The usefulness of radio frequency identification (RFID) as a logistics tool has long been known but there are those who are heralding another potential use — it’s use as a way to know, not only where an item is in the supply chain but whether or not it’s secure.

Advanced Card Technologies of Canada (ACT) wants provincial governments to move quickly on the opportunity to turn driver's licences into one-stop-shop biometric ID cards that could be used for a host of identification purposes.

The organization is responding to the efforts of Ontario, Manitoba and New Brunswick in lobbying the U.S. to accept enhanced driver's licences as valid documentation to cross the U.S. border rather than requiring passports. The U.S. is now requiring anyone entry the U.S. by air to hold a valid passport.

 By Jan. 1, 2008, all visitors to the country via land or sea will similarly be required to show a passport. Developing enhanced driver's licences would require the integration of citizenship data. But that stops short of solving the biggest problem plaguing licences: fraud, says Johnston, president of the Ajax, Ont.-based association.

"I don't see it as a step backwards as much as a step that won't take them where they should go," she says.

Johnston says adding biometrics would enable provinces to cut down on fraud — as long as recipients are required to undergo a new registration process — and share health care information more easily. As well, citizens would be able to access their own records, potentially spotting misuse of their personal information.

Canadians, she says, would embrace a solution that promises an end to the growing list of security breaches that have made the headlines recently.

"Studies show not only are Canadians accepting of biometrics, they prefer they be used wherever they can increase security, but card issuers don't trust that," says Johnston. "They keep saying to me that can't be right."

John Reid, president of the Canadian high-tech organization CATAAlliance, agrees with ACT's proposal.

"Anything that can be done to facilitate trade relations is good," he says. "The big fear in business now is slowing down the speed of transactions or the flow of people across the two markets."

Adding a biometric option to driver's licences is a very workable alternative to the passport, he says.

"We're very supportive of using advanced technology in this way. You're not compromising any of your security requirements and you're using existing technology in personal identification; you're not reinventing any wheels here," says Reid.

But not everyone sees it that way. Bill Munson, vice-president of ITAC, another Canadian IT organization, says there is no real justification for putting citizenship information on a document that is used as a permit to drive a vehicle.

"There's a general concern around function creep," says Munson. "Driver's licences are a provincial token for provincial purposes and citizenship is not one of those purposes, so using a driver's licence to declare citizenship status seems like an odd way to go about things, because you don't have to be a citizen to drive a car."

Most drivers most days are not going to be crossing the border, he adds. "So having them cart around on a daily basis a card with all that information even if it's encrypted does increase the risk."

Small business owners are concerned about PC security, data backup and virus protection, but aren’t necessarily doing anything about it. Security tools are often complex and intimidating, requiring regular updates and renewals. So Microsoft decided to get into the security business by introducing Windows Live OneCare, a security add-on for PC maintenance.

Many small businesses are more vulnerable to cybercrime than they realize, according to the 2005 Small Business Information Security Readiness Survey of 1,000 small businesses in the U.S., conducted by the Small Business Technology Institute. Of those surveyed, 56 per cent had experienced one or more security incidents in the previous year. And almost one-fifth didn’t use virus scanning for e-mail.

Small business owners worry if they’re exposing themselves to risk, if online banking is safe or if someone is reading private e-mail, says Bruce Cowper, senior program manager of Microsoft Canada’s Security Initiative, during a roundtable discussion with journalists in early March. But of those who actually have anti-virus software in place, few actually keep it up to date. And few do regular backups of their data or perform regular maintenance ”“ such as defrags ”“ on their PCs.

“That’s the driver behind OneCare,” says Cowper, “to bring all of those together.” OneCare ties backup and 24-hour technical support with security tools such as anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-phishing and two-way firewall. It costs $59.95 for a 12-month subscription (it sends out an advisory when it’s time to renew) and one licence is good for three machines. The current version doesn’t support large enterprises.

“The user experience online has started to get fragmented,” says Sumeet Khanna, director of Windows Live Services with Microsoft Canada. People today use their PCs for much more than just storing data files. And he sees backup as the number-one concern going forward.

OneCare allows users to schedule automatic tune-ups and regular backups. “It makes backups really easy,” he says. “You don’t have to worry about the back-end.” It only backs up files that have changed to make the process faster.

Gemma Moore is the owner of MG Moore Designs, a web design company in Toronto, who was using a variety of security tools, including Symantec and Spy Sweeper, on her PC. Every time she turned on her PC, she would get pop-ups from the various security tools she had installed on her machine.

Moore has been piloting OneCare for the past month and likes the familiar user interface and the convenience of a single dashboard for all her security requirements. She also set up the software to do automatic backups on DVD and an external hard drive. “It’s a lot more clean,” she says.

But some industry players question why Microsoft is getting into the security business. “Microsoft has got a huge installed base of customers,” says Jon Arnold, IP communications analyst with J. Arnold & Associates. “They know the computing environment.”

Also, the Microsoft interface is familiar to users, he added.

“The user experience has to be intuitive and easy, or it’s just not going to happen,” he says. “[OneCare] is a low maintenance kind of product ”“ there’s a convenience factor that’s really valuable, more so than the price point.”

In the long term, a familiar interface will make users feel more comfortable trying out new things.
“We’re used to being a big target,” says Microsoft’s Cowper. Security has always been a factor that developers consider when writing new code, he said. And they glean information about viruses from Hotmail ”“ which he refers to as the largest virus collector in the world.

