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Missing MH370 should remind us, do you know where your digital assets are?

I recently did a piece over at InformationSecurityBuzz called Dark Territories, Do You Know Where Your Information Is?

In that piece (click here), I bring up the topic of dark territories which with the recent missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370 (e.g. MH370) reminds us that even with today’s 24×7 Internet of Things (IoT) connected world, there are still dark spot areas lacking in coverage or monitoring.

Some of you might have heard of dark territories as a term used in days of old that refereed to parts of railroads or other transportation that were out of site with no command, control, monitoring or communications.

Perhaps something that the tragedy of MH370 will remind us all is just how big this planet is, and not everything is connected or covered or monitored yet, or, at least that we know about or have access to.

Excerpt from the piece:

It might seem awkward today in this era of instant access to news, information as it happens, or in some cases before it happens how can we not know where something is?

Between traditional media and social media, not to mention public on-line web sites, along with big data powered government (or private) surveillance using radar, cell-phone or other radio based, not to mention satellite tracking.

Thus, how can we not know where things are?

Do you know where your data and information are or have been?

Do you have positive control over where you data and information have been?

Is your data and information exposed to dark territories?

With the recent disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight 370 (MH 370) a Boeing 777 flying from Kula Lumpur to Beijing China, how can we not know where it is? After all, we all have public access to sites such as FlightAware and FlightRadar among many others, not to mention sites we in the public may not have access to. Same with using Cell phones or other forms of electronics, surely in the 7×24 non-stop, always connected world we should have insight and situational awareness about where things are always at, right?

Wrong!

Click here to read more.

Do you have digital dark territory or security surveillance gaps in your environment?

How safe and secure are your digital assets and information resources including data, software applications, hardware and services?

Are you securing your information and digital assets with rings or layers of defense?

What about tracking where those items including data or hardware and software have been or do you have dark territory points of exposure

Hopefully you are not one of those that I see at airports, coffee shops or at events who leave your computer or other digital assets alone, unattended while going to get a new beverage, or off to the rest room, talking on the phone? No worries, others will watch over your digital assets, right?

Closing comments about MH370

In the meantime condolences to those who lost friends and family including crew members on MH370. I only have flown MH a couple of times including over some dark or almost dark territories between the US and Asia and on to Australia in and out Kuala Lumpur which was a good experience. Also would like to extend thanks and best wishes to all of those involved in the search efforts so that someday we can learn what happened as well as to prevent it in the future.

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

greg