Skip to main content

New Verizon PCI Compliance report for 2011

Here is the link to the report:

http://www.verizonbusiness.com/resources/reports/rp_2011-payment-card-industry-compliance-report_en_xg.pdf

(In the interest for full disclosure I worked for Verizon Business from 2008-2009).

For people who have to deal with Information Security on a daily basis, the results of the report shouldn't be a surprise. PCI is a great idea but really hard to do, any by being compliant with PCI (or any standard) you are not then "secure". It should provide a baseline and a starting point for your security program, you can't just download a copy of the PCI DSS and say "this is my company's security standard".

The value that we as Information Security professionals provide is the ability to interpret business needs and security/compliance requirements into achievable configurations, standards, policies, etc. If we just try and implement something off the shelf (no matter how good it is) it won't fit, be complete, or meet the business objectives.

So take the time to become familiar with no only the security and compliance requirements of your industry or company, but also the business drivers, what are the most important pieces of data (information, PHI, PII, crown jewels, etc.) to the various aspects of the business. Work WITH the business to get them to understand your concerns (in the same way you understand theirs) and built a better environment based on progress and trust.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Requirements for Information Security

If you want to get into Information Security you HAVE to be a/have this skill... Why this is total BS. Almost daily I see someone posting on twitter, trying to be helpful to folks who are looking to get into InfoSec. Often I see "If you want to be in Information Security (Cyber Security) then you HAVE to be a programmer" or "If you want to be successful you have to be a hacker/have a criminal record/have abused systems without permission" etc. While having technical capabilities (such as programming) and having the ability to compromise a system shows a specific skillset neither are required. When talking to people who are interested in Information Security I often refer to it as a cake, there are tons of slices, many flavors, many pieces and parts you can sample, choose to focus on, will be expected to know something about, etc. Incident Response and Forensics (my current focus) is not the only part of Information Security, and certainly not the only part tha...

Privacy considerations for home users

In light of the recent new stories regarding the recently signed legislation allowing ISP's to be able to sell your data http://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/3/29/15107110/republican-isp-data-privacy Here are a couple ideas and tips about privacy in general. Don't panic - a lot of the info was already being gathered, this isn't that large of a change regarding scope, it's more of a change to who can profit or sell it (which is a shift for sure). Remember a lot of the services you use today already gather your browser, activity, and search info (google, bing, yahoo, facebook, etc.). ISP's haven't implemented this yet, expect to see new terms of service in an upcoming bill, or an email sent to you, etc. If you would like to take some steps to try to preserve your privacy, here are some ideas and examples: VPN (Virtual Private Network) - this in essence creates an encrypted tunnel between two points on the Internet. One point being your system...
Weekly recap and why you should be concerned about "attackers" even if you have "nothing to hide" Why you should be aware of, defend against, and prevent attackers... even at home: I often hear from future victims "well I don't have anything to hide/anything of value/why would they target me!?" It's really not about you, usually the attackers aren't looking for your data (if they get it, or have easy access to it, they may try to profit from it, but the people doing the compromising aren't usually the same folks that monetize). What the attackers want are compromised systems they can use to do what they want at scale. So if they can compromise 50 systems, they can send 50X the amount of SPAM... 100 systems, 100X, etc. Some operations get paid based on the number of emails they can send per day. Of course the email will likely not just be SPAM, but may also be malicious (ransomware, etc.). http://thehackernews.com/2017/09/linux-ma...