BreachExchange mailing list archives

Re: They Take it Seriously? Oh, Sure


From: "Sean Steele" <SSteele () infolocktech com>
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 09:41:28 -0500

Not to sound flippant, but would do we expect them to say?  Spin control is spin control, and PR wonks and 
in-the-crosshairs execs will continue to say the only thing they can say -- namely, that they take security very 
seriously. Such is life, right?

What I'd like to see is regulatory and civil penalties levied at the offending organizations, done in a "very serious" 
way.

--
Sean Steele, CISSP
infoLock Technologies
703.310.6478  direct
202.270.8672  mobile
ssteele () infolocktech com

-----Original Message-----
From: dataloss-bounces () attrition org [mailto:dataloss-bounces () attrition org] On Behalf Of B.K. DeLong
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 9:20 AM
To: Richard Forno
Cc: dataloss () attrition org
Subject: Re: [Dataloss] They Take it Seriously? Oh, Sure

That would be an interesting data point to collect - how many
incidents had a corporate wonk saying something to the effect of "very
seriously" or "extremely seriously".

On 1/10/07, Richard Forno <rforno () infowarrior org> wrote:
They Take it Seriously? Oh, Sure
January 9th, 2007 by Dan Gillmor

(I originally wrote this for PR Week magazine.)

Several weeks ago, UCLA acknowledged that some of its computers had been
hacked. Obeying a state law, it notified more than 800,000 people that their
personal data, including Social Security numbers, might have ended up in the
wrong hands.

The fact that the data got loose wasn¹t all that striking. Unfortunately,
that¹s all too common. What struck me was this statement from a hapless UCLA
honcho: ³We have a responsibility to safeguard personal information, an
obligation that we take very seriously.²

When and where have I heard that before? All kinds of times and places,
actually. It¹s becoming a mantra that means almost nothing.

Try this: Plug ³we take² and ³very seriously² into a Google News or Yahoo
News search. You¹ll get hundreds of hits, albeit some repeats, where some
big institution - corporate, educational, government, whatever - makes a
giant blunder and then issues a ³we take (insert the violated policy) very
seriously² statement.

< - >

http://citmedia.org/blog/2007/01/09/they-take-it-seriously-oh-sure/


_______________________________________________
Dataloss Mailing List (dataloss () attrition org)
http://attrition.org/dataloss
Tracking more than 143 million compromised records in 529 incidents over 6 years.





-- 
B.K. DeLong (K3GRN)
bkdelong () pobox com
+1.617.797.8471

http://www.wkdelong.org                    Son.
http://www.ianetsec.com                    Work.
http://www.bostonredcross.org             Volunteer.
http://www.carolingia.eastkingdom.org   Service.
http://bkdelong.livejournal.com             Play.


PGP Fingerprint:
38D4 D4D4 5819 8667 DFD5  A62D AF61 15FF 297D 67FE

FOAF:
http://foaf.brain-stream.org
_______________________________________________
Dataloss Mailing List (dataloss () attrition org)
http://attrition.org/dataloss
Tracking more than 143 million compromised records in 529 incidents over 6 years.


_______________________________________________
Dataloss Mailing List (dataloss () attrition org)
http://attrition.org/dataloss
Tracking more than 143 million compromised records in 529 incidents over 6 years.



Current thread: