CIO, CTO, CSO, IT Service Management, IT Job Description, Sarbanes Oxley, and IT Salary News
CIO - CTO - CSO News
PCI DSS compliance is more than checklist managment
PCI DSS applies to any organization that accepts, stores or processes payment cards of any type and is a comprehensive checklist of actions these organizations must take to improve the security of global payment systems. Although the adoption of PCI DSS by an organization will most likely improve its security posture, being compliant with the PCI DSS does not ensure the organization is secure.
If Enterprises mechanically follow the PCI DSS checklist and our organization suffers a data securitybreach, they are still held responsible, and the organization still gets fined, suffers brand damage and may lose its ability to process credit card transactions. While checklists are useful tools, following them can lull us into a false sense of security.
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To rely solely on the PCI DSS checklists to secure cardholder data is similar to a pilot relying only on the pre-flight checklist before takeoff, then colliding with another plane during takeoff. A checklist is not enough. In reality, the goal of effective security controls is to prevent security breaches from occurring, and when they do, to allow quick detection and recovery. This requires not just following a checklist, but understanding the organizations compliance and security objectives, understanding what the top risks to achieving those objectives are, having adequate situational awareness to identify where we need controls to mitigate those risk, and then having implementing and monitoring the correct production controls.
Cost cutting starts with simplifying operations
Complexity produces cost, so IT departments may choose to standardize on a handful of preferred technologies or vendors. The biggest line item in IT budgets is people, so staffing must be addressed. That could mean hiring freezes, cutting back on use of consultants, replacing employees who leave with automation technologies (not another person) and similar measures to limit spending on people.
CIOs should plan proactively for spending cuts before they are mandated. That may involve rebalancing IT initiatives to focus on projects with near-term benefits while keeping momentum on longer-term, strategic projects. They also may need to align IT more closely with the business priorities, which are likely to focus on revenue.
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Tax laws hamper IT independent contractors
Section 1706 of the 1986 Tax Reform Act, an obscure law, certain classes of workers, including anyone who engages as a "computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work," are considered de facto employees for tax purposes, regardless of whether they claim to operate their own businesses as independent contractors. The IRS can impose significant tax penalties on companies who hire such workers as contractors rather than full employees, a fact that can make it extremely difficult for self-employed programmers to find work.
Section 1706 was originally sponsored by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, who hoped that forcing highly paid software developers to become employees would limit their ability to take advantage of tax breaks for small businesses. Ironically, it was also Moynihan who, when a study determined the law was not bringing in the desired tax revenue, tried to have it repealed a year later. He failed, and it's still on the books today.
Employees typically do not have to pay for their own health insurance, the way contractors do. Individual health plans generally offer worse coverage than group plans, and they can be incredibly selective about who they allow to join. Those who are accepted can expect their premiums to rise every year, often by double-digit percentages. Given these conditions, developers who have families to support or preexisting medical conditions are well advised to hang on to their salaried jobs for dear life rather than run the gauntlet of the dysfunctional American health insurance industry.
And if the prospect of being bankrupted by medical bills is not frightening enough, add the increasingly hostile legal climate surrounding the software development profession. In response to all-too-common reports of software bugs and security breaches, some organizations have begun lobbying for contractual language that makes software developers accountable for any defects in their code. For example, the SANS Institute has proposed a detailed contract that would require developers to certify that they had received appropriate training, observed any and all security procedures deemed necessary, and that their code was free of defects to the best of their knowledge, among other clauses.
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Over one third of HR executives ignore unemployment status of employment candidates
Boston - Results from new research released by Veritude, astaffing services provider, indicate a positive sign for the New England economy. All surveyed executives in New England, and across the country, are accepting of the economy as a reason for an extended unemployment when reviewing candidates. Specifically, when it came to examining the acceptable length of time for a candidate to be unemployed, 36 percent of responding executives said they did not believe it mattered how long a candidate was unemployed given the recessionary conditions, with 36 percent indicating that six months or less was their ideal length of unemployment.
The survey also revealed that when making hiring decisions, 44 percent of executives have no preference for a candidate's employment status. In addition, one-third of New England hiring managers and human resources professionals are considering rehiring information technology (IT) employees whom they had laid off.
According to our survey results, it appears that 2010 will be a better year for IT job seekers in New England, said a senior vice president of Veritude. With half of employers looking to hire back a portion of their laid off IT workers either as full time employees or contractors and employers accepting the economic downturn as a reason for an extended unemployment, IT job candidates should take heart that their employment status will not significantly bias a potential employer.
Although in the minority, 19 percent of those surveyed do prefer candidates who are currently employed as regular, full-time employees. Candidates who are either employed full-time or currently employed as temporary or contract workers are preferred by 22 percent.
