More from Securiosis...

While Rich was away he brought in David Mortman who wrote this gem.

I think he hits the nail on the head and together with the article I linked to in my previous post, this is the future of Information Security.

I believe the take-away quote is this:

"However, compliance is not a technology problem — it’s a business problem which needs a business solution. By instituting sustainable business processes that effectively leverage people and technology, enterprises will become not just more secure but also compliant with current and emerging regulations."

I think that everyone involved in Information Security should read that, understand it and learn it off by heart. And then practice it.

Once we can define a process and what information is used in it, who does it and when it happens - bingo - we can secure the process from start to finish. Most companies I have worked in (and I have worked in plenty) have no formal process design and so would not be able to properly enforce Information Security properly.

Backups are like parachutes

..you only realize that you need them when its too late.

This morning there was a story in the Pretoria News about a rapper from the US who had his laptop stolen. Welcome to Joburg.

He is now offering a R50 000 ($7000) reward for the return of his laptop because according to him he has lost 12 years of his work. R50 000 is not a lot of money for 12 years of work but assuming that his laptop is insured against theft then the R50 000 is basically how much the information is worth to him.

Now most of what you find on a laptop hard drive is junk - downloaded jokes, movies, etc etc. and also software which is either very easy to replace or comes bundled with the laptop anyhow. Just how big is your My Documents folder anyhow.. so lets assume that the rapper had just under 12 Gigs of vitally important, irreplaceable stuff on his laptop - that is 3 DVDs worth.

An external CD writer is just under R800. Add on a box of 50 DVDs for just over R130 and you are looking at a backup solution costing about R1000 ($140).

This sounds like a better deal than R50 000. Of course the technology is not going to save you on its own.. you need to actually use the technology. It takes about 5 minutes to burn a DVD but maybe 30 minutes to set the burn image up.

But it is very worth it, yo.