The Field Report with Tom Field

More News You Can Use

More News You Can Use

It's been a busy news week, and once again as I scan our sites I see stories that have relevant threads for anybody interested in information security, risk management or privacy.

Let's pay our first visit to HealthcareInfoSecurity.com, where Howard Anderson gives us insight into the risks of social media.

In 5 To Be Fired For Social Media Use, we learn that a California hospital will fire five employees and discipline another because they used social media (Facebook) to post personal discussions about hospital patients. This incident hammers home everything we've said about privacy and the risks of unbridled social networking in the workplace. And, in fact, Howard extends the discussion in a blog entry that underscores the need for all organizations - not just healthcare - to have a solid social networking policy in place and enforced.

Over on GovInfoSecurity.com, Eric Chabrow has done a terrific job keeping us updated on cybersecurity discussions. The news this week is of a new cybersecurity bill proposed by the Senate, which not only would change how the federal government manages such initiatives, but also how it would work with the private sector to protect the nation's critical infrastructure. One of the key points to note, Eric says: "Owners of these critical IT systems could face civil penalties if they don't follow regulations to secure them properly." If that doesn't get your attention ...

In Careers, there are a couple of pieces I want to bring to your attention. The first is How to Avoid Hiring Fraudsters, a feature story by Upasana Gupta, who offers a half-dozen useful tips to use during the recruiting process to help ensure you aren't bringing aboard a potential bad apple in your information security organization. When you stop and consider the criticality of information and systems that security pros touch, you realize how important it is to preserve the integrity of this group.

The final piece I want to share is my latest interview with Purdue University professor Gene Spafford, who offers his annual "State of Information Assurance Education" insights. A veteran educator and information security guru with deep ties to both the public and private sectors, Spaf knows the landscape as well as anybody. And what he sees is a chronic inability to provide the right level of education to the right people. If this disconnect doesn't change, then it won't matter how many new information security jobs we create. We still won't be filling them properly.

Stay tuned next week, when we take a deeper dive into some of the fraud incidents that threaten our privacy - and our accounts.



About the Author

Tom Field

Tom Field

Senior Vice President, Editorial, ISMG

Field is responsible for all of ISMG's 28 global media properties and its team of journalists. He also helped to develop and lead ISMG's award-winning summit series that has brought together security practitioners and industry influencers from around the world, as well as ISMG's series of exclusive executive roundtables.




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