Where is your first line of defense?

I recently attended a fantastic roundtable put on by Financial Times in New York and as I’m sitting listening to a group of folks that specialize in anti-money laundering and fraud, one person stated that people detected the vast majority of fraud or money laundering with tools playing a supporting role.

Guest Post: Will the new QIR Program Move the Needle?

The following is a guest post by Steve Levinson, PCI Goon. The PCI (Payment Card Industry) Council (PCICo) has pointed their elbow in the direction of those responsible for installing payment applications. PCICo issued a press release recently announcing the PCI Qualified Integrators and Resellers (QIR) program. The QIR program is designed to improve the quality of the integrator/reseller community often tasked with installing and maintaining payment systems. Is this the silver bullet we’ve been waiting for?

What Matters in A Standard: RSA DPM support for OASIS KMIP

This week’s announcement that the new release of RSA Data Protection Manager (DPM) supports the OASIS Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) standard was a particularly important one for me, personally. As co-chair of the KMIP Technical Committee since we convened it in 2009, implementation of KMIP in industry-leading key managers like RSA DPM matters a lot to me. And that got me thinking about what matters in a standard like KMIP.

Stop climbing through the haystack to find the needle: Use a magnet

As security professionals we are constantly thinking about finding the needle (security incident) in the data haystack. But what if just used a really powerful magnet? Potential threats are more targeted, stealthy and dynamic than they ever have been. Which means you won’t find the needle if you aren’t collecting the hay in which the needle may be hiding. So, it’s more than just collecting a lot of data, it’s about collecting the right data.

Online Dating, Online Fraud: It’s All Relative

To me, online dating these days is not much different than online fraud. I speak from personal experience on both – as someone who has experienced the thrills of online dating sites (NOTE sarcasm here) and has the privilege of witnessing the latest online scams that fraudsters pull on a daily basis. I live in both worlds – and trust me, they are not much different.

Why the Public Cloud Shuns Security

Did I just use a tactic to get you to click on this? Maybe. It sure is a punchy headline. I bet it stirs up some emotion on both sides of the transaction: cloud providers that are tired of working with auditors and security professionals that are tired of explaining to business analysts why regulated data can’t live inside a public cloud.

Top 10 PCI Requirements for Interpretation

OK folks, here’s an opportunity for you all! In advance of the third edition of our book slated for a July release, PCI Compliance, I wanted to offer up a free service to those of you dealing with PCI DSS on a daily basis. I’m going to do a detailed analysis of ten requirements for you! Here’s the best part…You get to pick the ten I analyze!

Citadel Outgrowing its Zeus Origins

As of April 30th, 2012 the Citadel Trojan was at its fourth upgrade with Version 1.3.4.0 already in the hands of its customers. Citadel’s features, bug fixes and added modules (each priced separately), have long gone beyond what Zeus ever offered as Slavik’s zeal for developing the malware died down when law enforcement got too close for the Trojan creator’s comfort.

Fun with Password Managers

I actually started following my own advice a couple of years ago and started creating random passwords for each site that I use that requires a login. Yep, no more “Password123!” for me, it’s all random. But that poses another problem. How do I store these things in a way that is secure and readily available since I don’t have an eidedic memory?

Security Monitoring vs. EU Data Privacy – Are We Stuck?

Continuing on the theme from a previous blog, what if the use of state-of-the-art security technologies were believed to conflict with EU data privacy regulations? Are security professionals really to be put in the difficult position of not being able to use the most current security approaches to protect their organizations and users? Is there a way to both protect the organization and its users while respecting the rights of users to not be excessively and unreasonably monitored?