Another issue that small business owners must contend with is technical support. When something goes wrong, they don’t know where to turn ”“ the store where they bought the equipment, the hardware vendor or the software vendor.

And this tends to bring out a lot of emotions. “People hate being bounced around,” says Microsoft’s Khanna. “Someone needs to take ownership of that customer.” Part of the OneCare package includes 24-hour support via phone, e-mail or chat.

But other security vendors aren’t standing still in the SMB space. When Microsoft announced its entry into the market, McAfee and Symantec both announced new initiatives ”“ Falcon and Project Genesis ”“ that would compete directly with OneCare.

An international group of cybercrime fighters will be gathering in Bangkok this November, including a Canadian who heads up the Society for the Policing of Cyberspace, an international body tracking the latest in illegal activity on the Web.

"The key objective of our annual summit is to pull different groups together at an international level to share information on what are the current trends of cybercrime," says Bessie Pang, executive director, the Society for the Policing of Cyberspace based in Burnaby, B.C.

Among the themes the group will be exploring Nov. 5-9 at the Policing Cyberspace International Summit 2007 include Challenges in the Collection and Application of Digital Evidence, Building Trusted Communities in the Virtual World, E-Money Laundering in Financial Sectors, Pharmaceutical Crime Online and Child Exploitation, among many others.

"Quite often, something happening in Asia may not have hit Canada yet so we explore the different legislation and policies other countries have developed in light of something that has happened," says Pang.

Of particular interest at this year's conference, says Pang, is the examiniation of online pharmaceuticals crimes. It is of interest to Canadians especially following the death of a 57-year-old B.C. woman who died last December after taking contaminiated pills purchased online.

"It is a very unfortunate incident and pharmaceutical crime is really a life and death issue and those on low incomes are often the target," says Pang.

One major difference between "conventional crime" and cybercrime, says Pang, is that those involved have technological expertise and they work fast, so those chasing them in law enforcement must be able to do so as well.

"These people have no problem communicating with each other and the pace of the crimes they commit is faster than normal crime."

Sometimes, it can work in the favour of law enforcement, as it did with a child exploitation case of a victim in Port Moody, B.C. The offender was located in Australia following discussions with members of the POLCYB at one of their conferences.

Other areas of concern to members of POLCYB include the rise in criminal activity in online role-playing games. In Asia several murders have occured involving those who took the games too seriously.

"In one case, a player "killed" another player's virtual character and that person tracked down the other guy and killed him," says Pang. "Even a couple of years ago some police officers from Asia said online gaming was a priority for the police there."

The POLCYB is a multi-disciplinary organization with representation from private security, policing, social workers, probation officers and IT experts.

Another Canadian member is Telus CSO and vice-president Gene McLean who says a core focus for the organization has been to root out crimes related to children and it's something the organization has worked hard to battle against.

"This is a group that doesn't get a lot of attention but it does a lot of good wok," says McLean.

While McLean is an ex-RCMP officer and has served the organization as a corporate security executive for many years now, the organization draws from a large group of experts from other areas.

"We want to have representation from all the groups that touch cybercrime," says Pang, whose background is in criminology and artificial intelligence. "It's not just the police aspect and not just the information sector. We want to break down the barriers to the various disciplines."

POLCYB was incorporated as a not-for-profit society in June 1999. Based in British Columbia the goal of the organization is to enhance international partnerships among public and private professionals to prevent and combat crimes in cyberspace.

"The international network includes individuals from the public and private sectors. Our partners range from professionals who work in the areas of law enforcement, criminal justice, corporate security, and academic institutions. We strive to facilitate information-sharing between and among executives, administrators, and front-line professionals through seeking expert advice among our global and diverse membership," says Pang.

The organization also provides public education on information protection and Internet safety to raise public awareness of cybercrime, including those committed against children and youth.

For more information on the conference this November in Bangkok, Thailand, visit the organization's website at: www.polcyb.org

When you’re the head of one of the world’s largest IT security companies, everyone wants your advice.
Dave DeWalt, president and CEO of McAfee, made a recent visit to southern Ontario to speak to customers and partners about the threats they should be most concerned about.

Voice over IP (VoIP) is slowly but surely infiltrating enterprise customer contact centres. About 50 per cent of contact centres are expected to be IP-based by 2010, according to Nortel. A security mind-shift will need to accompany the transition as voice and data systems merge. Physical security, agent training, securing off-site teleworkers:  VoIP will have far-ranging impacts beyond network security.

Overseeing the development of security infrastructure at an Olympic site is familiar territory for Brian Phillips.
During the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics he was part of the RCMP’s Integrated Security Unit. In 2010, he will be looking at things from a slightly different vantage point in Vancouver as the director of public safety for Bell Security Solutions.

When you’re the head of one of the world’s largest IT security companies, everyone wants your advice.
Dave DeWalt, president and CEO of McAfee, made a recent visit to southern Ontario to speak to customers and partners about the threats they should be most concerned about.

{mosimage}In late 2003, the University of Florida conducted a survey to determine the magnitude of the annual loss U.S. retailers were experiencing through theft. It was determined that the total loss amounted to approximately 1.65 per cent of gross sales. While 1.65 per cent may not seem significant, it represents more than $30 billion dollars disappearing from the bottom line of U.S. retailers. The study also determined that the single most prevalent source of loss, at almost 50 per cent of all reported losses, was employee theft.

Dave Tyson, recently named Security Director of the Year by Canadian Security magazine, has resigned as CSO for the City of Vancouver to accept the position of senior director, information security operations and business continuity planning with online auction giant eBay in San Jose, Calif.