Monthly Archives: October 2010

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Recap of the Inaugural CLM Women’s Forum

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I may have been a bit reluctant to leave a looming deadline to spend an afternoon at an industry conference, but that reluctance soon gave way to amazement as I listened to professional women, one after another, describe their undying motivation, their history of hard work and their successful attempts at breaking the glass ceiling. Here are a few excerpts from many of the panelists:

LoriAnn Lowery

At the first annual Council on Litigation Management’s National Women’s Forum, one of the first speakers was LoriAnn Lowery, president of field operations for Naviators and former president of Lloyd’s North America. Using her 20 years of experience in the insurance industry, Lowery talked about her seven principles to live by as a female in the male-dominated world of insurance.

  1. Don’t let the past dictate the future — forget your past shortcomings
  2. Be aware of the power of perception — take control of your perception, be self-aware, ask others frankly about their perception of you
  3. Evaluate where you are — perform your own personal 360
  4. Identify your constraints — this touched on the psychologically-based theory of constraints
  5. Evaluate where you want to go, both inside and outside of your current organization — make your career happen for you and don’t be seen as a commodity
  6. Assess your leadership quotient — this is determined by both emotional and intellectual intelligence
  7. Brand yourself for career success — make a personal mission statement, perfect your 2-minute personal elevator speech, network and form a personal advisory board

Paula R. Watson

Watson’s background proved impressive to the 250+ crowd. She is a graduate of the United States Army War College. After that, she served more than 23 years in the United States’ Army Judge Advocate Gerneral’s Corps and retired as a decorated Colonel. She currently serves as vice president and senior counsel for TD Bank.

Watson made it clear that those in the room, along with successful people in general, are successful because:

“You know how to change missteps into opportunities. You have learned to sell a misstep to be something positive — it’s a growth opportunity.”

Dorien Smithson

Smithson proved to be no-nonsense, straight shooter. She has more than 30 years of experience in the risk management and insurance industry and currently oversees all Willis, North America claim, risk control and data analytics. Smithson told the audience that there is a difference between aggressive and assertive. She is sometimes seen as aggressive, while her male coworkers are seen as assertive — representing the classic double standard. She encouraged, to a certain extent, aggressiveness/assertiveness in the workplace — however you want to refer to it. A few of other favorite quotes from Smithson:

“If I sleep through the night, it’s probably time for me to go.” — In response to a question asking how the panelists knew it was time to move in a new direction within the company, or to a new job altogether.

“I don’t really have that gene.” — In response to LoriAnn Lowery’s claim that sometimes women can be too nurturing in the work environment because it’s in their DNA.

More Quotable Quotes:

“A great leader is able to get more out of their team that the sum of the parts.” — Kate Bertini, assistant general counsel, United Technologies Corporation

“Ask yourself: Can you articulate your client’s desires and concerns?” — Julie Fortune, senior vice president and chief claims officer, Arrowpoint Capital

“Don’t be high-maintenance. Take control instead of asking permission. Don’t be too nurturing.” –LoriAnn Lowery, president of field operations, Navigators

“Once [professional women] climb the corporate ladder, they reach not only a glass ceiling, but sometimes a glass cliff.” — Deborah Masucci, vice president, Chartis

“When I started 28 years ago in the litigation business, I walked into the courtroom and the judge said to me, ‘Are you here to drop something off, sweetie?'” — Ricki Roer, partner, Goehring, Rutter & Boehm

“Women that have succeeded need to get real and help their brethren.” — Deborah Masucci, speaking about the importance of mentoring

“Expand your pool of suppliers. Don’t just pick up the phone and call who you always call. Support women, minorities and the GLBT community.” — Robin Sangston, vice president of legal affairs, Cox Communications

Altogether, the afternoon conference was a great learning experience from women who have become pioneers in their field. Not only was it exciting to learn from these women within the industry, it was, maybe most importantly, extremely inspiring.

The Evolving Impact of Self-Insured Retentions and Deductibles

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As a growing numbers of insureds elect to control more of their insurance costs by increasing self-insured retentions (SIRs) and deductibles, a variety of issues have begun to emerge. In a Risk Management magazine online exclusive, attorneys Michael A. Hamilton and Michael Murphy of Nelson Levine de Luca & Horst, LLP discuss the impact of this decision and its evolving legal implications.

