additional effort' on Safe Harbor

U.S. must make 'additional effort' on Safe Harbor, EU official says

The original Safe Harbor agreement, under which businesses transferred the personal information of European Union citizens to the U.S. for storage and processing, was invalidated by the Court of Justice of the EU last year.

or more...........

Europe's data protection authorities are holding their own meeting on Tuesday. On Wednesday, they will publish their evaluation of the effect of recent changes in U.S. law on the alternatives mechanisms for trans-Atlantic data transfer.

U.S., EU reach agreement on Safe Harbor alternative

Andrus Ansip, vice president of the EC in charge of Digital Single Market, speaks at a press conference on Feb. 2, 2016.

 Credit: Katherine Noyes

Meanwhile, Europe's data protection authorities were meeting on Tuesday, a day before they are scheduled to publish an evaluation on how recent changes in U.S. law affect trans-Atlantic data transfer using alternative legal mechanisms. They will likely also offer an opinion on the Privacy Shield deal.

What service providers won't tell you about their information security

We had problems before, but our security measures are better now"

This particular vendor was honest about an issue which occurred as a result of a prior WordPress bug, and claimed to have better measures in place to ensure that patches were applied. Again, vendors can claim anything, but that does not make it true. In this case, while the vendor claimed to have current software releases, my scan indicated otherwise. 

I have intentionally omitted the industry in this case, because I did not want to unfairly single out a vendor that is likely one of the majority in how it handles security. Exposures can exist with any vendor, large or small, and regardless of industry. My primary point is that, fairly or not, the responsibility for ensuring the security of your vendors lies with you. Your customers expect it, and they will blame you -- not an upstream provider -- for any failures. 

Scan your vendors

Look for vendors that have a dedicated security officer

Conduct annual third-party reviews. 

Let Google be your friend

Remember that change can be good.