Of all hiring executives, 53 percent did not care if a candidate was laid off in a first round as opposed to a subsequent round. While the majority did not have an issue with laid off workers, 17 percent of respondents found it more acceptable if a worker was not one of the first to be laid off.
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Windows Live Potential Data Breach
Microsoft is looking into reports that some Windows Live customers may have gotten access to other users' information.
"Microsoft is investigating reports of a limited number of instances in which Windows Live customers may have access to other customers' accounts when accessing their account through mobile Web browser," the company said in a statement Tuesday. "Microsoft takes customers' privacy seriously, and immediately upon learning of these reports, we started an investigation."
The company added that it "will take appropriate action once we have completed the investigation."
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Metrics to Manage Performance Defined by Janco
The performance of the people within an organization determines the success of business outcomes. Without optimal performance an organization can find itself floundering in the market and eventually fizzling out. Measuring the performance of our people and our HR department is a critical function for making sound business decisions and performance management decisions. HR metrics can be valuable tools for ensuring our people practices are aligned with our organizational goals and supporting the effective and efficient use of our most valuable asset, our people.
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Outsouring impact IT Service Management
Lack of proactive monitoring threatens end-user satisfaction and application performance
To operate a cost-effective business in todays highly competitive market, an organisation requires an extremely efficient IT infrastructure to link its data centers, business operations and globally distributed customers. All business-critical applications must run smoothly to satisfy end-users and customers service level expectations. Consequently, an enterprise's IT support services play a vital role. Many international businesses, for example, operate multiple hosted data centers and have communication rooms in many of their overseas locations. These same businesses often outsource some of their IT operations management
However, executives are concerned about poor visibility of IT infrastructure problems, high levels of service disruption, low end-user satisfaction and the impact on application availability. Visibility of an enterprise's infrastructures performance and availability are often inadequate because they have very little monitoring and performance information. Thus, they are a reactive organization. Enterprises must introduce an IT Service Transformation process to improve all aspects of IT Service Management (ITSM) and act as a foundation to monitor the critical business processes, which cover multiple applications and infrastructure integrated incident, problem and asset management.
Key objectives are to manage the infrastructure and applications proactively; generate a centralized system for their outsourced service providers; and link problems to their existing help desk.
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Data Breachs Costly
The financial consequences of data breaches can be severe. Many organizations lose customers and revenue because of the violation of trust incurred from a breach. Due to the growing number of state privacy laws, most breaches require that those whose information is compromised must be notified. Most organizations now pay for credit monitoring services for several years for all those impacted by a breach -- these services typically cost about $100 per person per year. And in some cases, organizations are subject to fines for revealing personal information.
Security Policy Manual (policies and procedures template) is over 240 pages in length. All versions of the Security Manual template include both the Business & IT Impact Questionnaire and the Threat & Vulnerability Assessment Tool (both were redesigned to address Sarbanes Oxley compliance). In addition, the Security Manual Template PREMIUM Edition contains 16 detail job descriptions that apply specifically to security and Sarbanes Oxley, ISO 27000 (ISO27001 and ISO27002), PCI-DSS, and HIPAA. Data Protection is a priority and security myths need to addressed.
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Dow sinks over 600 points as China and Obama square off
WASHINGTON-- The Dow skids by over 600 points as the Obama adminsitration squares off with China. China responds with "no more loans".
U.S. Internet companies might soon need to find a new strategy for dealing with China.
In announcing that it is now U.S. policy to advocate a free and open Internet around the world, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday essentially dared U.S. companies to follow Google's lead and put an end to their complicit censorship of Internet content. Google has said it will shut down its Chinese search engine if it can't find a way to offer an uncensored version under Chinese law, and while no one else has jumped on that bandwagon, they may soon have little choice.
"We are urging U.S. media companies to take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments' demands for censorship and surveillance. The private sector has a shared responsibility to help safeguard free expression. And when their business dealings threaten to undermine this freedom, they need to consider what's right, not simply what's a quick profit," Clinton said in remarks Thursday at the Newseum, before an audience including members of Congress, representatives from nonprofit groups, and perhaps more than one Internet company executive forced to ponder the meaning of that paragraph.
Clinton stopped short of actually proposing regulations or sanctions on Internet companies that comply with censorship laws. But her tone was clear: it's now the policy of the U.S. government to renounce corporate "engagement," or the belief that by merely being in countries like China, U.S. Internet companies are helping expand access to information.
Will it work? Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have already formed the Global Network Initiative, a consortium of companies and organizations designed to provide guidelines for operating in countries with authoritarian governments without turning into tools of those governments. Clinton acknowledged the work of the GNI during her speech, but is calling on companies to do more.
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Firefox plugs away in a tough market
Mozilla released a second release candidate of Firefox 3.6 browser, a modest upgrade that embodies Mozilla's effort to increase the frequency the open-source browser is developed.