The duties and obligations of insurers and policyholders in relation to SIRs or deductibles have their genesis in two sources: the common law and the insurance contract. Principles of equity and good faith govern the relationship between the parties. However, as in most insurance coverage disputes, rights set forth in the insurance contract will control. Thus, courts will enforce clear policy language setting forth items such as an insured’s duties concerning the handling claims within the SIR, who must satisfy the SIR before an insurer’s obligations will be triggered, and an insurer’s duties when an insured is insolvent. The interplay between common law rights and contractual undertakings will help shape courts’ future decisions in this emerging area of insurance law.

For more, read the rest of this informative article, only on RMmagazine.com.

Q&A: Security Information and Event Management

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Though a relatively new idea, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) has evolved to become an important tool used on networks to centralize the storage of logged events. SIEM works a little like this: computer networks generate events that are kept in event logs.

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These logs are, more or less, a list of activities that occurred on the networked computers. SIEM is software that organizes and stores these records.

SIEMs are often used to help satisfy U.S. regulatory requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley and PCI-DSS. Wanting to know more about SIEM, I contacted Alison Andrews, CEO of Vigilant LLC.

Can you further explain SIEM for those who are unfamiliar?

Alison Andrews: SIEM stands for Security Information and Event Management. These products centralize log information and other security data, and correlate information from multiple sources in real time. When well-implemented, this enables centralization of many security management functions through a single console, makes incident response and forensics much more efficient, and delivers comprehensive reporting for audit and other purposes.

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The most flexible SIEM products also enable integration of business context data for fraud detection, loss prevention, and monitoring of other transactional events that are critical to business risk management.

What should a company expect from SIEM?

Andrews: SIEM buyers should expect to achieve measurable efficiencies in daily security operations, and greater business-oriented security intelligence. By reducing the number of analysts needed to respond to security alerts, headcount can be reassigned to more proactive functions. A solid SIEM implementation should generate reports and dashboards for role-based visibility into the state of the entire enterprise from a security perspective.

This visibility should certainly be designed to support real-time monitoring workflow. But it should also support business decision-making by IT managers and executives concerned with overall IT and business risk – the people who make budget decisions, and need assurance that critical assets are protected and that security, overall, is improving over time.

What are the best management processes for SIEM?

Andrews: First, it’s very important to deploy methodically, and in phases. Second, you need clearly defined roles for how the SIEM filters, correlation rules, and other components, will be refined and updated over time. Third, companies that are most successful with SIEM have high-level executive sponsorship and see it as a tool that serves more than the immediate needs of IT security teams.

Over time, a mature SIEM deployment can provide increasingly sophisticated functions across the whole IT organization, and can directly support the risk management needs of many departments and business units.

What are the risks associated with SIEM?

Andrews: A haphazard process of deploying SIEM, without regard for the specific information you need to see, causes many problems. You can end up collecting more data than is reasonable to store, or bog down system performance. Worst case, without the right configurations, you can end up falsely assuming that the environment is more secure than it really is, leaving you open to preventable security incidents and audit deficiencies.

Are there risks that require custom management?

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Andrews: SIEM is a powerful tool, but you can’t rely only on what comes out of the box. Every SIEM requires at least some measure of customization, and will return value proportionate to what you put into it.  These days, no one can afford  cost-consuming  products that can’t be justified. So in making a SIEM investment you need to consider not only the cost of the product and initial installation, but how you will develop it over time.

The good news is that as the SIEM market has matured, the products provide more out-of-the-box value than ever before, and there are well-established options and best practices for making optimal use of the technology that can fit various budget levels, whether you decide to do it in-house or get outside help.

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Cyberattacks, Terrorism Are Top Threats for UK

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According to the United Kingdom’s recently unveiled national security strategy, cyberattacks and terrorism present the gravest threats to the country. Overall, the report identifies 15 “priority risks” — four of which are considered “tier 1” threats.

