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The author conveys his thoughts on attending a security conference by computer and network security company RSA Security LLC as a way of interacting with vendors. Topics mentioned include opportunity to get face time with knowledgeable engineers, management of security configurations of critical infrastructure, and security strategy and opinions on what works and what does not work.

The article presents the author's insights about his objection of using third-party tests in performing assessments of the applications and network of a business. Topics discussed include the unintended incident response might be resulted from permitting a third-party assessment, hiring least expensive firms to perform the security assessments, and the nondisclosure agreements (NDA).

The article focuses on troubles raised due to network problems on the day of critical cross-site scripting (XSS) attack due to unavailability of world-class security operations center (SOC). Topics discussed include compensation of SOC by building automation into the monitoring of logs and cherry-picking events; indicators of an XSS attacks like network trafficking and attempts to attach computers with other networks.

The article offers the author's view on how businesses in the U.S. achieve Level 1 compliance. The author states the need of companies to prove that they are logging their activities and regularly checking their logs. The author notes hiring a third party and offload the collection. The author mentions that compliance is far from guarantee of security.

The article emphasizes the role of money in accomplishing the plans of the author to modernize his company's application program interface (API) architecture and develop a health check application to encourage customers to enhance security controls. He advises his company to offer a bonus pay to his colleagues to persuade them to work on the security initiatives. The initiatives' status is also discussed.

The author contemplates on the efforts of information technology (IT) professionals to find and fix any vulnerable resources after the discovery of Heartbleed, a security bug in the open-source implementation of Secure Sockets Layer (OpenSSL)cryptography library. Topics covered include the disclosure of up to 64 kilobytes of memory due to the vulnerability, the author's effort of running a vulnerable version of OpenSSL and the reaction of network and security vendors to such vulnerabilities.

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience as a systems security manager, of determining how their servers were exposed to malware, after learning of the incident from their security information and event monitoring (SIEM) tool.

The article presents the author's views on his data security priorities for 2014. The author says that he will deploy several security tools and educate users. The author told that his bank has security firewalls that check online traffic, carry out malware inspection, intrusion prevention, URL filtering and access authority check at the application layer.

The article focuses on a decision of the author's company to monitor traffic leaving the office. It states that traffic originated from external internet protocol (IP) addresses, which was suspicious as the company used internal private IP addresses. The author mentions that he called his crisis action team as he thought that it was a denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. The author highlights that he decided to work on firewalls after the incident.

The article presents information on security review ahead of acquisition of a firm with reference to author's experience of acquiring a small company. It has been warned that problems can go undiscovered if security isn't properly represented during the initial phase of an acquisition. The author states that one problem that they found in the small company was processing of credit cards.

In this article, the author mentions a meeting with his company's research and development (R&d) tool to create a software security laboratory. The author mentions that the company's R&D team has been selected to enhance the security of software's and products. Issues regarding the infrastructural requirements and products are also mentioned.

The article focuses on the problem of "shadow information technology (IT)" that is faced by chief information officers (CIOs) of companies. It describes shadow IT, also called rogue IT, as any form of IT that has entered into the company without proper approval, and discusses the risks associated with rogue IT. It also mentions the benefits of the software as a service (SaaS) model to tackle the problem of shadow IT.

The article presents information on information security with reference to an email distribution list that was spammed. Following from several employees about problems in acessing company's payroll website and it was dentified a piece of malicious software for connecting to a website in China. The phishing email was reported to be sent to an externally available distribution list that has more than 900 users.

The article presents the author's views on the responsibility of security managers to prevent potential vulnerability of software and related products. He says that he works as a security manager and focuses on things like corporate network, protection of intellectual property and Web applications. However, he says that a security manager should also focus on the security of the products, made by the firm. He talks about fixing a software which was not sufficiently encrypting passwords.

The article discusses the brainstorming carried out to solve the security breach related to an executive's email. The author had his security analyst search the company's security incident and event management (SIEM) tool for any malware on the executive's personal computer (PC). It was found out that the executive's email was configured to give access to any employee in the company.

The article reports on a security breach in a small development office in Western Europe. The local telephone company informed the office that a high number of calls were being made from the office's IP telephony setup to a Middle Eastern country. Investigations showed that over 30,000 dollars in calls had been made to several Middle Eastern countries, as well as Russia, China and other Central American nations.

In this article, the author offers suggests for protecting unauthorized network access from home personal computers (PCs). It mentions that deployed RSA SecurID software authentication tokens has been used to provide authentication for remote access through virtual private networks (VPN) client. It suggests employees to install the VPN client on their home PCs. Further it mentions that VPN client allows full network access to PCs.

