| Abstract | | It took many years to evolve the correct tools, methods and technology that provide secure application services. Security demands an architecture with many layers of security facilities that add up to an application that would take too long and cost too much to break into. Security comes with zero defect facilities that provide robust, reliable and efficient applications. | | Security has evolved and what was good enough a few years ago is not good enough for the future - procedures must improve. |
| Encryption | | Many different layers of encryption are employed that vary from time to time. What a criminal learnt about an application one day has little relevance to how the same application works on another hour of the day. | | Triple interleaved encryption is applied to all database servers in all locations. As database servers are not connected to the Internet, it is hard to imagine how a criminal may attack a database server, but if they did gain access, they would only see a mountain of encrypted data. | | Encrypted HTTPS communications is always used with 2048 bit keys that cannot be cracked. In addition, Cryptographic Hashing Functions (CHF) is provided to ensure that a criminal cannot manipulate the URL without being detected and blacklisted. |
| Honeypot | | Real world criminal attacks are reported and the techniques employed can be analysed. A honeypot that looks like a published vulnerability is configured to detect criminal activities. As soon as a criminal tries to attack a honeypot they are blacklisted and cannot access a large number of web sites. A blacklisted criminal will normally see a "hello world" message, rather than any web page. A curious person that is not authorized is shown a dummy sign in web page that will ignore anything that is entered. |
| Data Policy | | Business data cannot be lost, corrupted, overtyped or deleted. Multiple copies of all business data are retained in distributed databases at all time so if one data center is not available, business can continue from other data centers. Multiple interlocking audit trails are managed to identify when and who changed any field value - each and every field value change is permanently recorded in multiple remote locations. | | "What Did I Do" audit trail shows a time ordered list of every field value change and user interaction with any application service. | | "History" audit trail shows a time ordered list of every field value change with the date, time and person responsible. A field value change can only be made by an authorized signed in user in accordance with the users permissions. |
| Data Ownership | | All data is owned by the person or company that authors the data. Business data is owned by the copyright owner shown at the bottom of every web page. | | The Application Service Provider (ASP) does not own the business data and will use their best endeavours to ensure that the owner is able to access their business data at any time. Criminals and staff acting in a criminal way do not own the business data. Facilities and reports are provided to reduce the possibility of business data being stolen and sold to other parties. |
| | | Upload | | Facilities are provided to enable business data to be uploaded, encrypted and protected from loss, corruption and theft. Uploaded data cannot be deleted or changed. Uploaded data can only be viewed using encrypted communication by an authorized user. |
| Download | | Once upon a time, facilities were provided for certain authorized users to download business data, but security audits have correctly identified that such facilities have become a real and significant security vulnerability. Considerable expense is made to ensure that business data is always encrypted and cannot be stolen. If critical business data was downloaded to a laptop, then that laptop will be targeted by criminals to be stolen as the only way to access the data when it is not encrypted. | | The whole point of encrypted communications and encrypted database would be worthless if the same business data can be downloaded to a local computer that is not encrypted, that may be stolen, that may be lost or the business data may be sold to other parties. If would be unwise for anybody to condone and support a download security vulnerability. | | We have provided advanced spreadsheet services that eliminates the need for business data to be downloaded to a local computer. |
| USR | | User Specified Reporting (USR) facilities provide Business Intelligence (BI) services so any analysis of business data can be created. Where a spreadsheet was once used to provide management information, USR is now able to provide management information with complete security. The era of the spreadsheet with no security is over - spreadsheet data can be attacked and stolen by criminals. Methods of working with spreadsheets that were good enough ten years ago are no longer fit-for-purpose and great care must be taken by all staff in retaining critical business data (on a laptop) that is not encrypted. People are personally responsible and liable for any business data on their computer, when that data is stolen, when that data is lost and when that data is sold to another party. |
| UK Law | | Management are legally responsible for business data that is stolen or lost. Nationwide was fined £1.5 million because a laptop belonging to a manager was stolen during a burglary - the laptop contained valuable business data that was sold on the Internet. | | Criminals have targeted people with laptops and burgled their home or smashed their way into their car to steal business data to order. It may be that to have possession of valuable business data puts that person in danger from a physical criminal attack. | | A license from the UK Information Commissionaire is needed to hold business data about people and other businesses. We operate within the UK Data Protection Act under license PZ9322564. Where people download and retain the same business data, then they must obtain an license to retain that data, must conform with Data Protection Regulations and must be subject to regular security audits. |
| DPA | | Certain people may be authorized to download and store confidencial/valuable business data in compliance with UK and EU Data Protection Directives. An annual UK Data Protection license is required from the Information Commissionaire in the UK and this is subject to regular security audits, encryption and pass phrase protection to maintain compliance with UK and EU Directives. | | For a person to be granted the right to download business data and remain compliant with UK/EU Data Protection directives, the following information must be part of the users profile. The UK Information Commissionaire may impose fines of up to £500,000 where the users profile is not compliant with following eight rules: | | 1. Will the data be fully and lawfully processed in accordance with the documented purpose by which the data was collected? What is that documented purpose? | | 2. Will the data be processed for a limited and specific documented purpose? | | 3. Will the data to be downloaded be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relationship with the documented purpose? | | 4. Will the data be accurate and kept up to date? How will this be done? | | 5. Will the data be destroyed when it is no longer needed? How and when will the data be destroyed? | | 6. Will the data only be processed by authorized people and will access to the data be revoked when that person is no longer employed? How will data access be revoked? | | 7. Will the data be physically secure so it cannot be read by hackers and cannot be stolen? What encryption methods are employed? | | 8. Will the data store be security audited by way of the Data Protection license? What is the license number? | | Certain data may be exempt from the Data Protection Directives where that data has been summarized and no longer contains information regarding people and/or other companies. Key Performance Indicators (KPI), trends, business intelligence and statistical analysis data may be downloaded and stored on a local computer without any encryption. Downloaded business data is outside the managed security environment and should not include confidential business data that may be of value to a competitor or objectionable to public opinion. | | A person downloading valuable business data must recognise that they will be the target for continual criminal attacks to steal/copy that data and they should take appropriate physical precautions. |
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