Tier One:
• International terrorism affecting the UK or its interests, including a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack by terrorists; and/or a significant increase in the levels of terrorism relating to Northern Ireland.
• Hostile attacks upon UK cyber space by other states and large scale cyber crime.
• A major accident or natural hazard which requires a national response, such as severe coastal
flooding affecting three or more regions of the UK, or an influenza pandemic.
• An international military crisis between states, drawing in the UK, and its allies as well as other states and non-state actors.

Here are the top risks:

• International terrorism affecting the UK or its interests, including a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack by terrorists; and/or a significant increase in the levels of terrorism relating to Northern Ireland.

• Hostile attacks upon UK cyber space by other states and large scale cyber crime.

• A major accident or natural hazard which requires a national response, such as severe coastal

flooding affecting three or more regions of the UK, or an influenza pandemic.

• An international military crisis between states, drawing in the UK, and its allies as well as other states and non-state actors.

Obviously, these are all very difficult perils to protect citizens, infrastructure and the economy against. And unfortunately, these emerging threats are growing at a time when Britain is least prepared to confront them given the national priority now assigned to “austerity measures” designed the cut spending.

The defense budget, for instance, is set to be trimmed by 8% over the next four years, leaving one Member of Parliament wondering how the country can revamp its strategy to keep citizens safe.

Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin, who is chairman of the Commons Public Administration Committee, said it was difficult to see how an effective National Security Strategy could be developed against the backdrop of cuts.

“We seem to be operating under the imperative of deficit reduction,” he said. “But, there’s very little in what’s being done now that reflects deep and sustained analysis about what sort of country we want to be in 10 or 20 years time.”

The Obama administration has also been highly critical of Prime Minister David Cameron’s defense spending cuts. Even the national security strategy itself admits that the country has a “security structure that is woefully unsuitable” for the modern threats it faces — a failing that is squarely blamed on the previous ruling officials.

The last Government took little account of this fact. Twelve years elapsed while the world changed almost beyond recognition. Abroad, our forces were sent into action without the equipment they needed, and on the basis of lamentable planning, and in more simultaneous conflicts than the Defence Review in 1998 had planned for.

At home, the machinery of Government failed to adapt to the new circumstances – lacking both the urgency and the integration needed to cope with the new situation.As a Government, we have inherited a defence and security structure that is woefully unsuitable for the world we live in today. We are determined to learn from those mistakes, and make the changes needed.

In an age of uncertainty, we need to be able to act quickly and effectively to address new and evolving threats to our security. That means having access to the best possible advice, and crucially, the right people around the table when decisions are made. It means considering national security issues in the round, recognising that when it comes to national security, foreign and domestic policy are not separate issues, but two halves of one picture.

To address this concern — at least somewhat — the government announced that it will provide an extra £500 million for cybersecurity that will be “focused on protecting key infrastructure and defence assets.”

We will see if that is enough to do the job — which also includes the below security challenges that the government has identified as “tier two” and “tier three” risks.

Tier Two Risks:

• An attack on the UK or its Oversees Territories by another state or proxy using chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) weapons.

• Risk of major instability, insurgency or civil war overseas which creates an environment that terrorists can exploit to threaten the UK.

• A significant increase in the level of organised crime affecting the UK.

• Severe disruption to information received, transmitted or collected by satellites, possibly as the result of a deliberate attack by another state.

Tier Three Risks:

• A large scale conventional military attack on the UK by another state (not involving the use of CBRN weapons) resulting in fatalities and damage to infrastructure within the UK.

• A significant increase in the level of terrorists, organised criminals, illegal immigrants and illicit goods trying to cross the UK border to enter the UK.

• Disruption to oil or gas supplies to the UK, or price instability, as a result of war, accident, major political upheaval or deliberate manipulation of supply by producers.

• A major release of radioactive material from a civil nuclear site within the UK which affects one or more regions.

• A conventional attack by a state on another NATO or EU member to which the UK would have to respond.

• An attack on a UK overseas territory as the result of a sovereignty dispute or a wider regional conflict.

• Short to medium term disruption to international supplies of resources (e.g. food, minerals) essential to the UK.