Not a problem. Discussion is what this is about. BUT the only item I can 
dis-agree with you is when you state that 

'Heartland: 100M records breached; claimed cost per record: $200 -- that's 
clearly hyperbole, but 100M times *anything* realistic is still a ton o' money'

It isn't Hyperbole..... According to studies, which I mention at least one, the 
average cost is about $197 USD and that was in 2007. If you consider ALL cost 
(which can include lost of sales, legal costs, cost to 'maintain the customer 
base', cost for credit monitoring (if applicable), 'SPPINING' (no reference to 
fox news <S>), losing business focus, soft costs etc) it can be even much 
higher.


As you noted there are a lot of reasons for data breaches and here are some 
additional info for those who want to know

39% of breaches are from employees (non-malicious)
16%  Hacker external
30% employees (malicious)
15% other

So everyone out there reading this, make sure your company's  name (bottom 
line) isn't on the front page of NYT, Globe and Mail, The Financial Times, etc. 
because of a breach.


Any other thoughts? 



 
Robert Galambos CIPP/C CIPP/IT  

Compuware Senior Technical Specialist 
IBM Certified Database Associate 
IBM Certified DB2 9 for z/OS Database Administration
Certified Information Privacy Professional/Canada
Certified Information Privacy Professional/Information Technology
   
[email protected]
 
Tel: +1 905 886 7000 
Toll Free: +1 800 263 7189
Fax: +1 905 886 7023
Quebec: +1 877-281-1888 
  


 
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-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of 
Phil Smith
Sent: April 21, 2009 1:39 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Data masking/data disguise Primer 1) WHY

I'm interested. Of course, we sell a product in that arena.

I'd distinguish between data disguise/data masking/data obfuscation and 
encryption.

Encryption is for production data -- so that when a backup tape falls off the 
truck, its contents aren't useful for someone who finds it. Encryption can vary 
from all data (typically but not necessarily hardware-based) to column-based.

Data disguise/data masking/data obfuscation (henceforth just "masking") is for 
test data, to allow use of realistic data from production without risking 
leakage due to any of human error, weaker security on test systems than 
production, or malfeasance by staff (yeah, it happens).

This might seem like an insignificant distinction--and indeed, they may (or may 
not) use the same underlying technology--but they're quite different usages, in 
that production encryption demands tend to be random and selective (within 
applications, or at most report generators), whereas masking tends to be "OK, 
we need to generate 10M rows of test data *now*". Clearly you can create an 
application to do the latter, using the production encryption technology, but 
as a vendor, we should (and do) provide tools to make that easy.

Management who isn't interested hasn't read the news (Heartland: 100M records 
breached; claimed cost per record: $200 -- that's clearly hyperbole, but 100M 
times *anything* realistic is still a ton o' money); management who says "we 
have non-disclosure agreements (and therefore our data is impregnable)" are, of 
course, laughably incompetent. Anyone whose management says such things would 
be well-advised to keep hardcopies of the notes suggesting that there is an 
issue, and their responses, so that if and when a breach occurs, you can say 
"Don't look at me" if they try to. That still may not work, but it's worth a 
try.

As you note, the law is catching up here. NDAs aren't sufficient for the new 
regulations; it's time to get on board and at least start planning for 
encryption. At worst you'll learn a few things; at best you'll avoid a breach. 
And in the middle, if a breach occurs, you'll be Johnny-on-the-spot with domain 
expertise to help clean up and avoid another one.

I'm not sure I've added much to what you wrote, Robert, but those are some of 
MY thoughts!
--
...phsiii

Phil Smith III
[email protected]
Voltage Security, Inc.
www.voltage.com
(703) 476-4511 (home office)
(703) 568-6662 (cell)

-----Original Message-----
From: Galambos, Robert <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 12:06 PM
Subject: [IBM-MAIN] Data masking/data disguise Primer 1) WHY
To: [email protected]

I have noticed a couple of questions in the last couple of months concerning 
issues along the lines of data disguise/data masking/data obfuscation (a lot of 
different words for the same issue Protecting PII (personal identifiable 
information)) from being 'released'

My plan, unless there is a backlash, is to create a series of threads 
discussing the issues, provide some 'interesting' studies, some resources 
available to IT professionals etc.

The first in the series is WHY.

This maybe one of the easiest and hardest subjects to deal with. Easy because 
in most case people have seen what happens when production data gets 'out'. 
Those who have read the newspaper reports of MAJOR companies being embarrassed 
in the press (as well as sued, loss of customers, etc) because of data 
breaches. A study of the Ponemon Institute sates the average cost per lost 
customer record was $197 U.S. in 2007. Now multiply that by 10,000 customer 
records...  'Loss of face'/confidence of the customer etc. it adds up.

The hard part is the same as the above. That is convincing management that 
there is a issue in the first place. Typical responses are (and this may or may 
not be relevant to your organisation) is 'we have non disclose agreements', 
'our files are secured by, RACF, TOP SECREAT, WINDOWS AUTHICATION, ACF2, etc. 
While these types of security are important, they do not solve the whole issue.

Example,

Application require 'good' quality of test data for QA/user acceptance/system 
testing. Right now the QA department/group/team  copy production data. The 
reasoning is that the quality of the production data is the 'best'  An QA 
analyst runs a report as part of his/her test case senerio. The report is 
printed and after verified, thrown out in a recycle/garbage bin. It lands up in 
a dumpster where someone finds it....

Another example

A customer service rep (CSR) who is responsible to access clients who's last 
name starts with the letter 'A'. Given most security set ups, she/he has access 
to the query application and has access to the entire DB. She/he access clients 
through out the DB, which she sells their info. How do you 
track/verify/prove/correct that? (Application auditing)

And it goes on (note these are actual cases)

And while this is not a direct concern to IT, there are legal 
restriction/requirements concerning protection PII. Depending on where your 
company operates certain safe guards/process/agreements needed to be 
executed/observed. And since a lot of companies are operate in many 
jurisdictions, there maybe may different laws that have to be observed, even 
when there is no actual 'brick and mortar' building there.

While I am sure many of you already 'get' this, the idea is to open a 
discussion on the listserv so others, as well as ourselves, can see other 
opinion on this matter

While this subject id extensive, my idea is to just give everyone a little 
taste of the 'WHY.

PLEASE let me know if you are interested in reading more. Otherwise I will stop.

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