IRMI Update—Issue #117
An E-mail Newsletter for Risk and Insurance Professionals
ISSN: 1530-7948
July 27, 2005
In This Issue
Colleague,
According to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu's 2005 Global Security Survey, internal
attacks on information technology systems are surpassing external attacks at
the world's largest financial institutions. While the survey focuses on financial
institutions, I suspect this is also true for other types of companies. Thus,
risk management and IT professionals should perhaps refocus from external threats
to employee threats.
Some of the other conclusions of the report are:
- Organizations need to be prepared for the changing nature of existing
and previously unheard of threats, whether they be "pharming" (domain spoofing),
the theft of "data at rest," natural disasters, political risks, or counterfeiting.
- The role of identity and vulnerability management in the compliance
world is increasing.
- Training and awareness are crucial, yet underutilized, contributors
to employee vigilance surrounding an organization's security function.
- A security program needs to be driven by the requirements of the business
and then continually monitored, measured, and adapted to the business's
changing operating environment.
The recent high profile disappearances of customer or employee data from
several large organizations really drives these points home. All organizations—large
or small—face these exposures and must address them.
Is this something you worry about? What steps has your company taken to guard
against internal attacks against your systems? Please
submit your comments.
Have a great day.
Jack
Jack P. Gibson, CPCU, CRIS, ARM
President
IRMI
We are now accepting nominations for the annual Gary E. Bird Horizon Award,
to be bestowed at the 25th IRMI Construction Risk Conference. This award was
created to promote the awareness of innovative risk management techniques and
processes. The four previous awards went to representatives from Mo-Kan Construction
Industry Substance Abuse Fund, Hoffman Corporation, Southern Industrial Contractors,
and Rifenburg Construction.
If you are proud of the accomplishments of your risk manager or safety manager,
please submit your and your nominee's contact information.
Balancing Legal Liability Risks (from an Educational
Perspective)—The risks associated with primary education are well documented
in existing literature and new risks will be identified in the future. It is
well known that the risk associated with activities on-site (playground equipment
& sport teams) and off-site (local and international fieldtrips) cause many
risk managers to bite there nails and consider not allowing these activities.
The biggest identifiable risk that needs to be balanced against the existing
activities is not the legal liability risk but the potential that a large portion
of the population, one hundred thousand Kindergarten to Grade 12 students in
my situation, will complete their primary education without an opportunity to
be physically fit or to leave home for many varied experiences.
Students that are restricted from participating in on-site activities will
not have a healthy mind and body, as per numerous studies on the positive effects
of physical activity, since many of these children only have access to these
activities through school since many families struggle with low income, single-parent
time traps, neglect in the home, and other variables. Restricting off-site activities
causes the student to miss out on the interaction with other students from different
cultures, which often share many of the same core values that we cherish. Ignorance
of other cultures may lead to disgust, disrespect, distrust, and fear of other
cultures. Developing friends and contacts in other locals will help the student
in the development of friendships, future business partners, political allies,
tolerance, and understanding for those people that we perceive to be different
from ourselves.
By restricting students to a narrow physical and geographical education our
society risks developing tomorrow's leaders into unhealthy individuals who will
be more focused on the small picture in an emerging global economy. In effect,
we are encouraging the decline of Western civilization by developing unhealthy
students to look inward for solutions to complex global problems.
Restricting on-site and off-site activities will help the bottom line of
today's organization but will hinder the development of our children, which
will cause greater risks for the future.
By Darius A. Delon, CCIB, FCIP, CRM
Manager, Risk Analysis and Insurance
Calgary Board of Education
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
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There are now 687 risk management and insurance articles on IRMI.com. Below
you'll find summaries of some recent additions with links to the articles.
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