There has been a ‘‘significant increase’ in the number of organizations rethinking their disaster recovery (DR) plans because of virtualization, according to Symantec, in its fourth annual IT Disaster Recovery survey.
The survey found that due to the increasing popularity of virtualization, more than half of the respondents (55 percent) are rethinking their DR plans, and [...]

This article will introduce how Microsoft Terminal Services can help organizations of any size meet regulatory mandates by following the CobIT methodology. The CobIT methodology, which is referenced via the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, provides 215 control objectives in four high level domains. This article highlights how 52 of the control objectives are meet by using Microsoft [...]

Activity logging and monitoring will help assess policy compliance, identify intrusions and breaches, and support an effective response program. The degree of logging and monitoring is risk-driven and increases with data accessibility sensitivity.
Activity Monitoring
Systems and databases should log and monitor user activity performed. The scope and level of audit logging and analysis activity will depend [...]

While organizations can survive the loss of most assets, such as facilities and equipment, few can recover from ths loss of critical information, including financial or customer data. To effectively protect this critical asset, information security must be addressed at the highest level of the organization, by boards of directors and chief executive officers (CEOs).
To [...]

Qualitative RA addresses more intangible values of a data loss and focuses on the other issues, rather than on the pure, hard costs. In a qualitative risk assessment, the seriousness of threats and the relative sensitivity of the assets are given a ranking, or qualitative grading, by using a scenario approach and creating an exposure [...]

Risk-based audit programs should be conducted by internal and/or external auditors to ensure the adequate implementation and effectiveness of data security policies and procedures. Audits involve the review of existing controls with the objective to provide management assurance that the controls implemented are effective and to report any deficiencies together with the appropriate recommended actions.
In [...]

Configuration management tools basically come in three different flavors:

Tools to discover configurations in the environment,
Tools that are dedicated to creating a Configuration Management Database (CMDB),
Suites of service management tools that include some level of configuration management capability.

1. Discovery Tools
The strength of point solutions:
Capability captures the target environment with the highest possible accuracy. Because of [...]

While hackers beating against the corporate firewall have captured the headlines, the breaches that are genuinely compromising business stability and consumer confidence are hitting data while in storage, known as data-at-rest. Businesses have made significant strides in protecting their networks from external intrusion, but today’s vulnerability is located in data storage. We examine the current [...]