Postcard from Bishkek

As usual, when I started considering a topic for today’s postcard, my first action was to check the diary and I discovered that were several things which might provide me with a theme:

• I knew, of course that November 30th is St. Andrew’s Day, and although my name, Ian, is originally Scottish I wasn’t sure how to mark the occasion … perhaps try to discover what links there might be between Scotland and Kyrgyzstan …
• According to the Calendar provided by the ROSS, (the Russian United Union of Countrymen, which brings together Russian “ex-pats”, their Clubs and Associations, here in Kyrgyzstan), it’s apparently World Pets Day … and I began to think of all those cute cat videos and photographs that litter the video sharing sites and Facebook pages.  I came across a problem, however, because it seems that everyone else thinks the day is commemorated on a different date … other sources seemed to be split between October 4th and February 28th … and I have even seen a reference to April 28th.
• Apparently it is also Computer Security Day.

In theory, having been a teacher of Computing and Information Technology, I( am supposed to be aware of the issues of Computer Security … it was always one of the most popular questions on the examination paper, presumably because it was a topic which gathered to itself lots of stories of crises and both actual and potential disasters.

The  Day was first commemorated as long ago as in 1988.  It was hoped that it would help to raise awareness of the importance of security issues and to  encourage people to think more about their computers and the information which is stored and processed on them.

Information is key to survival and success in today’s connected world and “among a business’s greatest assets” but one that is easy to overlook and take for granted.

The information on a computer system may be commercially sensitive data; operational data needed for day-to-day routines; personal data – by which individuals can be identified (not just ourselves, but maybe clients and business partners as well); account details, financial data and not forgetting passwords.

Not all the threats to computers and data are malicious (…  such as the Denial of Service hacking attack which took place on the website of the popular Vecherniye Bishkek (Evening Bishkek) newspaper last week …) although those are the ones that always seem to attract attention … there are much more mundane issues like fire and flood or power surges in the electrical supply which can be just as devastating.

The issue of computer safety covers a wide variety of topics from

• physical security of the equipment – protecting it from theft of damage from electrical surges or fire … even keeping it clean and  free from dust;
• protecting it from illicit access by unauthorized personnel – either physically (such as using a keyboard lock) or logically (with passwords);
• protecting the application programs from viruses, hacking programs, spyware and so forth;
• running audit programs and verifying inventories – know what you’ve got, where it is and what it is used for …;
• adopting policies and practices to protect the equipment and its valuable contents;
• performing backups of the data … and running checks to make sure that the system works as intended, especially the security measures such as backups …

and that is just for starters …

On one occasion I had cause to reinstate data from a backup – and started running the restore utility, only to discover that the there was a problem with the backup media and the files were empty … as a result we had neither the files which had become corrupted, not the historical data from which new copies could be reconstructed.

On another an external hard disc was knocked off what proved to be its perilous perch and hit the floor – the read/write heads gouging a gash across the surface of the disc and making it unreadable.

There have been several stories of laptop computers containing sensitive data being stolen – or even being simply “mislaid” – for example, left on trains.  The emergence of flash cards and external disc drives makes it easier for date to be ported from one machine to another – and although that can be useful, it can also pose a threat.

Indeed, the Transit Center at Manas Airport, here in Bishkek, recently carried out a campaign to raise awareness of security issues, and in particular the threat of malware and the variety of ways it can be introduced into a computer system.  A central question of campaign being:  Where has your USB Device been?.  Even the simple action of plugging in an iPod to charge it is a security violation and a potential risk.

Security issues are easy, (oh so easy), to overlook, as Prince William discovered last week.  Reports in the British press pointed out that photographs taken of him at work as a Search and Rescue helicopter pilot operating out of an Air Force base were posted on the internet before they had been cleared by security.   It turns out that the photographs showed some sensitive information and had to be withdrawn, edited, (pixilated in order to obscure some of the details), before being republished.

 

Officially, Computer Security Day is on November the 30th, but if this happens to fall on a weekend, then many companies and organizations hold their events on the next working day.

Apparently, more than 50 countries actively participate in this day, distributing posters and holding workshops.

The  website of the Association for Computer Security Day – which sponsor the day, (but hasn’t been updated for some time), has over 50 suggestions of ways companies can adopt in order to keep both their computers and their data more secure.  These include practical things, like installing smoke alarms in computer rooms, to common sense measures, such as regularly changing passwords and backing up data.  Another, more controversial, idea was: “Declare an amnesty day for computer security violators who wish to reform.”

Wikihow also has a list of things that can, and should (!), be done in order to protect our computers and the valuable data that they hold.

 

For the record:
Association for Computer Security Day,
5014 Rodman Rd,
Bethesda,
MD 20816.
Phone: (301) 229-2346.
E-mail: .
Web: www.computersecurityday.com.

 

 

Tags: Expat