Now that the FFIEC Authentication Guidance update has been issued, there is no more important task for banking institutions than to conduct their risk assessments, says Matthew Speare of M&T Bank Corp.

The long-overdue HIPAA compliance audit program likely will launch late this year or early in 2012 after up to 20 test audits are completed, says Susan McAndrew, deputy director of the federal agency overseeing the program.

Doug Johnson of the American Bankers Association says banking institutions should spend the next five months focusing on their risk assessments, as they work to meet the FFIEC's new authentication guidance update.

Keeping data secure is the greatest challenge during any merger or acquisition, and the first critical step is figuring out which confidential information could be at risk of exposure.

Eddie Schwartz didn't shy away from the offer to become RSA's first chief security officer after the security firm experienced a sophisticated advanced-persistent-threat breach. Instead, Schwartz embraced the hack as the reason to take the job. (See RSA to Get Its First Chief Security Officer.)

Recent high-profile data breaches and heightened threats add up to one thing: a bright future for information security professionals who want to start or re-start a career in risk management.

Minnesota has seen an increase in malicious traffic since the state government shut down a week ago, but state CISO Chris Buse says sophisticated intrusion-detection systems and an alert skeleton staff have prevented any harm from being done, at least to the part of state government IT controlled by the Office of Enterprise Technology.

RSA customers who feel victimized by last March's breach of the security vendor's computers have viable options that include continued use of the SecurID authentication tokens, those offered by competitors, or something entirely different: biometrics.

Insider fraud expert Shirley Inscoe says Citi is not the only financial institution that's doing a poor job of keeping up with employee misconduct. Few banking institutions grasp how damaging inside jobs actually are.

Major U.S. card issuers continue to get poor marks when it comes to steps they take to prevent card fraud. In fact, according to research released by Javelin Strategy & Research, prevention measures for the last three consecutive years have continually declined, despite exponential increases in fraud.