As reported in PC Pro by Nicole Kobie 04/21/2011: ISPs and telecommunication firms in the UK will be required to tell the Information Commissioner if they suffer a data breach. This reporting could become a mandate soon since the ICO has recently been under fire for failing to take action on many reported data breaches.

The new rules would be the first data-breach notification requirements in the UK, an ICO spokesperson told PC Pro. While the regulation is yet to be finalized, it "looks set to happen," the spokesperson said.”

The full article can be read on pcpro.uk.co: http://bit.ly/hl7jLa

Viewfinity knows the reality is that no company wants a data breach, let alone having to report it and making headlines in every media outlet. Mitigating IT Security risks at your company is crucial and it requires multiple layers of security protection.  Removing administrator rights from end users, combined with using a privilege management solution can provide that additional needed layer of protection to secure your endpoints and eliminate the public relations and financial disasters that go hand in hand with a data breach.

In Q1 2011, not surprisingly there was a lot of attention within the analyst community given to the topic of desktop lockdown and using privilege management and application control as a way to further protect distributed desktop environments. We have more information on these reports on our website, but here are just a few highlights noted in these reports that we felt are relevant: 

“Removing administrator rights from end users is one of the single most-effective ways to improve overall security posture, but it must be well-planned to avoid common pitfalls and a failed project,” said Neil MacDonald and Michael A. Silver from Gartner Research. (Best Practices for Removing End-user Administrator Rights on Windows, March 14, 2011, Neil MacDonald | Michael A. Silver).  Neil MacDonald further elaborates on this topic in his April 8, 2011, blog posting, Even With Windows 7, Privilege Management Tools May be Needed.  In this posting he notes, "One of the top recommendations I made to increase your security “bang for the buck” in 2011 was to increase the percentage of users that run without administrative access."  I recommend reading both the report and the blog article for an independent perspective on how to approach removing administrator rights.

Interesting results in this CIO Insight survey:  The top 10 highlights from 300 IT decision-makers, results reveal an increased focus on endpoint security.   

“Don Reisinger on 2011-04-11 We know you're always thinking about ways in which you can best safeguard your company’s important data. Most likely, you’re wondering about the latest ways malicious hackers can break into your network. And, chances are, you're concerned that employees aren't engaging in the safest practices to ensure sensitive information isn’t leaked out. As we watch the fallout from Epsilon data breach we're all facing questions about what more can be done to safeguard sensitive information. Of course, strong enterprise security is an expensive proposition. A recent report from IBM reveals that many IT decision-makers are focusing on increasing their investments in endpoint security. The survey features responses from 300 IT decision-makers.” 

Full survey results can be found on CIOinsight.com: http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Security/Strong-Information-Security-Starts-at-Endpoints-663080/  

Let’s face it- more layers of IT security protection provides more secure endpoints. This equates to less vulnerability to hackers, malware, and embarrassing security breaches that could prove costly to your company’s bottom line.  An added layer of protection, such as locking down desktops and managing user permissions through policies, further protects companies from these unwanted incidents. Companies are turning to Viewfinity for a privilege management solution that adds that extra layer of IT security protection.  

Download our free Local Admin Discovery Tool that analyzes your Active Directory domain and discovers user accounts that have local administrator rights.  Once the analysis has been run, you can take action by removing the users or suspicious groups from the Administrators group.

Any security-conscious organization should make locking down user desktops to prevent the installation and execution of unauthorized software a high priority. Without using automated methods to prevent these actions, users can risk the health of legitimate applications. This can result in the diversion of valuable resources from revenue generating tasks and quickly impact the bottom line. As a result, customers could be lost and jobs could disappear. http://bit.ly/fJMBHj

Viewfinity backs this up fully.  Organizations of all sizes have more secure and stable desktops when users do not have local administrative rights on their desktops because lockdown provides an added layer of protection.   Several layers of security protection are needed to reduce the risk of security breaches. Removing Administrative Rights from your PCs is an added layer of protection that will halt breaches that could otherwise occur.   

Next steps:

Download Viewfinity’s Local Admin Discovery tool, which is a free tool that allows you to discover user accounts and groups that are members of the local “Administrators” built-in user group on computers in your Windows domain. Once the analysis has been run, IT Administrators can take action, if needed, by removing the users or suspicious groups from the Administrators group.   

Download Viewfinity’s Local Admin Discovery free tool.  (Link to:  http://www.viewfinity.com/Resources/Discover_Desktops.aspx )

Viewfinity’s Privilege Management Solution was recognized last week for its role in helping government agencies comply with federal mandates, specifically those related to USGCB/FDCC compliance that have been put in place to reduce IT security risks at the desktop level. Viewfinity provides governmental IT security and operations professionals with a cost-effective solution to protect and control your desktops as related to USGCB/FDCC mandates while minimizing the impact on the end user community.  We do this by introducing granularity to desktop permissions and privilege access management by offering solutions to manage and control least management rights based upon segregation of responsibilities.    

Download our brochure that explains more about this solution: 

http://www.viewfinity.com/Resources/Brochures/Viewfinity_USGCB.pdf

Or visit our website for demos, trial evaluation, white papers, and other resources:  http://www.viewfinity.com/Resources/Default.aspx   

You've got to read this.  This is a reposting of a March 12, 2011 article that was posted on InformationWeek online:

"Jake Widman 03/12/2011 They make the news on a regular basis: incidents in which a company or government agency's security is breached, leading to a loss of information, personal records, or other data. There are many ways to measure the size or cost of a security breach. Some result in the loss of millions of data records, some affect millions of people, and some wind up costing the affected businesses a lot of money. Not to mention, the questions of you calculate the value of personal medical information vs. credit card numbers. Here are ten security breaches of epic scale, plus one "bonus" incident that ranks among the boneheaded moves of all time."

Locking down machines and using a commercial privilege management solution to manage user permissions further protects companies from experiencing these security nightmares. Companies are turning to Viewfinity for managing that added layer of protection that will halt breaches that could otherwise occur.

Read the chronicle here:  http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/security/attacks/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229300675&pgno=1&isPrev=

And after you've read it, download our free Local Admin Discovery Tool that analyzes your Active Directory domain and discovers desktops with local administrator rights.  Once the analysis has been run, you can take action by removing the users or suspicious groups from the Administrators group.