Conferences

The Atlantic Canada chapter of the HTCIA is holding their 8th Annual conference with a focus on IT security and investigations. Our these this year is "Do you know where your data is?" This year join us at the Delta Hotel in St. John's, NL on October 20, 2010

Registration will be open soon as will be our conference website.

Information on this year's Theme
Contemporary IT industry literature tells us we are in the early stages of cloud based computing. This means significant change, change that is not yet visible to many, but it is coming.

The most obvious example of this shift is Google:

• With gmail the mail application is running off the server, and your data is stored on the server.
• Likewise with Google Docs, you can now work on a document or spreadsheet using an online app, and storing the data online.
• With Google Chrome OS (a year away from public release but available to those that want to start working on it now) we will see a virtual full circle. The OS will essentially be little more than a browser.

With this change online web browser apps are becoming more prevalent. All the application processing logic will be online, as will the storage of your data. You won't know exactly where data is stored (i.e. which physical server) or what processing logic is manipulating it. Rather you will trust that it's being stored safely and processed properly, in accordance with your corporate policies.

The obvious advantage, it will reduce the IT burden and costs for corporations. Corporations will not need a large IT staff to keep the OS, applications, and data up to date and backed up. The cloud will take care of all of this for them:

• But at what cost and at what risk?
• Is this a viable option for an individual?
• A small business?
• A large business?
• Government?

Hence the question: Do you know where your data is? Even if you know can define where your corporate data is supposed to be retained:

• What about the mobile devices that have become a virtual necessity to our daily lives both at home and at work?
• Are your employees accessing your corporate data using mobile devices?
• How secure is that data once it leaves your network and ends up on their handheld device?
• How secure is it when it's going across the wire on its way to the end user?
• What controls do you have to ensure that only authorized mobile devices and authorized users are connecting to your network & data?
• Is some of your data leaking out of your company because of these devices?
• If so, how can you tell, and how can you prevent it?

Again it begs the question: Do you know where all your data is?