9/11 is never repeated.

Frequent face-to-face training on social media policies is a vital component of any risk management effort, says consultant Erika Del Giudice.

Out with the old; in with the new. It's time for security-minded organizations to invest in the power and protection of the next generation firewall, says Matt Keil of Palo Alto Networks.

Careers in IT security remain hot, says David Foote, noted researcher and analyst of IT workforce trends. But there's a disconnect between current job opportunities and the talent pool looking to fill them.

Facial recognition technology could prove to be an effective way to authenticate individuals seeking entry to secured buildings or databases storing sensitive information. But the biometric technology already is being abused, and IT security managers employing facial recognition should be careful to encrypt the biometric data, cautions a privacy rights leader.

In many states, the top information security officer champions IT security rather than dictates it, as the decisions of specific steps to take to safeguard digital assets are left to departments, agencies and commissions.

Fraud is a global concern, and an area regulators and financial institutions the world-over are watching closely, says Bill Isaac. Whether a cyberthreat or mortgage fraud, investments in fraud prevention will continue, despite the state of the international economy.

Give a man a fish, you feed him for today, the proverb says. Teach a man to fish; and you feed him for a lifetime. That adage can be applied to information security, as well.

Bob Russo says the long-awaited PCI guidance on tokenization should provide merchants with a baseline for standardization and best practices, and serve as a roadmap for how tokenization can complement compliance with the PCI-DSS.

As far as Dr. Giles Hogben of ENISA is concerned, now might be the golden opportunity for information security experts to influence the security and privacy measures that may help define Internet safety for the next decade or beyond.

Eugene Spafford thinks America needs the cybersecurity equivalent of an agriculture extension service to help educate citizens on IT security.

Yahoo's Justin Somaini believes his fellow CISOs in business and government do a good job keeping their bosses informed of proper information security practices, but could do better in educating the rank and file about them.

ISACA's Marc Vael says differences in cloud computing environments and cloud providers can pose security risks. But well thought-out contracts and risk-management plans can fill potential security gaps and ensure business continuity during outages and disasters.

No two fraud incidents may be exactly alike, but a fraud investigator's approach can still be very consistent and precise, says Jean-Francois Legault, a fraud investigations specialist with Deloitte and Touche.

Before entering a contract with a cloud computing company, organizations should consider three critical issues, says Feisal Nanji, executive director at the security consulting firm Techumen.

Scott Laliberte, managing director of Protiviti, wrote the book on penetration testing, and he has strong feelings about what organizations are doing right and wrong when assessing their information security risks today.

Oregon Chief Information Security Officer Theresa Masse finds herself at the center of a state initiative to simplify compliance by agencies with Internal Revenue Service rules to safeguard taxpayer data.

There are significant hard and soft benefits for government agencies to gain by investing now in solutions built around Trustable Identities, says Mike Ozburn, principal of Booz Allen Hamilton.

It's the new conventional wisdom: all computer networks will be attacked. For Phyllis Schneck, that means organizations must be resilient, keeping computers functioning even when they're under assault.

Performing digital forensics in the cloud isn't necessarily a new discipline, says Rob Lee of SANS Institute. But the task definitely requires a whole new mindset and some new skills from investigators.