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Posts Tagged ‘European Union’

The European Union to revamp data-protection rules that will control information flow

January 24th, 2012

Europe has been struggling for stricter data breach laws for a long time. The recent data thefts have pushed the EU to make tough rules as regards data breaches and data security. This certainly is the need of the hour, not only in Europe but all over the world as data breaches are on the rise and hackers are taking advantage of the loopholes in the system.

EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding talks about introducing new data protection regulations

The European Union is in the process of proposing new regulations regarding how companies use the personal information of Internet users this week. The new regulations are going to have a major impact on companies like Google and Facebook. This is going to put stricter limits on how they use the information of the people that use their services. According to Viciane Reading, vice president of the European Commission, a branch of the EU, these new regulations are absolutely required to protect personal data of the users and rebuild a sense of confidence in them.

The current state of security laws in Europe:

At present there are conflicting laws from various countries that form the Union. These laws force the companies to collect data on consumers from the Internet. Companies who do not follow any regulations are becoming a victiom of data breach and are always at loggerheads with the governments. For e.g. Facebook, has been in the limelight as it was targeted by both U.S. and European regulators for the wayt they use user data. The company underwent 20 years of independent audits after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission proved that the company’s use of customer information was illegal.

What data privacy means for consumers?

Privacy is a major concern for today’s insurance industry. The more transactions we carry out online, the more we stand to risk of becoming a target of cyber crime. Data Breaches puts information of millions of consumers at risk and that means monetary losses for companies and insurance groups.

What will the new rules exactly do?

The new rules will make it compulsory for financial services firms and credit card processors to report incidents of lost or stolen data within 24 hours of a breach. These rules are set to come into effect today. The companies must, as per new rules, appoint a data protection officer to preside over the protection of personal data stored and processed by individual businesses.

EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding’s comment

“I want to explicitly clarify that people shall have the right – and not only the ‘possibility’ – to withdraw their consent to the processing of the personal data they have given out themselves,” says Reding. “If an individual no longer wants his personal data to be processed or stored by a data controller, and if there is no legitimate reason for keeping it, the data should be removed from their system.” ”Companies that suffer a data leak must inform the data protection authorities and the individuals concerned, and they must do so without undue delay,” adds Reding. “As a general rule, without undue delay means for me ‘within 24 hours’.”

Data security with Alertsec

Following the essential guidelines is very necessary for data security in any organization. This news exemplifies the need for data protection applications. In an incident which highlights the need of Data encryption software and recovery software, the threat could have simply been reduced to an insurance matter by a mere investment of $13/month. The information would have been secure with no loss what so ever. That is certainly a small price to pay compared to what can happen if you lose confidential or sensitive data. Alertsec Xpress offers a very good and easy-to-use laptop security. There are no short cuts to Data security in any organization. Alertsec offers ervice that includes more than the traditional software licensing model.

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Posted in Computer security, Data Protection, computer security software, data breach, data encryption

Tags: AlertSec Xpress Cryptography data breach data security Encryption European Union Facebook Federal Trade Commission Information privacy Internaut laptop Personal computer Personally identifiable information Theft Viviane Reding

The European Commission plans to implement new rules in the EU

July 19th, 2011

Cyber-attacks on big and small companies are making headlines these days. Valuable information is getting compromised. This has led the European Commission to consider revising the European Union’s personal data breach notification laws.

Most data about customers like names, addresses and bank account details is held by ISP’s and Telecom operators. According to the ePrivacy Directive they are required to keep this data safe and inform users if sensitive information has been compromised. They are also required to inform about data breaches to the relevant national authority.

Sometimes national laws conflict with those implemented by the European Union. What is important at this point of time is to create a law that would be equal for all Member States.Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes is currently seeking opinion related to laws and regulations from all Telecom operators ISPs, Member States, data protection authorities, national regulatory authorities and consumer organizations.

“The duty to notify data breaches is an important part of the new E.U. telecoms rules,” she said. “But we need consistency across the E.U. so businesses don’t have to deal with a complicated range of different national schemes. I want to provide a level playing field, with certainty for consumers and practical solutions for businesses.”

In addition, Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding is of the opinion that the data breach notification should also include online banking, video games, shopping and social media.

“It is important that users are notified if someone has unlawful access to their data. A social network with more than 200 million users in the E.U. must stick to E.U. law, even if it is based in the United States and its data is stored in a so-called cloud,” said Reding referring to Facebook.

“Seven days is much too long,” she said, referring to Sony’s delay in reporting a security breach involving 77 million PlayStation Network account holders in April this year.

ISP’s, operators can send in their opinions until Sept. 9. Input is required on security techniques, notifying victims, the means and content of notifications and levels of breaches (based on their seriousness, urgency).

The European Commission hopes that the new rules will help in better data protection thereby reducing the no of data breach cases.

Data security with Alertsec

Alertsec is here to take care of our security issues especially for anyone working with PCs. Alertsec Xpress is the service that automatically protects ALL information you store on your PC. The fact that we now buy more laptops than desktops shows that the information we all store is increasingly more vulnerable to be exposed. It is a much higher risk to lose a laptop than a desktop computer.

Encryption is the only secure method for complete protection of data stored on your hard disk. Today laptops are overtaking desktop PCs as the major source of computing and media storage, laptops frequently store an organization’s most valuable information. Thus laptop encryption is becoming more and more important.

Alertsec Xpress offers full disk encryption and is therefore superior to other encryption methods when comparing security, performance, robustness and ease-of-use for both administrators and users.

