The CIA triad is an information systems security term that refers to the critical task of data protection. The core goal of information security is to assure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of all the sensitive data kept by an organization. That’s critical for the continuity of business operations, as well as legally and ethically required.
So what is the CIA triad?
It provides for safely using paper- and computer-based data systems, email, fax machines, telephones, web browsers, and even just talking out loud through the provision of:
Confidentiality of data – where you ensure that critical data is only accessed by people with proper approval and on a need to know basis.
Confidentiality is related to the broader concept of data privacy – the act of limiting access to Personally Identifiable Information (PII). In the US, a range of state and federal laws, with abbreviations like FERPA, FSMA, and HIPAA, set the legal terms of privacy.
Posted in Enterprise Computing Ethics Managed Services Security Small Business by .
Aug 10
28
Online Tracking & Spying is No Joke!
You’ve heard about it and read tons of articles about it, but until you actually experience it, you do not realize how unnerving online spying can be. As a Computer Security Consultant, I spend a lot of time on the internet reading, researching and writing. Naturally, I subscribe to a lot of content providers for white-papers, research reports etc.
Recently, I started noticing a trend that did not initially ring an alarm bell.
Posted in Email and Spam Ethics Featured Malware Security Web Technology by .
Aug 10
21
SMBs and Business Continuity Plans
Question: What is the cost of a hardware failure to your business? If you are like most business owners, you are already calculating the cost of the server, hard drive, installation cost etc. But is that really the cost to your business? To put it another way, what would it cost you to replace the DATA that was lost? That, to me, is the actual cost. How many months will it take to re-enter your accounting or customer data for example if your server’s hard drive were to simply kaput and become unavailable? For those lucky ones who have not experienced it, pray it does not happen to you. For those of us who have experienced it, we know it will never happen again, right?
Business owners have a false sense of security when it comes to the issue of Business Continuity which is often thought of as just an IT (Information Technology) problem. “We have a good backup system so we are fine”. There is often the tendency to overlook flaws on business processes, application development, and logistics.
Posted in Disaster Recovery Featured Managed Services Small Business by .
We all love our web browsing and the internet has become a part of our daily existence. Unfortunately, the internet has also become a great tool for the invasion of our privacy by “marketing” companies who are doing everything they can to “stand out” and be “ahead of the curve”.
Posted in Ethics Featured Malware Security Web Technology by .
For several months, I had a client with a Small Business Server 2008 that just would not update. It worked for a while and just suddenly quit after a round of updates through automatic update. No matter what I tried from confirming network connectivity, checking firewall settings, adding and re-adding the update sites to firewall exceptions, disabling anti-virus applications and software accelerators to spending long hours reading Technet articles and suggested fixes from Microsoft, and a thorough step-by-step here, the problem would not go away and kept giving “Windows can’t connect to update…” error 80072efd.
Backing up critical corporate data is important, especially for small business owners. Learn what is involved and needed to analyze your backup needs and engineer a cost-effective way to protect your data.
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