back to article RSA boss demands revamp of outdated privacy, security regs

Corporate security policies that simply adopt regulations and obsess over privacy are stuck in the last century, according to senior execs at security biz RSA. Tom Heiser, president of the EMC-owned outfit, told delegates to the RSA Europe conference that efforts to comply with red tape and standards is fruitless as the rules …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RSA... Oh, hey, aren't they those guys who got completely owned by an APT?

    Wasn't it China?

    Don't those guys use mostly off-the-shelf tools and +1days, according to a bunch of recent reports, some even mentioned here at El Reg?

    Well, you guys sound like experts on the area of security! Have ALL of my personal data!

    Bloody gits.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RSA just want to sell their overpriced new products. Their latest being an encryption that splits passwords in half and separately encrypts the two halves. Not bad you say? how about $150,000 per licence!

  3. Sir Runcible Spoon

    Sir

    PCI-DSS compliance is supposed to be a baseline to ascertain whether you have gaping holes and are securing your data. It is not a quality assurance that the steps taken are current or the best thing to do right now - that is the responsibility of the people applying the PCI-DSS policy.

    Which is great in theory.

    In practice it ends up being a checkbox list and the QA is ignored.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "...privacy laws need to be revised to facilitate better information sharing."

    Or : 'Stop complaining. Don't you know there's a war on?'.

    Ee it's like 1939 all over again.

  5. John Sturdy
    FAIL

    One thing that will never change

    One thing that will never change is idiots leaving USB drives on trains, in skips, etc.

    One detail that might change over the next few years is that they may be USB3 (the drives, not the idiots) thus allowing faster upload of their unencrypted contents.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I hear complaints...

    ... but not the slightest clue on how to do different. Given that apparently the makers of the rules haven't managed any better than what we have, and these Information Security Professionals apparently haven't a clue on how to improve either, where do they expect the improvements are going to come from?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I hear complaints...

      I can build you a secure system. But you want it deployed within a month and with a thousand bells, whistles, and dynamic parts.

      Don't blame the infosec world for the failings of management.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        So to overcome the failings of management...

        ... it's perfectly acceptable to demand legislation, in effect expecting laws to drive innovation?

        I can turn this any way I want, but all I get out of it is "does not compute". I think there's much, much more dysfunctional in infosec than and/or due to mere failings of management.

    2. P. Lee

      Re: I hear complaints...

      One way to "do it different" is to stop the plethora of protocols talking between third parties for so many reasons.

      Dead-dropping data makes it easier to check and takes out dodgy^H^H^H^Huntested proprietary protocols.

      Not a panacea, but a step in the right direction. This is where things like PCIDSS fail. As long as you don't control the product, you're "allowed" not to look inside the protocol.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bloody self serving fools

    Funny that privacy and human rights only were important until they got in the way of making profit for US companies - from that point they got a tad more, umm, "flexible" with their laws.

    I would not trust any US company exec to respect privacy. Respect for human rights isn't in their DNA.

  8. Mephistro

    'Art Coviello conceded that privacy was a "cultural issue" '

    Yep, just like Human Rights.

    Conceded to whom?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lol RSA trying to appear relevant

    no text

  10. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    A noted terrorist wrote..

    "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

    237 years later it's still true.

    http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Battery salesmen

    RSA was pwned by China, and Coviello is still running the assylum.

  12. multipharious

    Implement it with consent

    What bothers me is Art's cultural disregard for how business is done over here. He used the words "on his own network" during his keynote which indicates that he has missed the boat near to completely.

    Even in more privacy centric countries, if one can demonstrate risk combined with disclosure/informing through proper employee communications, everything gets through. It is the conversation that is needed, even if this conversation is short. Force feeding US corporate post privacy policy to Europe isn't the right discussion model...

    What he was saying was something I agree with. How he was proposing steamrolling here in the EU was not.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Disregard for other people's culture...

      ... is something Americans[tm] have down pat. In fact they've patented it and will sue your trousers and pants off if you so much as look to emulate them in that. It's the New American Way[tm]!

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