Bingo

Best Practice

The details are too boring to recount.  Impossibly large amount of records “exposed” due to human error.  Nothing new, same old. 

The only reason to watch is to see how the impact plays out.  It is Texas Politics, after all, and the Lege is in session, and this could prove to be a mild distraction from birthers and budgeteers. 

The data loser in this instance is an elected official, with aspirations to higher office.  Ms. Combs was angling to grab one of the vacant seats when Lite Gov Dewherst runs for US Senate.  So, there’s that.  I doubt many folks enter politics hedging against the risk of career flameout by batch job misconfiguration.  Time to update some campaign risk models. 

The lawsuit loser in this instance has tapped into the type of outrage commonly expressed in writers of comments in newspaper websites  - the "SOMEONEOTTAPAY tiny fist shaking, foot stamping" yadayada.  Sure, they wanna get to the bottom of this for the dignity of the victims.  With no damage, the victims will have a tough road to hoe.  Maybe they are discovering for attack ad quotes.  

At about six minutes in to her interview, we get the biggest loser.  Comptroller Combs says Gartner and Deloitte are on the case to advise on "best practices."  (It looks like Deloitte may be getting a small return on their campaign investment. )  This sort of reaction chafes me to no end, and is an assault on my dignity.  I might be wrong on this, but the evolving SOP for privacy incident response appears to be to spend money willy-nilly on whatever threat is foremost in the populace's mind regardless of the proximal cause of the incident.  One company's reaction to some speed freaks carrying away a safe with a couple of DVDs of data was to air gap their production environment and embark on a FISMA compliance project.   This firehose approach appears to be designed to make the potential victims feel better, I guess, but only enriches the best practitioners and "safe bet" consultants.   To me, it just seems a waste, and decreases my confidence in the competence of the organization.    

And, to quote the Comptroller, "oh my gosh, think of Sony... and think of you grocery store loyalty card."  

Well, at least country music is alive and kicking every night south of Round Rock, Texas. (The sight of a youthful Dale Watson and the State Capitol restores a measure of my Texan dignity.  That, and Chicken Shit Bingo.)


Best Practices in Risk Management Image courtesy of KoryeLogan.