Dr. Herbert (Hugh) Thompson is Chief Security Strategist at People Security and a world-renown expert on application security.

Explained in RSA Conference Europe 2009 how sharing personal information over social networking site can cause problems. Listen Podcast

KEY-102 Beyond Credit Card Numbers: The New Threat of Gateway Data

There are some types of data that appear to have no value such as someone’s favorite color, their address, or the name of their childhood pet. Employees may give this data away freely through social networking sites, or the enterprise as a whole may treat it with minimal scrutiny.

Now, more than ever, this data can act as a gateway to much more critical information. This “gateway data” is largely unregulated but in many cases can be used in very creative ways to access valuable resources. It can be exploited directly through password reset systems and in other ways. It can also be used to lend credibility to a targeted phishing email. This presentation takes a look at new ways this data is being leveraged to gain access to valuable resources and regulated information. We’ll also look at how to defend against the growing threat.

HOT-209 Collateral Hacking

With the increase in denial of service attacks at cloud-based infrastructures, organizations are now sharing resources with people or groups that have enemies and can suffer collateral service or data loss. We have seen an instance of this with the recent Twitter DoS attack – aimed at one Russian blogger, any organization dependent on real-time communication using Twitter also suffered damage. As more and more companies outsource for SaaS solutions they are now pooling resources with other unknown companies that could be targets for attacks. How do you defend yourself against collateral hacking?

Panelists: Ira Winkler, President, ISAG, David Ostertag, Global Investigations Manager, Investigative Response, Verizon Business Services, Andrew Nash, Senior Director of Identity Services, PayPal

Tags: corporate security, Dr. Herbert (Hugh) Thompson, information security, New Threat of Gateway Data, password security, RSA Conference Europe 2009, social networking threat