Sunday, August 15, 2010

The big information security illusion

Now for years various vendors have worked to bring the various worlds together: IT, mobile phone service and physically security. The new thinking of "Everything is secure as long as the end point is secure" might not work out. Countries like Saudi Arabia or UAE pretty much told Blackberry manufacture RIM "Too much security/privacy" and are either thinking about, or already have made Blackberries illegal in their respective country.

Someone might say "Oh well not that big of a deal"...but this was just the start. Now IT outsourcing country #1 joins the club of Blackberry "haters" - India. What could that mean? For example software token solutions installed on your Blackberry used for multi-factor authentication could potentially be eavesdropped on by the Indian government. Some of them utilize SMS text messages to provide codes to users. Those codes are used to authenticate against IT systems requiring stronger authentication due to the sensitivity of the data stored on them. Some governments (e.g. Germany) already have advised to not use RIM devices for sensitive information.


Read more: Wallstreet Journal article



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