New statistics* shows disaster recovery (DR) is getting more attention, and more upper level execs become involved with DR issues. Ideally, each company should have an emergency plan in case of power/system failure, loss of access, outside attack, sabotage or else – called DRP (disaster recovery plan) or even DRRP (disaster response and recovery plan). DRP is only a part of risk management practices which ensure emergency preparedness and risk reduction and include such initiatives as regular data backups, stocking recovery software, archiving, etc. – these activities are reflected in PMI and NIST standards.

In my previous post I suggested several variants of computer security translated by different laws. Now I’d like to get to ciphers…again viewed by law.

Most laws define security obligations as reasonable, appropriate, suitable, necessary, adequate etc. without giving more precise directives to follow. Is it good or bad? And what should be known about these standards?

In this entry I’d like to suggest a kind of a list of various legal decisions on password [ab]use I could find on the web. Your add-ins are welcome, just put in any other acts you know…

 Today’s technologies allow staying online practically 24 hrs a day, periodically falling into a sleeping mode. The Internet became easily accessible and numerous devices can connect us to the web from everywhere, and every time when we surf the web we are being registered, at least via IP address of our devices. 

Wow, Adobe rethinks PDF security. Curious why? Because of vulnerabilities in Abobe Reader (and so zero-day exploits), of course. From the article:

Time is money, difficult to contradict this fact. And another proven fact is that you lose something exactly when something turns out to be absolutely necessary. Once you lost a password to your Word document or presentation that you were going to give in an hour, or Excel report which was supposed to be sent to your manager yesterday… you will count seconds before you get back your files. (more…)

A number of D-link routers are now equipped with captcha feature. Sounds interesting. 

Today’s businesses are very mobile. Sometimes you don’t even need to have a conventional office, it becomes virtual, it is always with you in your mobile phones, netbooks and laptops. Such mobile mini-offices stuffed with corporate documents and reports, partners’ data, confidencial correspondence, access passwords are in danger of being stolen, both virtually and physically. You can try to protect your laptop using laptop security cable locks but what if it was stolen? Let all your information go into adversary’s hands? Do you _really_ think that your Windows logon password is an impenetrable barrier for the adversary? Have you heard of Elcomsoft System Recovery? You still think your laptop is secure because you have BIOS password and/or partial drive encryption? Read an article by Kevin Beaver ‘Securing corporate data on your laptops’ , take off rose-colored glasses and revise your laptop security as suggested in Kevin’s step-by-step outline. 

Probably you’ve already heard about this vicious circle thousand times: