A new, free HIPAA Security Rule Toolkit is designed to help healthcare organizations conduct a thorough risk assessment, says Kevin Stine, who helped guide the project for the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Data breaches are all about reputational risk, says attorney Lisa Sotto. And as legal requirements grow, attorneys must play increasingly integral roles in helping clients respond to incidents.

Information security threats - especially to critical infrastructures and from nation-states - are evolving. But security education curricula are struggling to keep pace, according to Eugene Spafford, renowned information security professor at Purdue University.

The ongoing delay in the release of final versions of HIPAA modifications and the HIPAA breach notification rule makes it more difficult for healthcare organizations to set information security investment priorities, says hospital privacy officer Kari Myrold.

The Brooking Institute's Allan Friedman says bills before Congress aimed at protecting intellectual property threaten cybersecurity.

Jacob Olcott says Congress' failure to enact comprehensive cybersecurity legislation over the past half decade doesn't mean lawmakers haven't influenced IT security policy.

Too many of today's firewalls are out of date and exposing organizations to unacceptable business risks, says Chris King of Palo Alto Networks.

NICE's Ernest McDuffie says a proposed cybersecurity workforce framework represents a consensus of government thought on how best to define the jobs, skills and tasks needed to secure information technology.

Unfortunately, says Ken Vander Wal, most organizations have done little to address security in their policies and procedures regarding BYOD, which is changing the ways companies address user behavior and risk.

A lack of ongoing HIPAA compliance training increases the risk of internal breaches, says Terrell Herzig, information security officer at UAB Medicine.