Datasheet

Part I: Building the Background

Information and Communication:

Risky Business

Information is our most valuable asset, and yet is coming under continual,

increasingly sophisticated attack from cyber-criminals who target it for

financial gain. The situation has been exacerbated recently with in wide-

spread investment in new, more efficient communication technologies.

Communication is essential to business; no argument here. But if you define

communication as “the sharing of information,” you get several developments

immediately:

✓ The more easily information is available, the more it tends to be shared.

✓ The more widely information is shared, the more ways it can be abused.

✓ If your business depends on information (what business doesn’t?) but

can’t control its communication technology, you’re in trouble.

Web 2.0 and the dark side of progress

Presently, the rapid emergence of constantly changing forms of communica-

tion is the norm. One of the most visible of these developments is Web 2.0 —

a set of economic, social, and technology trends that collectively form the

basis for the next generation of the Internet. The goal: a more mature, distinc-

tive medium, characterized by user participation, openness, and networked

capabilities. One consequence: The scope of what cyber-criminals can do has

opened up and left no boundaries. Ack. We’re all doomed!

Okay, panic aside (for now, anyway), here are just two examples of why Web

2.0 is an open challenge (so to speak) to effective data security:

✓ Unsecured, multiple-user technologies abound. Examples are wikis

(collaborative information projects) and blogs (online diaries), along

with services like Flickr (sharing pictures) and YouTube (sharing

videos) are prime examples of how the Web has evolved to bring about

increased community participation. What these services really do is

bring about freedom of speech to the masses? Unfortunately, though the

masses include the good, they must inevitably also include the bad and

the ugly.

✓ Web 2.0 technologies rely heavily upon Web services. Web services

are designed to support interoperability between hosts over a network.

But in the rush to develop Web services, the underlying Web applications

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