It's that time again!

Once again it's almost time for Infosecurity Europe and this year I seem to have a very full diary for all three days!

On Tuesday 28th April at 12:00 I'm giving a talk on "Cloud Computing: 50 Ways to Lose Your Data" closely followed by a press conference on a nasty new trend in compromising e-commerce sites.

On Wednesday 29th at 15:00 I'm wearing my white-hats.co.uk and ISACA hats and chairing a security expert panel on "Social Engineering: Techniques and Mitigation", a topic very close to my heart!

Then finally on Thursday 30th, again wearing my white-hats.co.uk hat, I'm facilitating two different discussions in the new Security Cafe one on "Laptop Security - Understanding The Threats & Countermeasures" and the second on "Wireless Security - The Real State Of Play" which is about threats to corporate security through insecure home wireless networks.

I'll be ready for the long weekend after all that!

Telecommuting

I've been working from home a lot more since my replacement hip operation a year ago. It started as a necessity, but I found it very productive and stuck with it. Now I've got to the point where I miss my colleagues and the general office banter, so am adjusting my routine to include more days in the office (it's only 15 minutes away, so not much of an effort). Thinking about this, I remembered a wonderful sequence of Dilbert cartoons.

However, as more and more organisations give employees the flexibility to work at home, I can't help wondering about the impact on security ... unencrypted (or WEP-encrypted) home wireless networks ... kids playing with company laptops ... unencrypted hard drives ... no clear desk policies ... poor physical security ... and an increasing trend for staff to use their home computers to connect to company VPNs. Scary stuff.

Perhaps we ought to consider expanding ethical hacking and audit to include home networks and PCs?