Quicksilva thoughts...

Again? It seems to be a weekly occurrence now that stories of confidential data being lost are hitting the news. In this case, the disks were encrypted but that will hardly ease the fears of the patients whose data is missing. Encrypted or not, leaving disks in a post tray marked ‘recorded delivery’ is hardly a secure place to leave confidential data.

In this case, a member of staff has been suspended. As organisations must be accountable for having strict policies and procedures in place, individuals must be responsible for following them. This may go some way to adjusting the apparent relaxed thought patterns around handling data. More care and attention must be taken in such scenarios. If not, you could be out of a job.

Quicksilva thoughts...

I accept that there is a wide range of incidents that fall under the category of a data breach and many will be very minor, but I find the fact that only 1% led to formal disciplinary action shocking.

With so much work being done ensuring the IT infrastructure is as secure as possible within CfH, it is infuriating to see so little consenquences for actions such as staff inappropriately accessing patient records.

Until people are made to take personal responsibilty for their actions in respect to data security, and an example made of them, we are going to see more and more major incidents.

Quicksilva thoughts...

The news that Childline are now opening up different channels of access is great news I feel. Currently only 67% of calls get answered and just 40% of children who need counselling receives it.

So the news that children can now text from the safety of their bedroom or log on to the website from their local library or school is very reassuring. The thought of a child having to find a local phone box out of sight of their abusers is worrying enough let alone what they are going through.

I think it’s about time we started using the technology we have to an advantage for children - times have changed, children now have mobile phones, is this wrong? Well that’s another story but for the time being if parents are allowing their children to have mobile phones we should capitalise on this and make it easier for these children to contact people for help with ease.

You only have to read a few articles of children who have been saved by Childline to understand that this new Hi Tech Help for children is going to benefit thousands of our most vulnerable population. You have my vote.

Quicksilva thoughts...

It seems that everyday a new security breach is publicised via the media, and I'm not going to dwell on fault or blame here. This article regarding NHS Lothian highlights the problems encountered and efforts that go into securing information.

The trust have approached the issue in a sensible way, they have used amnesties and provided information to employees, bought technologies to provide Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability of information that has to go 'off site' but have run into the main problem with security, people.

None of the recent cases address the problem of people being the weakest link, even once you've locked down the hardware used and had your employees sign information security policies, sensitive information can easily be sent to external sources by email without the sender having full grasp of what they think is harmless data and how it could be subversively used. So do you train all staff in information security to a level that it becomes second nature, which takes a lot of time and still doesn’t guarantee success, or create a 'nanny state' in your organisation?

From my own experience of providing secure IT services many fall into the second category and fall into the trap of securing information to a level where suppliers and employees can not provide a service. Difficult times ahead for many organisations IT managers.

Quicksilva thoughts...

With the world's financial turmoil filling newspapers and television news, it would be naive to hope that any industry would remain unaffected. Those vendors supplying the finance industry directly will undoubtedly be most affected, but all of us will be tightening our belts in the coming months.

However, like any situation there is always an opportunity arising from it and in this case, hosted software and software as a service approaches stand to gain as customers reign in budgets. It will be how IT businesses react to the crisis and position their products going forward that dictates the effect the sector will suffer in the long run.