What's Happening in Information Security

There’s been a lot of predicting going on with the advent of 2010. Right after the terrible earthquake in Haiti- a lab in California predicted that there’s a 99.5% of an earthquake with a 6.5 magnitude along the San Andreas Fault in southern California. That’s a pretty safe prediction – based on history and science. This prediction is different from predicting that an earthquake would destroy Pittsburgh, PA – where I don’t think there’s ever been an earthquake of any note before.

I’ve been following the predictions about security. One prediction important to a SIEM solution vendor like Intellitactics is the prediction made by the 451 Group that many of the security activities in 2010 will be defined by regulatory mandates such as PCI DSS, HIPAA/HITECH and others. This means that from the smallest to the largest organizations there will continue to be preoccupation with compliance. I wish we could predict that everyone will embrace PCI DSS compliance software to finally move beyond assessment readiness to remediation of assessment findings – but I’m not that bold!  

Nobody is predicting that energy around PCI DSS compliance will evaporate. What we see is that those organizations that were paying very little attention to security are now doing it ONLY because of PCI. In fact it seems that some organizations are basing their entire security strategy on PCI DSS instead of ISO, ITIL or some other best practice framework. We make this a little easier by aligning best practice controls to regulatory standards. It’s like putting a serving of vegetables in Manwich or fruit juice. If you don’t like the taste of the framework – you get your daily allowance whether you like it or not.

PCI DSS compliance may equal security for more organizations by the end of 2010 – there’s a prediction similar to an earthquake in southern California in the next 30 years.

Curious about PCI DSS Compliance software? Check out Intellitactics SAFE. Do you have a prediction for 2010 or beyond – share it here.