While the HP carrion is still fresh, the "big brother" vendor vultures descend

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Pitching FUD

Hey David,

Not sure if it's a good or a bad thing that I've been through several cycles of the media getting fed up with the FUD-drenched nature of security PR. Good thing us vultures have a fast recovery time -- your post is sure to cause the ranks to cringe...

Tactics aside, your point -- that FUD has its limits, and that overkill is irritating -- is valid. Call me naive, but presumably, emerging technologies that actually emerge (should) deliver revenue, operational or profitability gains that can (hopefully) be measured in a semi-quantifiable way.

The conundrum with security is that most of the time the business case "aha" gels when bad stuff happens in public. HP is just the latest case in point ? great fodder as it involves elements of "bad intent" -- as opposed to the poor VA guy that got his laptop stolen out of his house and sparked the last media (and PR) frenzy. Hence, exploding mailboxes filled with FUD?eek. Sorry dude.

That said, I've been to enough security conferences to take issue with a couple of your conclusions:

1) "But trust me? anybody that's secretly communicating about company secrets with someone outside the company is not going to be stupid enough to share what they know over the corporate infrastructure."

Trust me, it happens - especially when people get away with it for a while -- and get sloppy.

2) "I also don't believe that such tools are appropriate for determining whether someone is goofing off on company time."

This is just my opinion, but "goofing off" is subject to interpretation -- integrating security into already complex networks is neither cheap nor easy. I doubt that would prompt a significant investment (at least in larger companies) unless there were potential legal or financial consequences associated with what people were actually doing while goofing off. They invest because they?re losing money, or could potentially lose a lot of it. There are issues of checks and balances and self-preservation that transcend shopping on Amazon or tripping out on MySpace. Finding out someone is running a porn site on your corporate server is not a productivity issue (it's an extreme case, but it?s happened?trust me)

Anyhow, felt the need to offer up some perspective from the flack side. The PR community walks a fine line balancing the sales and marketing needs of their clients vs. providing journalists with viable content ? which is why it?s a good thing that journalists complain, so we can course-correct. But we didn?t make this stuff up ? you guys report on bad stuff happening enough to know that where there?s PR smoke, there?s fire.

And by the way, my clients are....

Cheers,
Liz Safran

Posted by: Liz Safran   Posted on: 09/18/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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