Highest office in U.S. shines light on card fraud
 

Consumers in the U.S. got another hint as to the threat posed by cybercriminals this month. That's because U.S. President Barack Obama signed an executive order, which he coined BuySecure, to create improved security of credit- and debit-card payments. The same day, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a report advising financial companies to beef up their security after 500 million financial records were hacked in the U.S. over the past 12 months.
 

It is good to have this encouragement for everyone to address privacy and information security from the federal government. Every little bit helps. Ultimately, however, we are each responsible for our own actions (or inactions, as the case may be). It will be interesting to see how much impact reports and executive orders ultimately have on the average American's security measures.
 

I referenced Obama's BuySecure in my recent appearance on the Great Day morning show. Have a listen and then let me know what you predict the impact will be.

More industries wake to privacy issues

Connected medical devices, when operating with lax security, are among the scariest threats consumers today face. It's tempting to think, "No one wants to do little-old-me harm," or worse, "No one wants to do my patients harm." But the fact is, sometimes hackers just hack. They don't need an elaborate, diabolical plan. They simply want to prove they can. And it is also important to remember that without security controls, mistakes made with medical device settings could lead to tragic consequences.

What's more, the data contained on medical devices could not be more intimate. Imagine combining data on a patient's heart rate at a particular time of day in a particular location. Think of the conclusions (both real and false) that could be made by analyzing the most private details of a person's day.

So far this year, the FDA has approved nearly two dozen digital health-related smartphone-connected medical devices and standalone apps. In recent months, I've been working with a group of 252,000 medical device folks to help them understand the need for security controls and HIPAA practices. This is not only to prevent attacks or lessen the chances of unwanted data collection and sharing; it's also to reduce the impact of mistakes. After all, these devices are often controlling when and how much medicine is sent into our bodies. 

Here is one of the free tools I provide to help them understand how to create more secure medical devices that will also help to protect patient privacy. 

South Wharf is a suburb of (actually enclosed within) Melbourne. Its population... 66!

Summer Sizzles with Hot Threats

DDoS creeps in through common apps

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are nothing new. What is new is the number of seemingly benign programs that can lead to these attacks against consumers and businesses alike. Take Skype, for example. A voice-over-Internet (VoIP) application, Skype allows users to resolve other Skypers' usernames to return an IP address. Once a DDoS hacker has that, he has everything he or she needs to send useless data to your network and cause any number of issues.

Fortunately, there is a fix, as explained on this thread at Arena Junkies. For most of us, these tips will go beyond our skill sets. However, sharing it with your IT department head or other such expert may prevent DDoS attacks at your organization.

The threat is coming from inside

The insider threat is a long-time, and yet growing, problem. A high-profile incident in the U.S. recently shined a bright spotlight on the issue when a Chicago airport employee set fire to a facility, effectively shutting down one of America's busiest travel hubs. The actions of one rogue employee were felt for days.  

While the incident itself was indeed troubling, I was more surprised there was no roll-over contingency operations center in place in the event something catastrophic took out the O'Hare operations center. It goes to show that every business needs to be prepared for the unimaginable. Here's more on developing your own business continuity and disaster recovery plans. 

Fortunately, a wallaby crossing your path isn't the same as a black cat. (Look close and you can see this one has a joey on board, peeking out!)

New HIPAA Risk Awareness Evaluation Tool!

Over the years, I've seen a great need for organizations to be able to quickly and economically determine the high-level HIPAA compliance risks that exist throughout their organization. I've also done work for many covered entities (CEs) to determine the risk levels of their business associates (BAs).

I've had a vision for being able to provide this help online since 2010. Therefore, I'm really excited to have finally found a great business partner who has been able to create this first-of-its-kind HIPAA Risk Level Evaluator!  

For the next few weeks or months (I've not established a set time yet) I'm providing a scaled-back version of it free. I'd love for you to take a few minutes to answer the questions, view the report that is generated and give me feedback. I can then make any tweaks and changes based upon your feedback. For those of you who have already sent me feedback, a heartfelt THANK YOU! I'm making changes as you read this based upon some great suggestions. I welcome more feedback from everyone else. 

After this initial free introductory period, I am currently planning to sell a more feature-full and capabilities-rich version of it for $295. Please Click Here to be taken to the evaluation. And again, please send me an email to provide your feedback! Plus, if you're curious about the additional features of the retail version, I can describe those to you also.

A Gift to You to for the End of National Cyber Security Awareness Month

In honor of National Cyber Security Awareness Month, I created a free one-page infographic for the general public to use to help them remember some of the most common types of information security and privacy risks that they need to address throughout the course of their daily lives. Print it off and put it on the wall by your computer to help keep you and your family and friends aware of the many privacy and information security risks that are out there, and what you can do to help defend against them.