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Mar 12, 2012
Like most conferences, there were several key themes and buzzwords being bandied about at this year’s RSA Conference. Some of the hot topics on the showroom floor included terms like consumerization, mobility and last but not least, big data.
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Mar 01, 2012
I am currently reading a great book about enterprise software entitled ‘How to Succeed in the Enterprise Software Market’ by Craig Le Clair. Even though the book was published back in 2005, many of the core ideas and principles still apply.
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Nov 17, 2011
I’ve been helping companies on both sides of the pond solve their data security problems for many years now. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s this: when I go into an organization that runs Windows, there’s little question of the need for data security. The organization knows it and so do I. When I visit a company whose IT infrastructure revolves around a mainframe, however, the mindset is often quite the opposite. In fact, the biggest data security misconception I encounter is the belief that the mainframe environment is inherently secure. Most IT staff view the mainframe as just another network node. Why? Because it’s universally perceived as a closed environment and, therefore, invulnerable to hackers.
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Nov 09, 2011
With more than 630 attendees from 200 plus health-related companies present at the Georgia Health IT Summit, it's easy to see Georgia is making a difference in providing better overall care for patients. Thanks to Georgia Tech and a large IBM (formerly Internet Security Systems) office in our city establishing successful roots in security, in conjunction with Georgia’s recent ranking as the movie film capital second to Hollywood, our state is positioned for continued growth, notably in the area of health IT.
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Nov 08, 2011
Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time sitting side by side with CISOs, helping them to assess their data security risks and counseling them on best practices and technology options to mitigate those risks. The biggest data security misconception I encounter is the belief that the mainframe environment is inherently secure — bulletproof, if you will.
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Oct 05, 2011
Most people that I have spoken with since since April, when Liaison Technologies acquired nuBridges, know that I’ve been spending a lot of time in the healthcare vertical. Just as security within the retail and financial services verticals was key to nuBridges success during the past 6 years, healthcare is an equally, if not bigger opportunity in that vertical alone. It not only includes all of the security needs that we provided at nuBridges – not just protecting credit card information, but rather protecting all patient and other sensitive data – but adds the capabilities of integration and data management to the mix, two areas where Liaison Technologies excels.
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Sep 29, 2011
I spent last week at the PCI SSC meeting in Arizona where I experienced an interesting dichotomy. On Tuesday, I attended a session where proposals were being presented for the formation of different SIGs for next year. There were a couple of groups that were looking to develop something resembling a checklist to assist merchants in meeting compliance, versus forcing them to look at their unique environment and accessing how to best meet the compliance requirements. I feel this would be a bad direction for the industry to head.
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Sep 19, 2011
Sitting here in the general session of the IAPP conference, I am not surprised to see the interest generated around privacy, compliance and its implications among all privacy professionals (CIPPs) attending the conference. Privacy professionals are a little different from security professionals. While security professionals are all about how we can prevent data breaches, privacy professionals are all about how to respond to data breaches and what organizations need to do in order to comply with privacy laws on an ongoing basis. Let’s make a quick distinction here between data privacy and data security.
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Sep 16, 2011
In my last post I discussed the transition of stealing sensitive data from retail to higher education to hospitality, and suggested that health care will be next. Now I thought I would focus in on why I believe this to be true.
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Sep 12, 2011
First we saw the bad guys target retailers to obtain credit card information to resell. The media made a few of them poster children of “who you don't want to be”, and there’s no need to name them as we all know who they are and they have come a long way in improving security. When retail became a bit more difficult, the bad guys moved on to target both the higher education and hospitality industries. Same story, though these industries are not nearly as far along as retail has gone so there’s still lots of work to be done there. I spend a lot of nights on the road in hotels and would personally prefer not to receive another breach notification letter. To do my part, I choose which hotel chains to stay with based on the security of not only my credit card, but also my customer loyalty information – others I avoid like a plague.
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Sep 08, 2011
Having been involved in B2B services over the past two decades, I have seen a lot of change in the industry. The pervasiveness of EDI hit its stride in the 90’s with pc-based EDI translation software to provide rapid enablement of the supplier base for enterprise companies. PC-based software began with dial-up modems, but eventually evolved in the late 90’s toward usage of the “always on” Internet. In fact, the company I worked for at the time was involved with the CommerceNet consortium work to test the viability of the Internet as a message delivery backbone.
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Aug 11, 2011
I’m happy to report that our Format Preserving Tokenization and key management solutions known as Liaison Protect (formerly nuBridges Protect) have passed a Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS) audit with flying colors, further proving our products’ high level of security and reinforcing our continuing leadership position in the data security industry.
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Jul 14, 2011
Huddled in a hotel in the epicenter of the healthcare debate, Washington, DC, over 300 people have gathered to figure our how to share patient data in an effort to improve long-term care while lowering expenses. While those appear to be opposing forces, as information recording moves from paper to digital and organizations such as hospitals, payers and providers, began to collaborate with one another, magic happens.
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Jun 30, 2011
While at the Gartner Security Summit last week, I took a journey across Northern Virginia, where I used to live twelve years ago. Crossing over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, I was overwhelmed by the amount of construction taking place on the I-495 Capital Beltway.
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Jun 20, 2011
There’s no question about it: The cloud is hot!
So, it’s really no wonder that more and more companies are offering their solutions as cloud services. With a plethora of emerging cloud-based service options for everything from sales automation, human resources and payroll to order fulfillment, credit card processing and more, companies across all industries are looking seriously at the feasibility of outsourcing multiple applications and business processes to cloud service providers.
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Jun 15, 2011
Dallas is buzzing with conversations about the Mavericks winning the NBA title. At the IANs Lone Star conference, the two hot topics have been: How about the Mavericks? And…. What about the cloud?
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Apr 26, 2011
If the variety of topics and interactive dialog around information security at InfoSec World is an indicator of need for companies and organizations to get better, then there’s plenty of room for growth. While many companies seem to be making progress, most are just embarking upon implementing best practices in security and often are just assessing the risk off different threats within their company.
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Apr 26, 2011
I’m back from London, another stop along the spring conference train!
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Apr 15, 2011
I attended the Bio-IT World Conference in Boston last week which was fascinating. This conference was focused around the drug discovery and clinical trial process, something that many of Liaison (and former nuBridges) customers are involved in.
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Feb 16, 2011
In the security business, making “raving fans” out of customers is not always easy. A raving fan is a proactive advocate of your products and services, constantly open to making introductions for you to ideal prospects. Not because you’ve asked them to do so, but because they want to. Unlike other traditional IT projects, data security customers are skeptical and demand high-touch, low-risk service delivery. This is particularly true when these security projects are around protection of data. Data security initiatives are relatively new and the territory is largely uncharted.
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