• PC World
• Business Center
• Security
• Data Protection
• News

Think your security staffers are trustworthy? Competent? Knowledgeable? Ask a security professional for horror stories and you might think again.

Here's one from Kevin McDonald, executive vice president at managed services provider Alvaka Networks, a member of the national board of directors of the American Electronics Association and author of several books on cybersecurity. A construction company client of his had a senior IT person who was also in charge of security. Somehow, this head of security convinced the firm's owner that it would be cheaper to store the company's employee databases at his home, where he had fiber-optic lines already installed, rather than store those databases off-site.

You can see this one coming from a mile away: A conflict arose between employee and employer. Before you could say "internal threat," the head of security was sending threatening e-mails to the construction firm's customers, telling them that he had their private information.

The action "fundamentally put this guy out of business," McDonald says, reducing the construction company's contracts by some 70%. It took six months to shut the rogue employee down, given that -- of course -- he was an authorized user. Only when the employee threatened, publicly, online, to use the data in an illicit manner, was the FBI in Los Angeles able to enter the employee's home -- after the employee had already built a site and lain plans to put some hurt on his former employer.

It's a worst-case security scenario of hiring a nut case. Unfortunately, the security sector isn't immune from bozos, incompetents or know-nothings, whether in their midst or passing down decrees from above. Indeed, security pros are less likely to be judged on the merits of their output than are, for example, code jockeys. What gets in the way can be politics, bad luck, misguided C-level execs, out-of-control consultants, lack of communication, isolation from other parts of the business, blind faith in certifications or simply the difficulty of getting rewarded for what doesn't blow up.

And that's just a partial list.

But take heart. Good companies can weather bad apples in security. Herein, an outline of common security weak sisters, along with the tools on how to cut them off at the knees.

Bundled Badness

At this moment somewhere in corporate America, security staffers are cursing their C-level execs for foisting on them bundled junk. Here's how it works: Salespeople from the big guys -- be it Symantec, Trend Micro, McAfee or CA -- come in and propose to a C-level executive that, for an entire organization, they'll provide a package that does desktop antivirus, e-mail security, intrusion detection and Web filtering, all for $38 per seat.

What's wrong with that picture? "At that point, you've commoditized those critical parts of the security infrastructure," says the head of a security software vendor who requested anonymity. "The problem is, the perception of C-level execs is that security is a commodity. One is the same as the other."

It's not that those vendors aren't good. It's just that they're not good at everything. Symantec AV has a stellar reputation, for example, but some security professionals consider its antispam functionality to be less than best of breed.

Repercussions from one vendor's successful sale into the U.S. Department of Defense are still being felt. "[This particular vendor] won the DoD contract. Then we start hearing from guys at various DoD installations saying'Oh, God, this is horrible stuff. We can't use this,'" says the anonymous vendor.

Organizations whose C-level execs buy bundles do save money -- lots of it. Unfortunately, they often get "really subpar security; sometimes dangerously so," says the vendor.

But how to get that through the head of the C-level exec who's sold on a bundle? By getting security personnel in on the decision-making process, before the money has a chance to drift out of the C-exec's hot little hands.

Bob Maley's lucky that way -- his employer fixed the problem shortly before he came on board. Before he took on the job of chief information security officer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in late 2005, the Commonwealth had developed an enterprise architecture process patterned after that of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers ( NASCIO ). Part of that process, now in place for some more than four years, is a clear set of standards for security product selection.

As Maley puts it, some other parts of the government may have unlimited resources to purchase security tools, but not his. So he and his group have gotten good at collaborating with peers -- not only through NASCIO but also through the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center ( MS-ISAC ).

Under the MS-ISAC, which is run through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, all 50 states share best practices. As well, the organization recently has hitched a ride on the federal government's SmartBUY purchasing initiative, designed to leverage the government's hefty buying clout to save money through aggregate purchasing.

What works for one sector -- the government -- in this case works for others: Network with peers, find out what security tools they use and trust, and find out which are clunkers to avoid.

But if it's not an option to cut your bundle-buying C-exec out of the picture altogether, salvation comes down to intervention at an early stage. Communication is key, and not the type of communication where security says "We have to use XYZ because I said so." Rather, security has to convert the geek discussion into a business discussion.

"I recommend that security get users to buy into them as people," advises Alvaka Networks' McDonald. "Do lunch and learn internally. Bring staff in, bring management in and have them understand why the things you're saying are being said."

That helps security pros to break down the "You're just in the way" barrier, McDonald says. "If you ask the employees and management,'So, I have these things I'm being told I have to do -- say, to secure PCI information, or to protect assets of the organization, and do other things mandated by government. What would you have me do if you were in my seat?'"

It's not formal training; rather, it's getting together and figuring out how to do the security task at hand.