Category Archives: Technology Risk

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Data Breaches Breaking the Bank for Businesses

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Hope you enjoyed that headline alliteration.

But let’s talk cyber crime. In 2010 it’s rare to find someone who has never had their email account hacked (happened to me last month!) or their personal information stolen by cyber thieves. But that’s small time cyber crime compared to what’s happening to businesses around the globe.

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According to a new study by Ponemon Institute, an independent research establishment, organizations are getting hit by at least one successful attack per week. Sound like a lot to you? It is. But what’s even more distressing and hard to believe is that the annualized cost to their bottom lines from the attacks ranged from $1 million to $53 million per year.

Ponemon’s first annual “Cost of Cyber Crime” report studied 45 U.S. organizations hit data breaches. It found that the median cost to companies was $3.8 million per year for an attack. Certainly enough for some bottom line blues.

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“Information theft was still the highest consequence — the type of information [stolen] ranged from a data breach of people’s [information] to intellectual property and source code,” says Larry Ponemon, CEO of the Ponemon Institute. “We found that detection and discovery are the most expensive [elements].”

The report found that web-borne attacks, malicious code and malicious insiders are the most costly types of attacks, and social security numbers are the most commonly compromised form of data. According to Datalossdb.org, there have been 10 reported data breaches in the past 13 days alone. Let’s take a look at the largest reported breaches in history, courtesy of the aforementioned website:

data breach

According to the Ponemon study, the 45 organizations studied did not have the right tools or technologies in place to prevent such costly breaches (bad risk management to say the least). The leading types of attacks were malware (25%), SQL (24%) and stolen/abused credentials (16%).

Numerous tech companies, such as Cisco and Symantec, offer data loss prevention products and services.

Without data breach technology in place, a company is throwing away their hard-earned dollars.

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And millions of dollars at that, according to Ponemon.

The Pirate Bay Proves Not So Private

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Remember The Pirate Bay? We’ve done a couple blog posts on the topic in the past — about the online piracy site’s legal battles over copyright law and about the fact that Sweden’s Pirate Party actually won entry into the European Parliament.

Well The Pirate Bay has made headlines once more — this time spotlight is on the site’s security flaws. It was reported that an Argentinian hacker named Ch Russo hacked The Pirate Bay site, exposing the information of four million users. Russo claims he performed the hack not with malice in mind, but instead with a desire to raise awareness of the site’s SQL vulnerabilities. The hacker touts the following on his blog:

As any other website, as any other system or mechanism, www.thepiratebay.org has robust parts and soft spots. We believe that the people behind this community always acted with the local laws on their side, and so have we.

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The community caused problems to huge companies and corporations which turned into threats between this companies and them. What we have done, we did not do it with anger, or for commercial value. As always, we saw the change, the moment and decided to take it.

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The protocol or procedure done to achieve this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

This is ironic seeing as one of the goals of Sweden’s’ Pirate Party was “to ensure that citizens’ rights to privacy are respected.”

The founders of The Pirate Bay were sentenced in April to one year in jail and a fine of 30 million kronor ($3.6 million USD) after being found guilty in a Swedish court of breaking copyright law. The four men were sued by numerous music companies, including Vivendi’s Universal Music Group and EMI. Russo himself highlighted the idea that these music companies would most likely be very interested in the names, email and internet address of the site’s users. He followed up by stating that that is not his team’s intention — instead, they aim to bring awareness to a lack of information protection on The Pirate Bay and several other sites.

Though Russo claims he and his team are hacking to teach a lesson, the sites’ owners and users are not too happy with the chosen method.

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It seems to me they would rather learn the hard way.

The Risks of Social Media: Legal Limits

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social media

As we all know by now, social media can be both a great marketing and networking tool, as well as a good excuse for employment termination if mishandled — or worse, a lawsuit.

For instance, did you know that the Federal Trade Commission is watching those social media sites that promote a product or service? In the FTC’s December 2009 guidelines, it states that, among other things, those promoting a product/service on the internet (via Facebook, Twitter or any other form of social media) must incorporate a disclosure page or statement telling of the financial agreement between those giving testimonials about the product/service and the company itself.

Under the Guidelines, endorsements must reflect the genuine beliefs or opinions of the endorser and cannot otherwise be deceptive. In addition, the endorser must be a bona fide user of anything given of value to the endorser. For example, a blogger who reviews a product given to her for that purpose should disclose that it was provided by the manufacturer, and not purchased. Most do not follow this simple rule.

Understanding the legal implications of what is presented on your social media site can be confusing. To break it all down for us, Law.com issued a nice online article this morning, entitled “Minimizing the Legal Risks of Using Online Social Networks.” In our continuing coverage of the risks of social media, I present you with a breakdown of the piece:

  • Copyright: If you are using text, audio, video or images on your site that you did not create yourself, you may be violating an individual’s or organization’s copyright. However, if your posting qualifies as “fair use,” then use of the content will most likely not be questioned. Common situations of fair use include criticism, comment, news reporting and education.
  • Trademark: As the article states, “If you are using another’s trademark, you may be liable for infringement, where the owner can establish that your use of its mark or a mark similar to it will likely cause consumer confusion as to the source of the material.” And if it is proven that your conduct diluted the strength of the owner’s trademark, there may be potential for further liability.
  • Defamation: This is a huge topic in the realm of social media and the risks involved. In general terms, a defamatory statement is “a false and disparaging statement about another which causes injury to reputation (or in some cases causes emotional distress).” Along with individuals, businesses and products can also be defamed, sometimes causing reputation and financial damage (cue lawsuit).
  • Confidentiality: This section is geared towards those whose profession involves confidentiality agreements (lawyers, doctors, advisers, etc.). If there is proof of a breach of this agreement, possible sanctions “may include termination of employment, loss of professional license, potential significant civil liability (such as in the context of trade secret dissemination), or even criminal liability.”

These are just a few of the potential legal risks of social media. And as society continues to move to even more of an online presence (for both personal and business aspects), we will continue to learn the possible implications of a web 2.0 world.

The Risks of Social Media: Pseudonyms on the Internet

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One of the coolest things about working from the press room at the RIMS Annual Conference is the ample amount of press releases available to journalists and other media professionals.

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Various companies in the risk and insurance industry are eager to spread the news of their new surveys, studies or products, and it shows — I’m currently looking at tables filled with Chubb, FM Global, AIR Worldwide, etc.

One study from Chubb that caught my eye stated that many don’t use their real name on the internet.

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In fact, the study says only 51% always use their real name.

I questioned why this would be of any concern and I was met with a great quote.

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“Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare have created new social media risks and an environment where many people don’t know who they are talking to online,” said Kenneth Goldstein, worldwide media liability manager at Chubb. “They don’t realize who can see their location, creating many exposures for individuals and companies.”

Some interesting stats from the study:

  • 66% of respondents said they would not use mobile technology that shows people on social networking sites where they are located
  • 20% of respondents said they have shared a negative product or service experience with others on Facebook, YouTube or other social networking sites
  • 64% of respondents said the company had no policy for talking about the company on social networking sites

This is just another aspect of social media risks that we continue to write about (check out past posts on the topic). And of course, check back later for more posts from RIMS 2010.