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A Renaissance for Content Protection

I attended the Ponemon Institute’s RIM (Responsible Information Management) Renaissance conference again this year. Headed by Dr. Larry Ponemon, the Ponemon Institute is one of the most respected research organizations specializing in privacy, data protection, and information security, and the Institute’s output includes the well-known annual "Cost of Data Breach" report.

The RIM Renaissance conference is an annual event that is attended by around 100 people invited from among information security companies, including chief privacy officers (CPOs) and chief information security officers (CISOs), compliance and privacy professionals, lawyers, consultants and representatives from government agencies and advocacy groups. The format of the event is geared towards discussion and interaction, rather than just presentations; last year the focus was on building bonds of trust (which I blogged about at the time).

This years' agenda started with a discussion on security and privacy in the age of the Internet of Things (IoT), and in particular as it relates to the vehicle to vehicle (V2V) initiative in the U.S. This was followed by a new study by Larry on Visual Hacking, sponsored by 3M, in which it was found that a significant percentage of organizations were vulnerable to people going around and taking pictures of papers and screens with a smartphone camera.

There were two interesting technology presentations by start-ups OptCTS, and SertintyOne. OptCTS has developed a technology to protect wireless data by obscuring parts of it in the noise range of the radio signal. SertintyOne is a DRM company that has developed what they call "Smart Data," which embeds governance rules on the data inside of data files. Both companies’ innovations are consistent with the HoGo mantra, "protect the contents, not the box."

There is a growing sense of awareness around protecting the data, not just the network, and recognizing that people with the data are the weakest link. This is a trend that validates our own focus on content security. I also heard a lot of discussion about security’s migration into embedded devices, which is also a validation of our partnership strategy.

On my return to Manchester I had time to reflect on the weekend and came away all the more convinced that HoGo is in the right place at the right time with the right approach to information security.

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