The president of Firefox, announced second Firefox 3.6 release candidate Sunday but didn't share details. The release notes were equally mum, but the update process called the new software a "security and stability update."
The software is available from Mozilla's download site. More than 1 million people are testing Firefox 3.6 at present, and more than 300 million overall use Firefox, Mozilla said.
The new version includes Personas to let people customize the browser's appearance; blocks third-party software from encroaching on its file system turf to increase stability; and--perhaps most significantly given the competitive threat from Google Chrome--shortens start-up time and improves responsiveness and JavaScript performance.
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Wireless spectrum may be overloaded
The FCC has identified the limited supply of wireless spectrum as one of the factors that could limit the growth of broadband Internet services in the U.S., which could result in slower economic growth and job creation.
Wireless spectrum will be addressed, along with other factors affecting broadband access and services, in a national broadband plan that the FCC is now assembling. The plan was originally due to be completed next month, but the FCC received a 30-day extension from the U.S. Congress.
The wide array of devices on display at CES that rely on wireless broadband underscores the urgency of resolving the spectrum issue, Genachowski said. "The wireless infrastructure in the U.S. will be our platform for ongoing innovation and investment," he said.
With the explosion of technology into every facet of the day-to-day business environment there is a need to define an effective infrastructure to support operating environment; have a strategy for the deployment and technology; and clearly define responsibilities and accountabilities for the use and application of technology.
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New CTO for Virginia
Virginia Bob McDonnell has nominated Jim Duffey to serve as his secretary of technology, according to announcement today from the Northern Virginia Technology Council.
Duffey, president and chief executive of Duff Consulting, spent 24 years at EDS Corp., where he held a variety of positions in the United States and Europe, including three years as vice president and public-sector general manager, responsible for all of EDS' state and local, federal, civilian, military and Medicare client relationships.
He also is a former vice president and public-sector general manager at Dell.
Duffey has served on NVTCs board of directors since 2004 and was vice chair from July 2006 to January 2009.
"Jim will bring a strong private-sector perspective to state government and enthusiastically champion the issues and initiatives that are so critical to our regional and statewide technology community," said NVTC Chairwoman, president of U.S., Europe and Asia at CGI.
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Credit Card Haker Pleads guilty
(Reuters) - A 28-year-old college dropout pleaded guilty on Tuesday to charges that he stole tens of millions of payment card numbers by breaking into corporate computer systems.
The hacker, Albert Gonzalez, told a federal judge in Boston that he had engineered electronic thefts at companies including the card processor Heartland Payment Systems, the convenience store 7-Eleven and the Hannaford chain of New England grocery stores.
Mr. Gonzalez has previously pleaded guilty to computer break-ins at the retailers TJX Companies, BJ's Wholesale Club and Barnes & Noble.
"You face a considerable amount of time in jail as a result of your plea," Federal District Judge P. Douglas Woodlock told Mr. Gonzalez. "All aspects of your life are to be affected."
A federal court in Boston last week sentenced one of Mr. Gonzalez's conspirators, Stephen Watt of New York, to two years in prison for developing the software used to capture payment card data. It also ordered Mr. Watt to pay $171.5 million in restitution.
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NASA to release multi-billion dollar IT contracts
NASA says its on track to open competition as early as Dec. 4 for the first project in a series of large information technology services contracts that have been estimated to be worth more than $4 billion total.
NASA plans to award five contracts as part of the Information Technology Infrastructure Integration Program (I3P) acquisition to consolidate the agency's IT and data services. Input Inc., a market research firm, has estimated the total value for the five contracts, based on NASAs draft RFPs, to be $4.3 billion. The services contracts would consolidate current NASA contracts such as the Outsourcing Desktop Initiative for NASA and Unified NASA Information Technology Services.
The agency could release the Web Enterprise Service Technologies (WEST) final request for proposal (RFP) as early as Dec. 4, NASA said on Nov. 20. WEST would be a contract for public Web site hosting, Web content management, messaging and calendar services.
In addition, NASA said on Nov. 25 that it plans to release on or about Dec. 11 a final RFP for the NASA Integrated Communications Services or NICS contract for wide area network services, local area network services, telecommunications services, video services, and data services.
The agency also plans to release a final RFP for the Enterprise Applications Service Technologies or EAST contract for services that involve NASAs Enterprise Applications Competency Center on or about Dec. 18, the agency said.
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Virtualization improves disaster planning and change control
IT has been reported that organizations implementing virtualization often experience less server downtime than organizations not deploying virtualization, and many have taken steps to provide better disaster recovery than they could have in an unvirtualized environment. Several surveys show that virtualized environments experience between 35% to 40% fewer server outage hours per year than unvirtualized environments.The reasons often given are:
- Simplification - Virtualization allows more OS workloads and more applications per server. This results in fewer servers and more standardization, which results in easier provisioning of new or redeployed applications.
