So, several weeks ago I wrote a piece discussing the "long road to ISO 27001" adoption. A question posed to readers at the end of the piece: "How far off are we from the point at which ISO 27001 certifications in the U.S. are standard operating procedure for businesses -- the exception, rather than the rule?"

Well, the results are in! Our servers nearly crashed thanks to the influx of responses, but, fortunately, that wasn't the case. Here are the results...

I've just returned from my summer vacation, somewhat foolishly deciding to spend it under canvas in the south-west of the UK and expecting to get good weather. If my tent had leaked as badly in the last couple of weeks as data seems to have been leaking in the UK during the same period, I'd be in need of an aqualung by now! If it were an Olympic sport, Britain would have beaten China for pole position in the medals table!

It all started with the loss of a memory stick by a UK Government contractor which contained somewhere around 120,000 records, including the details of 10,000 of our nation's most serious criminals. We then heard about a compromise at global hotel chain Best Western...

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Paul Davilman from RSA’s Compliance and Solutions team sits down with Amanda Van Veen to talk about the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Cyber Security Standards and how these standards will impact IT security in the utility industries. Please note that due to the U.S. Labor Day holiday, we'll be back in two weeks (on September 8) with a new show.

Information risk management, and lessons-learned in the financial industry Last week's Economist had a good article entitled "Confessions of a Risk Manager", in which a risk manager from a global bank uses 20-20 hindsight to look at "what went wrong" in the lead-up to the credit crunch and the ensuing fallout. I won't pretend to understand all the ins and outs of financial derivatives, but there were some points raised that anyone in the IT security space can identify with...

On August 18 the PCI Security Standards Council formally announced (http://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pdfs/08-18-08_2.pdf) forthcoming changes to the Payment Card Industry's Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) as it moves from version 1.1 to version 1.2 in October 2008. The release represents the first major update since September 2006.

What's my take on the summary of changes? Most merchants will be pleased to see that these are relatively minor changes...

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This week, Amanda Van Veen speaks with analyst Rod Nelsestuen from the TowerGroup. Rod covers key issues affecting several financial industry segments including emerging markets and trend, security, and risk management matters and in this segment, talks with Amanda about the evolution of business continuity planning and security’s increasing role.

Although the NERC Cyber-Security Standards (http://www.nerc.com/files/CIP-002-1.pdf) are applicable only in the US, I think there's no doubt that cyber security is fast becoming a major concern of electric utility companies worldwide. In addition, other US critical infrastructure industry segments, such as water and chemical companies are also coming under increasing federal pressure to improve their own cyber-security efforts. Still, the NERC Cyber-Security standards have been criticized for being too ambiguous, providing little in the way of guidance, as well as for leaving loopholes for utility companies to beat the rules...

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In a recent RSA Web Seminar focused on the new FACTA Identify Red Flags provisions, industry analyst, Ken Herbert, with Frost & Sullivan, explained what financial institutions or creditors need to know about the upcoming November 1 FACTA deadline and provided some key recommendations for complying with the regulation. In this week's podcast, we'll share some of the questions and answers from this online event. To learn more, watch the entire webcast replay.