Is Your Checklist Complete?
by Carol Woodbury
CTO, SkyView Partners, Inc.
As a pilot, checklists are a vital part of all our flights. There's a preflight checklist to make sure you don't miss checking each part of the airplane prior to flight. There's the pre-engine start checklist to make sure you and the plane are ready for the flight and then there's the pre-landing checklist which includes items like checking flap position and to making sure the landing gear is down (not really something you want to forget!) And that's not the end of pilots' checklists. Anytime there's a process to be followed, we have a checklist for it. Checklists exist so items are not forgotten and essential actions aren't missed. So what do pilots' checklists have to do with security and compliance? We were meeting with a customer the other day and they were talking about the fact that one of their divisions hadn't done their compliance reporting because it wasn't part of their normal processes. That's when I thought of the pilot checklist analogy. They needed some checklists. Not only would this ensure that their compliance checking would be accomplished, it would ensure it was accomplished on a timely basis, ensure no reports were missed or skipped and be proof to the auditors that regular compliance checking was part of their established process. I've said before that compliance is not a one-time event but that regular checks of your security configuration is required - in other words, you need to establish a compliance 'lifestyle.' Creating checklists and following them is one way to establish a compliance lifestyle. What do these checklists look like? |
*ALLOBJ, INACTIVE, INVALID ... Oh My!!!
(Automating Security Compliance Tasks)
presented by Carol Woodbury
Security administration tasks can be time-consuming but with the right tools can be performed much more proficiently and effectively.
Join Carol Woodbury as she demonstrates how the SkyView Policy Minder and SkyView Audit Journal Reporter assist with every day security administration tasks such as discovering ALLOBJ users and managing INACTIVE profiles, reporting INVALID signon attempts, and much much more.
When:
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM PDT.
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The Hidden Cost of Security Compliance
by John Vanderwall
Chairman and CEO, SkyView Partners, Inc.
I found myself in an interesting conversation with a friend of mine recently. He's in IT man-agement for a division of a large storage area network provider. When I asked about his job he quickly lamented that he didn't like his job at the moment because he was too often caught up doing "busy" work and wasn't able to take on projects that would have the potential to affect his company's bottom-line.
When I asked about security compliance, he rolled his eyes. His view was simply that compliance was yet another burden that IT had to deal with that took away from the bottom-line impact that they so desperately wanted to affect. Let's look at the burden and cost of compliance.
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CAROL's BOOK IS AVAILABLE
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IBM i and i5/OS Security and Compliance
A Practical Guide
by Carol Woodbury
Get a fresh look at the world of IBM i and i5/OS security in this comprehensive book by one of the industry's leading authorities on security.
This book is a must-read for any auditor, system administrator, security officer, or compliance officer who works with IBM i or i5/OS.
Order the Book Here
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