compliance rules

Morgan Stanley email actions under scrutiny

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:01:38 -0500

Proper email retention and storage is a must these days, thanks to new compliance rules and regulations, and companies who don't follow the letter of the law could find themselves in hot water. That's exactly what happened to Morgan Stanley--allegations claim that it lied about lost emails and didn't provide email evidence in litigation matters as it was mandated to do. The National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) claims that not only did Morgan Stanley lie about email loss, it actually had backups but then deleted valuable emails it should have kept.

For more on the email allegations:
- read the article at Computerworld

Why you can't afford to ignore IM any more

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:01:39 -0500

If user demand wasn't enough to get your IT moving toward a corporate instant messaging policy, then the increasing security issues around the communications technology likely will. As enterprises deal with the latest flaw to hit the Yahoo IM environment, more companies are now revisiting earlier decisions to ignore the applications and their use within the enterprise. As experts note, stricter compliance rules about corporate documents and dialog are also an excellent reason to make sure that whatever IM is going on is going on with IT's support and security oversight.

For more on adopting a corporate IM approach:
- read the news at BPM Today

Email regs mandate new storage approach

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 19:01:37 -0500

If you haven't gotten a good grip on meeting email compliance mandates, your workload has likely gotten a bit heavier, given the new rules that are coming into play. Companies now need to track and store all emails along with other forms of communication such as instant messaging, thanks to new laws okayed by the Supreme Court that take effect this Friday. Specifically, enterprises will need to provide any electronically stored data if involved in a federal trial, as part of the discovery process. It's going to mean lots of organization work and likely the creation of some new policies as well, say experts, as well as documented accounts on how email is managed and stored.

For more on the new email compliance rules:
- read the article at Newsfactor

Related Article: Users don't follow email policies all the time. Article

PLUS: How the insurance industry is approaching email these days. Article

Editor's Corner

Thu, 04 May 2006 20:01:40 -0400

Every CIO's nightmare happened to the Idaho Power Company last week when it discovered that old disk drives hadn't been thoroughly cleaned before being tossed. With nearly 500,000 customers, and lots of data stored on drives, you can only imagine the panic and heart palpitations that took place when the mistake was revealed. As an article over at Computerworld relates, the company had decided to recycle a couple of hundred drives to a vendor, which then sold them to third parties. So far 86 have been recovered--which means there are still too many drives out there with confidential information. Not only is the company worried about the impact this will have on customer loyalty, as well as potential damage resulting from the breach, there are those pesky compliance rules that obviously come into play. - Judy