The article offers information on the data security of the company, focusing on demilitarized zone (DMZ). It states that DMZ is the portion of a network that exposes applications and infrastructure to the world and it contains things like corporate websites, storefronts and Outlook Web access. It mentions that any server placed in the DMZ had to be available to the public internet.

In this article the author discusses software of his company being infected with malware, whose source was tracked to a third party's code. He states that after this incident he looked at his company's software development life-cycle (SDLC) process and upon investigation it was clear that the company lacked security checks for third-party code. He highlights that their are products in the market which offer automatic code vetting.

The author reflects on the importance for companies to develop a metric system to monitor the security of their computer networks. He cites his experience in using Microsoft SharePoint to collect metrics that enables him to discover the number of unmanaged devices connected to their network. The author asserts the need for information technology (IT) personnel to regularly update their chief information officers (CIOs) about such events to heighten awareness about their network's environment.

The article presents what the author has learned in tackling a project he inherited in his new job to implement a security incident and event management (SIEM) tool. It outlines the advantages of using SIEM, which include alerting people to anomalous behavior and malicious code by pulling in data from antivirus scanning management console and firewall logs. It adds that a SIEM tool is capable of managing assets and detecting unauthorized virtual servers.

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of implementing security incident and even management (SIEM) tool.

A personal narrative is presented in which the author discusses his experience of working as an information security professional in the U.S.

The article offers the author's insights on the security problem concerning intellectual property (IP). He cites an incident wherein an employee downloaded excessive number of IP and service documentation. He suggests that companies should find a cost-effective alternative plan to the basic log management and data correlation functionality.

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of handling computer security measures associated with patch management to protect the company data from risk.

The article focuses on the author's experience of dealing with new computer security requirements when implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). The author mentions one requirement which is not allowing data to move in virtual desktop, the host personal computer (PC), and any external devices. He also cites two other requirements such as the integrity of the host PCs and the log-on banners.

The article presents the author's views on the conflict between initiative and security. He emphasizes that as a security manager, he opposes to new program called innovation initiative for it can make them vulnerable. He presents explanation that the iniatiative to solve a latency problem involves opening the HTTPS port to the Internet which can put risk the company's intellectual property. He suggests putting the brakes on the plan until all security risks have been decreased.

The article reports on the possibility that security issues would proliferate if employees used their own personal computers (PCs) at work. It points out that computers that would live on a network means extras cost for their support. It looks into the need of updating security patches and antivirus to protect intellectual property. It suggests the use of centrally managed virtual desktop to secure operating system and applications.

The article presents the author's discussion on the difficulties in implementing endpoint security technology. He states that the deployment of such technology is never that easy due to the difficulty in maintaining the standard operating system profile across the enterprise. He notes that their company is now looking for vendors selling port blocking, which is another option they consider for data leak protection (DLP).

The article discusses the importance of developing security codes. According to the author, developing code securely promotes proper delivery of operating system and application to customers. It states that an application that controls product mechanics allow customers to perform sophisticated operations on products.

The article discusses the author's experience as a security manager of merger and acquisition (M&A) activities in the U.S. He outlines the steps on how he assesses M&A activities including consulting chief information officers (CIOs) or the chief executive officers (CEOs) and meeting with information technology (IT) infrastructure managers. He also offers suggestions on how to assess the security of personal computers (PC) and servers.

The article discusses a policy that prevents users from choosing out password-protected screen locks but is found to reduce the level of protection for others. It mentions the enforcement of a group policy to have a password-protected screen lock on every device within the company's domain so that users who sometimes walk away from their workstation will no longer be able to change any setting related to the password-protected screen lock.

The article presents the author's views on the difficulty of implementing policy changes in a company. According to the author, one factor that prevents company managers to enforce policy modification, particularly on the security side, is the risk on engineering tools. Moreover, the author believes that the risk of changes to engineering is lesser than from potential information security losses.

In this article the author discusses taking security steps for data protection at a partner's site. The author says that they accomplish this via a small Juniper firewall on the partner's premises and a virtual private networks tunnel between it, and a much larger firewall at their headquarters or a closer regional office. He also said that this allows them to maintain control of all the IP addresses, ports and protocols involved in data traffic between the partner and internal network.

The article examines how a business cut 15 percent of its budget while ensuring security in the computer industry in the U.S. It highlights the need to conduct a thorough risk assessment before making any cuts. It explores the process of making cuts while ensuring the confidentiality, integrity and availability of systems.

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of getting confuse by the security patch released by Microsoft Corp.

