Government Information Security Podcast

PCI Council's Jeremy King says guidance tackles data collected via phone communications.

The announcement by RSA that it had been a victim of an advanced persistent threat shook the global information security industry. Stephen Northcutt of SANS Institute and David Navetta of the Information Law Group offer insight on what happened, what it means and how to respond.

Hackers target RSA's SecurID products, leading federal IT policymakers question America's preparedness for cyberattacks, new House bill would reform federal IT security governance and why Ohio state government decided to standardize on NIST IT security framework.

It's serious news that RSA's SecurID solution has been the target of an advanced persistent threat. But "It's not a game-changer," says Stephen Northcutt, CEO of SANS Institute. "Anybody who says it is [a game-changer] is an alarmist."

ChicagoFIRST's Brian Tishuk says local lessons can be learned from Japan, especially within the financial, government and healthcare sectors.

"Persistent" is the operative word about the advanced persistent threat that has struck RSA and its SecurID products. "If the bad guys out there want to get to someone ... they can," says David Navetta of the Information Law Group.

A roundup of this week's top news: Hackers target RSA's SecurID products. Also, Japan's nuclear crisis: What do you need to know? Plus: New Health Net breach may be biggest ever.

Disaster recovery expert Regina Phelps says Japan's nuclear emergency puts local citizens at risk, but organizations globally can learn from the crisis. "I hope that all of us look at this and ask, 'What can I do to be better prepared?'"

Cobit, ITIL, ISO, NIST, an alphabet soup of standards governments often rely on to assure the safety of their IT systems. Ohio government IT leaders saw standardizing on one framework to be a more efficient way to help safeguard IT.

Current solutions are good at authenticating users, but not the integrity of the transactions, says Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro. "We're not authenticating the right things."

Australia's government agencies can learn a lot from the nation's banks, when it comes to risk management and protecting privacy, says Graham Ingram, General Manager of the Australian Computer Emergency Response Team. "There are too many people in government organisations who are in denial [of risks]," he says.

Zayd Sukhun says global political unrest has upped regulators' expectations for banks to streamline fraud-detection tools and techniques.

Susan McAndrew of the HHS Office for Civil Rights discusses recent high-profile HIPAA cases, upcoming state attorneys general training and the pending HIPAA audit program.

This week's report focuses on one story: Senate WikiLeaks hearing, in which administration officials explained how the WikiLeaks episode occurred and what's being done to prevent such a breach from occurring again.

In the initial wake of Japan's devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami, business continuity plans have been tested, and organizations now are dealing with severe aftershocks and a growing national crisis, says Alan Berman, executive director of DRI International.

Iowa CISO Jeff Franklin explains how collecting real-time information helps the state information security office transition its focus from technology to risk management.

The Internet is inherently insecure, and the only way to ensure today's evolving information systems is to build them upon three pillars of trust.

Today's technology is not adequately used, says attorney Lucy Thomson.

For former New York State CISO Will Pelgrin, mobile devices, insiders and old infrastructure represent the major challenges local and state governments face in 2011 in securing information technology.

The Smart Card Alliance's Vanderhoof says U.S. card issuers will likely rely on contactless mag-stripe technology to bridge a payments migration to EMV.