- Independence - Since the OS/application workload does not tie to a specific physical server, IT Management can migrate their workload from server to server thus becoming free a particular server. This facilitates the ability to dynamically migrate applications from an overused or failing server to a healthy server, avoiding outage.
- Flexibility - Virtualization simplifies the process of initiating an OS/application. This enables IT management to have options for locating the OS/application on a particular physical server. In that way IT Managers can easily suspend, relocate, and restart applications that are degrading on a server.
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- Better Change Management - Virtualization makes it easier for system administrators to set up a replicate test OS image, which makes it easier to fully regression test new configurations (new application releases, new software versions, etc.). Fuller regression testing of new configurations results in fewer defects encountered in production.
Smartphone selection tool has major defects
InfoWorld has put a smartphone selection tool on its web site that excludes several major factors that users need to keep in mind when they select a smartphone and provider. The calculator does not take into effect the coverage provided, if the phone can be used outside of the US, GPS, Wi-Fi, tethering, and features locked by the provider.
The selection tool includes only the iPhone, Eris, Droid, Pre, Blackberry Bold and Blackberry Storm. Whoever created the analysis must live in New York, Boston, or San Francisco. If they travel to places like Utah, Mexico, Canada, or Europe they would easily see the tool is not really very functional.
When you re-set the tool to InfoWorlds values you can see they have a basis to the iPhone which is a great phone but one that does not offer the coverage or features necessary to operate outside of big cities that have AT&T 3G services.
This does not help in setting standards for travel and off-site meeting policy and standards.
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Job cuts continue
Electronic Arts, the video game company, said it would lay off 1,500 workers and shrink its product lineup, even as it announced that it had acquired Playfish, a start-up that makes online games. Salaries will stay flat as well.
The company said the new job cuts were equivalent to 17 percent of its work force. It plans to cut its staff and close several offices by March 31. In a conference call with analysts, executives did not say which game titles they would cut, but that games in the bottom third in sales were at risk and that some games in development would be canceled. The cost-cutting plan would save at least $100 million this year, the company said.
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Security Policies Required to Stop SPAM
Security policies and audit procedures are required if enterprises look towards stopping spam. Courts and lawsuits do not help.
For example, spammers allegedly obtained the login credentials for Facebook accounts. The accounts were then used to send spam to those users' friends starting around November 2008. The spam either linked to other phishing sites that sought to collect more Facebook account credentials or linked to other commercial Web sites that paid spammers for referrals.
In May 2008, the same spammer was found guilty of violating the CAN-SPAM act and was ordered to pay $230 million for spamming and phishing on MySpace. The spam led to gambling, ringtone and pornography sites.
Facebook may choose to close the file once the default judgment is entered against the spammer, the court filing said.
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Fraud in H-1B Visa Program Shows Huge Gaps In Monitoring
An immigration lawyer in West Covina, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles, and his business partners have been charged with visa fraud in relation to an elaborate scheme targeting immigrants, according to a report from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
According to the ICE, the group is accused of selling the illegally obtained visas, including those in the H-1B category, for prices ranging from $6,000 to over $50,000. With the illegal proceeds from the immigrants, the group allegedly then purchased empty cemetery plots and plaques in Rose Hills Memorial Park, in Whittier, Calif., to hide the funds.
Why empty burial plots? Funeral professionals say these plots are considered investments that can grow at a rate of 10 percent a year, according to the ICE news release. ICE said this may be the first case of money laundering involving cemetery plots in California's history.
In the LA Times - 'It's unique in the sense that we haven't run into this before that an individual seeking to hide proceeds goes out and purchases cemetery plots,' said the ICE assistant special agent in charge. 'There are always new ways in which criminals will try and hide money, but this is by far one of the most unique.'
The question remains whether this case will weaken support for the H-1B visa program and help boost stronger, more proactive audit measures such as those in proposed legislation.
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Preventing Data Breaches
It is critical that organizations are proactive in their approach to mitigating insider threats. Week-after week there are disturbing, déjà vu-like stories of significant data breaches, arrests connected to insider attacks, or investigation reports emphasizing the necessity to control privileged accounts that hold highly sensitive data. With no safeguards in place, insider attacks are often very difficult to detect and block, largely because of excessive privileges granted to users, users sharing common log-ins and accounts, and privileged users such as testers, developers and even DBAs having access to sensitive data.
This Security Manual for the Internet and Information Technology is over 220 pages in length. All versions of the Security Manual template include both the Business & IT Impact Questionnaire and the Threat & Vulnerability Assessment Tool (both were redesigned to address Sarbanes Oxley compliance). In addition, the Security Manual Template PREMIUM Edition contains 16 detail job descriptions that apply specifically to security and Sarbanes Oxley, ISO 27000, PCI DSS, and HIPAA.
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