A personnal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience as a virtualization security manager.

The article focuses on the efficiency of a security manager in communicating the precise state of the company's security posture to the chief information officer (CIO). The manager should demonstrate that the things have improved, but ensure that things could be even better if there is more funding. The CIO and his staff understand the implications of Windows personal computers (PCs) updated with antivirus and security patches. This indicates that there is a direct correlation between a low percentage of anti-virus compliance and an increase in virus incidents.

The article focuses on the federal rules governing the retention of electronic documents in the U.S. The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (FRCP) are definitely within the purview of legal counsel. The FRCP require companies to preserve data, be it on paper or some electronic medium, that might be related to litigation, whether it's pending or merely anticipated. E-discovery is where the FRCP intersect with IT and information security. The FRCP bring the process into the 21st century, extending discovery to electronic media.

The author reflects on computer security issues concerning a plan by his company's software provider, SAP AG, to create generic system accounts that will impact his business. He explains that generic system accounts would give support technicians access to his company's financial systems for troubleshooting purposes. He contends that the procedure, in which support technicians ask for generic user identification and password, would pose security threats to his company's financials.

The article discusses the author's view on integration in both companies when acquisition is agreed upon. According to the author, a computer company security manager, full integration of their networks would require careful study of the target company's environment if both are to sign all binding agreements in Day One. She suggests that it is better she always start off with a security questionnaires, which primarily focuses on patch management, history of security incidents and intellectual property protection. The responses help focus her efforts during security assessement. However, the target's responses would not totally give her real sense of its security posture which makes her disapprove Day One integration. Details with regards to connectivity are also presented.

The author relates his personal experience in familiarizing with Microsoft Corp.'s security products. When the company's contract came up for review, he scheduled a meeting with some Microsoft security product managers to prepare for it. He asserts that they use the Trend Micro OfficeScan, and have discovered two incidents that it could not detect and clean. During the review process, he wants to restructure the Active Directory so that they can limit remote access to the network on the basis of a user's role. Furthermore, he is surprised that Microsoft Corp. has the Network Access Protection product.

The article discusses the importance of reviewing metrics in the quarterly information technology (IT) scorecard for chief information officer (CIO) to know details about security posture. It stated that almost CIO wants to be aware of the company's susceptibility and want to judge the return on investment for security infrastructure. The metrics revealed employee's ability to effectively monitor the network for unauthorized activity to analyses the data and to track how much time the employees spend on various task during the day.

The author reflects on the significance of data loss prevention (DLP) technology in monitoring the programs and data processes of the companies in the U.S. He noted that DLP seems to have the same characteristics of an intrusion-detection system (IDS). It had helped the company found out that there are tricky manipulations of the company documents when an employee was able to upload a computer-aided design document to his personal Yahoo Briefcase storage account.

The article explores on the author's experience of assessing their company's offshore partners, including one in India, which led to a security audit in its networking system.

The article discusses the comprehensive security road map. It is stated that it is a good way to identify first the things that are only needed for the industrial management and spot the desirable and doable intersect in the business. It is suggested to use a software package to capture the ideas that emerge in the meeting and then organized them into a flow tree. It is emphasized that network segmentation is one element of a comprehensive road map and narrowing the discussion to the rule of least priviledge is most important concept in security information.

The author discusses his personal experience during a trip to Moscow, Russia to audit an offshore partner's operations. His findings during the audit were not good. He made a local information technology run on a Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer scan which showed that personal computers were not updated with Microsoft security patches. He discovered that this happened since engineers have no Internet access which took a more time-consuming process.

The article presents the author's experience in using digital rights management (DRM) technology. He claims that the difficulty in deploying Microsoft Corp.'s Rights Management Service (RMS) was the further step in the project management process operational readiness required by the chief information officer (CIO). He notes that despite there were about 50 employees using such technology, there were only three support calls logged.

The article discusses the author's experience of having attended the Interop conference in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 2007. He narrated how he appreciated to attend the event which offers content related to information security, highlighting on virtualization and configuration management. He further revealed details on the topics that attract his attention, emphasizing on virtualization concept of the master control server and about delivering a configuration management database (CMDB) strategy.

The article discusses the proposed outsourcing of information security systems and the metrics used in determining its advantages. According to the author, information security is a critical and important aspect of business operations because they protect intellectual property and safeguard the significant data in the business from trespassers. He states that offshoring provides an advantage in economies of scale which requires retaining control of all operations in different areas and leveraging budget allocation to support operations. The author adds that the successful implementation of security activities depends on the managers' effective utilization and implementation of their available metric systems.