Privacy

Though most U.S. companies still list customer and other corporate information as their most valuable assets, many keep pushing this data farther from safe lockdown in the data center--and are about to give it another strong shove in that direction.

In 1993, Private Investigator Joe Seanor had wrapped up employment stints in the CIA and the Department of Justice, and was looking for something new in his professional life.

It's a Catch-22 for many companies and IT departments: Allow access to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and the company is opened up to malicious content, phishing schemes and account hijackings. Block all social media sites, and the business risks losing young talent to competitors or will challenge employees to find workarounds. Which can be equally dangerous.

Here we go again. Another BlackBerry security scare, in which some "noble" researcher explains to all of us blissfully-unaware BlackBerry users that our precious devices aren't nearly as safe as we think they are.

Here's how privacy went the way of the dinosaur, how we let it happen and how we might be able to get some of it back

As strange as it might sound, there are times when I wish for the old days of the Internet circa the early 1990's. The days of Mosaic and Lynx, where there was no Flash, no Javascript and no Java. A simpler time where protecting your privacy and security wasn't as essential as it is today.

Let us be perfectly clear: While Facebook has received a lot of criticism lately about its new privacy policies and Open Graph concept, which allows them to partner with other sites which will also have access to some Facebook user data, Facebook isn't explicitly keeping secrets from you. But some security professionals and users continually knock the site for what they say are less-than-clear explanations about where your data is going, and how secure the site really is.

A financial crisis is not the time for organisations to become lax about the value of their information security assets.

Security expert Gadi Evron has plenty of experience helping governments fight cyber attacks. In this column, he offers a roadmap companies can use to prevent computer espionage.

The proliferation and popularity of collaborative Web 2.0 sites – there are around 250,000 new registrations to Facebook everyday – has changed the threat landscape and the way businesses need to think about security. Each year, newer technologies and weapons are being unleashed to leave Web users surprised, annoyed and at greater risk.‘Whaling’ or ‘spear phishing’, is one such threat and refers to phishing scams which specifically target high-worth individuals.

Harrison Ford is ticked off again. But not because the bad guys have hijacked Air Force One or kidnapped his wife from a Paris hotel room; this time they've swiped his identity to break into the bank where he works and steal millions of dollars.