Quentyn Taylor's Blog

Quentyn Taylor's Blog

Home

About Quentyn

As Head of Security for a large electronics manufacturer based in London ( though the contents of this blog do not necessarily represent those of my employer), I have built my team up from 1st principals and now cover the information security needs of the company’s entire Europe Middle East and Africa ( EMEA) operation.

Not only have I created one of the most diverse and respected teams in IT, striving to drive down the number of incidents as well as costs, but I have also lead the creation of an ICT academy providing structured training plans for over 350 staff based all around EMEA. I am a people manager who believes that everyone has the right to contribute and that every person in the team counts, something that is especially true when it comes to risk management and security education, my two main passions.

Follow me on Twitter:@quentynblog

Read my blog: http://www.quentyn.com

Syndication

Archives

Sort by: Most Recent | Most Viewed | Most Commented

The Evil Shredder

Shredders, the object of last resort for handling confidential information. Most education and awareness programs tell their users to always use a shredder to dispose of documents so office users ( and many home users) are very used to dropping anything...

Published 04-26-2012 10:34 AM by QuentynTaylor

Filed under: security, ideas
Desire Paths and what they tell us about security

I heard an interesting term the other day “ desire path ” it is a term used to describe the side paths that often pop up in parks away from the main path that people use as a short cut between the main path and a favoured destination. This...

Published 04-11-2012 3:11 PM by QuentynTaylor

Filed under: security, ideas, policy
Is cheating a game a criminal offence ?

When does cheating in a video game become a criminal matter ? I recently came across this story where by 2 men was accused of “cheating” video poker machines in Las Vegas .In essence they are alledged to: “the men would make small bets...

Published 04-04-2012 11:53 AM by QuentynTaylor

Filed under: security, gaming
Which is the most risky social network?

Just before Christmas I was participating in a Secure Computing webcast on the subject of social networking and the question came up, “which was the most dangerous social network from a corporate point of view ? ” With more and more companies...

Published 03-27-2012 11:49 AM by QuentynTaylor

Filed under: security, Social Networking
what is hiding in your email ?

It used to be that all we had to fear in the corporate world email leak wise, was that company email would be read back to an executive in a court of law by an opposing lawyer . This would occur after lengthy deliberation by all legal entities concerned...

Published 03-15-2012 12:27 PM by QuentynTaylor

Filed under: security, leaks, privacy
Social Media and the law, how websites will reveal your data

Following up from the news story regarding the US governments legal challenge to get several prominent wikileaks people’s data. I thought I would expand on my tweet about the EFF‘ s summary document regarding the process by which some social...

Published 03-07-2012 10:02 AM by QuentynTaylor

Filed under: security, Social Networking security, • Social Networking
Privacy at school ? What message are we sending to our children

Reading the BBC today I noticed this little gem , that is a change to the Education Bill that would allow teachers greater powers over students mobile phones in order to combat cyber bullying. The report (on the BBC) states that in the new bill ( to be...

Published 02-22-2012 12:34 PM by QuentynTaylor
Bring your own device – An Infosec issue ?

I have been thinking about the Bring Your own Device ( BYod) issue for quite some time now, indeed I am even speaking at a conference in the near future on this very topic. The same question keeps popping up in my mind but seems to be ignored by most...

Published 02-01-2012 11:04 AM by QuentynTaylor

Filed under: security, Telephony, consumerisaton, policy
Who owns the mobile update issue?

The mobile phone update issue is one that has been bugging me for a while and whilst I am a great fan of android ( I have owned 3 of them ) it does have an achilles heel compared to mono culture phone OSes such as IOS from Apple. Not since the early 90′s...

Published 01-17-2012 11:49 AM by QuentynTaylor

Filed under: security, ideas, Telephony, consumerisaton, policy
Can you really wipe flash memory

Look around you right now and count the number of devices that have solid state memory in them. How many do you see ? dependent on where I am this number could total > 40 devices if you include SD cards for my camera, USB drives and smart phones (...

Published 01-03-2012 3:34 PM by QuentynTaylor

Filed under: security, leaks
Is the ICO hurting the victim ?

Hardly we month goes by without the UK’s data protection authorities ( the ICO) fining or taking other sanctions) a local authority for a data breach. This last week we saw a record fine (130,ooo UKP) for Powys council when one of their workers...

Published 12-13-2011 9:50 AM by QuentynTaylor

Filed under: leak, ICO, Council, Powys, record fine, DPA
Data leaks – the story for 2011 ?

For those of you who thought that 2011 was the year of the hacker, with Anonymous andLulzsec and others hitting the news again and again I have another angle. 2011 was by far the year of the data leak ( though you wouldnt think it looking at this link...

Published 12-08-2011 10:31 AM by QuentynTaylor

Filed under: security, IT security, data leaks
what is the cloud ?

as this is my 1st post on “The Cloud” I thought I would start it off with a pretty vague title and start off with as many buzzwords as possible. The cynical could write this off as just an attempt to do some blatant SEO but I promise I am...

Published 11-29-2011 11:47 AM by QuentynTaylor

Filed under: IT security, cloud
Teaching kids to say “no”

It is not often that a post on the ICO website really strikes a chord with me but for the 1st time there is one. The article centers around teaching children about their rights when it pertains to information. Too often this is missed and then when you...

Published 11-22-2011 11:25 AM by QuentynTaylor

Filed under: security, privacy, social network
Treating data as a potential environmental pollutant ?

Data, it is every where. From your phone to a store card they all contain data and quite often you need to dispose of it. It affects corporates as well, most companies will send huge amounts of money disposing of data that they don’t need. Whether...

Published 11-11-2011 11:50 AM by QuentynTaylor

Filed under: security, ideas, leaks

Quentyn Taylor's Blog

About Quentyn

Syndication

Recent Posts

Tags

Archives

The Evil Shredder

Desire Paths and what they tell us about security

Is cheating a game a criminal offence ?

Which is the most risky social network?

what is hiding in your email ?

Social Media and the law, how websites will reveal your data

Privacy at school ? What message are we sending to our children

Bring your own device – An Infosec issue ?

Who owns the mobile update issue?

Can you really wipe flash memory

Is the ICO hurting the victim ?

Data leaks – the story for 2011 ?

what is the cloud ?

Teaching kids to say “no”

Treating data as a potential environmental pollutant ?