The European Commission plans to implement new rules in the EU (alertsec.com)
Goatse Security hacking group orchestrated a security breach of AT&T’s servers (alertsec.com)

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Posted in Computer security, Data Protection, Lawsuits and settlements, computer security software, data breach, data encryption

Tags: Brussels Enter your zip code here European Commission European Union Government Institutions Internet service provider José Manuel Barroso Multilateral

European Data Breach Law is a Worry for Telecom Companies

January 21st, 2011

: ENISA

Time and again, we have been educating you about the stringent data breach laws that are being brought into practice by governments of various countries. Our goal is to create awareness about the changes in the IT security system and the precautionary measures that you need to take in-order to control them. Talking about laws, United States has been a key driver for such laws and is followed closely by UK. This time our discussion spans across the whole of Europe, where the organizations in Telecom sector are apparently worried about a soon to be implemented law involving data breach notification.

What is ENISA?

Getting started, let us first of all try to understand what ENISA is? ENISA stands for European Network and Information Security Agency. ENISA is primarily the cyber security agency of European Union. Its mission is to achieve a high and effective level of Network and Information Security within the European Union.

ENISA’s Report about Data Breach Notifications

On 14th of January 2011 i.e. exactly a week ago, ENISA has released a new report about data breach notifications in Europe. The report is bi-folded and addresses the following aspects:

1. The key concerns of the telecom operators (via a representative sample of companies)
2. Issues raised by data protection authorities (via interviews of DPAs)

In the wake of recent breach incidents in Europe, the law is absolutely critical to reassure citizens that their data is protected by e-communications operators.

What is the Data Breach Law then?

This security breach notification law forces companies, which have lost customers’ or employees’ personal data to announce the data loss across Europe.

Eduardo Ustaran, head of the privacy and information law group at law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse (FFW), said “the law will be introduced under an amendment to the 1995 EU Data Protection Directive, which is currently being reviewed by the EU Commission”. Ustaran, further added, “All of the European data protection regulators have made very strong calls for this mandatory breach notification”.

The Executive Director of the Agency, Prof. Udo Helmbrecht commented: “Gaining and maintaining the trust of citizens of that their data is secure and protected is an important factor in the future development and take-up of innovative technologies and online services across Europe.

Back-tracking the Data Breach Notification Law

In the UK, the data-protection regulator is the Information Commissioner’s Office. The data breach notification laws started in California, have spread over most of the USA and in Europe, with national data protection laws already in place since 1973. The data security remains just one element of their comprehensive coverage. In the United Kingdom, the data-protection regulator has the power to fine organisations for breaching data protection laws and has first fined the Hertfordshire County Council and employment services company A4e.

The Part 11 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 contains a number of sections which deal with the retention of communications data by fixed line and mobile telephone service providers and internet service providers.

Data Breach History in EU

More than 1,000 security breaches involving the loss of confidential customer data have been reported in UK till now. According to the Information Commissioner’s Office’s figure, this list is topped by the NHS which has reported 305 breaches since November 2007.

Enisa data-breach expert Sławomir Górniak said “Every day there seems to be headlines that personal data has been leaked, that someone has found a laptop on a train”. Measures such as encryption can mitigate the risk, “If you lose a laptop, and it’s encrypted, and you have the keys, then this is not a data breach,” he added.

Organisations must provide a clear assurance to customer that the private data will not be leaked in the software and security functions used in privacy is at up-to-date level.

How Alertsec Xpress Would Have Helped

To stay secure, and protect your data from breach incidents, it is vital to use a data security/recovery software. In an incident which highlights the need of a data security and recovery software, the threat could have simply been reduced to an insurance matter by a mere investment of $13/month. The information would have been secure with no loss what so ever. That is certainly a small price to pay compared to what can happen if you lose confidential or sensitive data. Alertsec Xpress offers a very good and easy-to-use laptop security service that includes more than the traditional software licensing model. Feel free to subscribe for your personal 30-day free trial.

United Kingdom Tops Cyber Security

March 18th, 2010

All the internet community of UK would be extremely glad to hear that United Kingdom’s practices in Cyber Security have been found to be reasonable and adequately equipped to deal with the cyber security threats and other vunlerability attacks

The report was released by House of Lords committee. Apparently the House of Lords EU community report looked at how United Kingdom has geared up towards the defence mechanism in the Cyber space. In addition, the UK has been praised for their security effort which also says that the nation leads every other EU country and their benchmarks are unmatches and something that should be adopted by others in the fraternity.

With the encouragement, UK has also been advised to organize a training sessions focussed towards Cyber security. In addition, the report has also suggested the inclusion of US and NATO.

The report has also criticized ENISA, the cyber security agency of European Union for their location. The agency is located in a small Greek island of Crete.

According to the report, “We are convinced that the decision to site ENISA at Heraklion was not taken on the basis of a careful cost/benefit analysis, and it has led and continues to lead to problems over the recruitment and retention of staff, and over the scheduling of meetings,” .

In a statement issued by, Lord Jopling, chairman of the sub-committee “We believe strongly that the government and the EU should be giving greater attention to how cyber-security could be developed on a global basis. The internet has no borders, and it is important that any proposals from the EC are considered in a global context. “A first step must be better cooperation with NATO. The EU and NATO have similar interests in defence against cyber-attacks and work in similar ways, yet there is virtually no communication between them. There must be cooperation rather than duplication. “Further to this, broadening the dialogue with other major international players, such as the US, Russia and China will be essential if we are to become more robust in our defences against cyber attacks.”

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