Private Sector Security Regulation

Is there a need for private sector regulations when it comes to Information Security?
In a recent survey, "nCircle 2012 Government Policy Security Trend Study," carried out by nCircle Network Security the results show that the majority of network admins do not think that there is any need for an increase in the minimum level of regulated network security. This is because many of the network admins know that being compliant to a third party policy does not mean their network is secure from potential hackers. Between higher level management and network security admins there is always a struggle for more money to put towards security and to use that money for other parts of the company. This comes at no surprise that in this study 81% of the participants concluded that there was a need for more money to be spent on the network security side of the company to better protect their assets. There will always be a struggle for more security against the higher ups in the company competing to be more "beneficial" to the company.

Article:

http://www.ncircle.com/index.php?s=news_press_2012_09-13-Study-and-Infographic-66-percent-of-IT-Security-Professionals-Dont-Believe-Regulation-Will-Improve-Cyber-Security

Corporate Practices of Disclosure?

While security is a needed part of any company there are many other things which help to keep them more secure in their daily operations. These security measures do not include disclose of information about the company’s security. While this information could be important for potential clients it becomes a security risk for the company more often than not.

While I agree with the principle of avoiding “security through obscurity,” I would not recommend a company to give up much of their information about their security practices. There are some security disclosure postings which would hurt a company and therefore should never be freely disclosed to the general population. I think that a company could disclose some information about their practices and operational strategy to the general public but the information would be so limited and vague that it would not be useful for customer to know this information. Even without this information a customer should never decide to use a password based on the lowest settings required by the company they should always use a strong password and determine for their self if a password’s strength is applicable for a certain type of account.

To show that there is a proper level of security which is in place at a company there should be some categories of “low hanging fruit” which a company should receive a compliance score regarding, and this score could be shared with the public after an appropriate amount of time for the company to fix any shortcomings that they may have. With this scoring system there would be an increase in the disclosure for companies with higher levels of security while still giving them protection from releasing too much information. While there are many possibilities for disclosure for a company’s security settings full disclosure should not be considered with how the world operates currently. 

Article: http://www.zdnet.com/au/killing-security-through-obscurity-to-defeat-competitors-7000003954/

Is it too expensive to avoid tracking?

Is it too expensive to avoid being tracked through the internet and by other companies?

     I agree with the article written by Tim Keanini. It this article he talks about how easy it is to track people who are mostly unsuspecting unless they have been exposed to this type of information. Most people do not realize that anything we fill out or use today to save money while making purchases is used against us. All rewards cards have a certain incentives for all of us to enroll in the program to receive discounts among other things. I had never thought about this until I read this article about tracking and monitoring people and their purchases.

     I do have a few rewards cards for businesses that I use fairly frequently but I never thought of the information that I am exposing to different companies. There are certain things that I will decide if they are necessary after reviewing this article. There are many things that I have bought in the past that could have been avoided. I prefer my life to be a private affair and not use for information and exploit by companies. There are times that I do enjoy buying different things but it is a little scary to think that I am so easy to track in my everyday life. After reading this article I do not think that there would be anyway for me to be completely hidden for the information age. It makes me wonder what all of the spies for different countries use to hide from the information age.

Article: http://connect.ncircle.com/t5/Patterns-Blog/Track-me-maybe/ba-p/4920

Intro Blog

Hello, my name is Joey Lyons. I am 22 years old and an ISA major at KSU. I am planning on graduating at the end of the semester (Dec '12). I am currently working as an intern for nCircle network security in Alpharetta. My job entails QA testing and managing all of the scan targets for my division within nCircle, CCM (configuration compliance manager). I enjoy my job while there are some times where the work can be a little hectic it is still a great job and a fun atmosphere to work in.

Most of my days are busy and filled with many different activities. Much of my time is spent with friends joking around, having a few beers or playing soccer somewhere around KSU. The rest of it is currently spent working or doing work for school. When I get some down time I spend it watching movies and watching college football.

I am a big Virginia Tech fan and have been since I started high school. I went there for my freshmen year and decided that for the money and the classes that I was taking that it was not going to be the place that I would stay for the rest of my academic career. I still love the campus and atmosphere up there and always will, but I am finishing out my undergraduate degree at KSU.