A report by Evan Schuman about recent Marriott settlements with the FTC and state attorneys general suggests that the settlements leave much to be desired. Both settlements have cybersecurity requirements, and the state settlement has a monetary component, but neither is strong enough as far as some experts are concerned. Here’s a snippet or two from Schuman’s article:
But the settlements disappointed many in the cybersecurity community, as both the monetary penalties and the cybersecurity requirements negotiated seemed woefully insufficient for a company the size of Marriott, which reported revenue of $23.7 billion last year.
The lackluster list of cybersecurity requirements sends the wrong signal to enterprise CISOs throughout the country, said Richard Blech, CEO of encryption company XSOC. “It gives CFOs an out. ‘Oh my God, that’s all that we have to do?’ This allows them to just check the box. They can then minimize [security spend] so that they think they don’t have to spend any more money,” Blech said. “It is going to take all of the CISO’s negotiating power away. It will slow down the CISO doing something, as it will allow the CFO to say ‘Let’s put it in next year’s budget.’ They compromised.”
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The concern about the requirements was not solely that they were too low level, but that they were not sufficiently specific to be meaningful. For example, they did not specify the nature of the multi-factor authentication to be used or the particulars of a proposed zero-trust effort.
Read more about the specific requirements of each of the two settlements, why some consider them disappointing, and the FTC’s explanation of why the requirements weren’t more specific.
Read more at CSO.