Effective security demands effective risk assessment

While most of the public attention focused on the Consensus Audit Guidelines has been fairly positive, two key aspects continue to be overlooked that may work against the intention of the CAG to improve baseline security…

GAO adds to the chorus calling for better security metrics

In a GAO report released last week reflecting testimony delivered to the House subcommittee on Technology and Innovation, GAO’s Greg Wilshusen echoed his own previous testimony and a growing number of congressional voices pointing out that…

New security provisions in draft U.S. ICE legislation

The draft U.S. Information and Communications Enhancement (U.S. ICE) legislation expected to be introduced by Senator Tom Carper (D – Del.) addresses and tries to remedy many of the shortcomings in the Federal Information Security Management…

Balancing prevention and response

The two primary information resources with which most people are familiar for security emergency response are the Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center (CERT/CC) at Carnegie-Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness…

A need for more meaningful security testing

The recently released fiscal year 2008 report to Congress on FISMA implementation once again highlights government-wide progress in meeting certain key objectives for their information systems. Among these is the periodic testing of their security controls,…

Reactions to the proposed Internet SAFETY Act

There’s a great deal of hand-wringing and outrage expressed over new legislation proposed in both the House and the Senate intended to add all sorts of requirements to Internet and other electronic communication service providers in…

The need for data integrity assertion

There’s a lot of energy these days focused on data interoperability, within and across industries. Generally speaking, interoperability is a laudable and worthwhile goal, but with greater access to data from broader and more diverse sources…