@Risk

Secure Socket Layers (SSL) certificates are an essential component of secure online transactions, and yet most (54 percent) of the 174 IT and information-security pros recently surveyed by Venafi admitted they have an inaccurate or incomplete inventory of their SSL certificate populations.

As Venafi points out, deploying encryption solutions without maintaining comprehensive certificate and key inventories is a worst practice that jeopardizes vital business systems and processes, while exposing organizations to substantial risk of security and compliance incidents.

But, hold on. The story gets even worse. The survey results also showed that: (more…)

Over the next few decades, US water resources are likely to be severely strained by the combined impacts of population growth, increases in power generation and climate change.

In fact, more than one in three of the 3,100+ counties in the US could face a “high” or “extreme” risk of water shortages by the middle of the 21st century, according to a new study in ACS’s Journal of Environmental Science & Technology.

The research also found that seven out of ten of the US counties could face “some” risk of shortages of fresh water for drinking, farming and other uses.

The study, Projecting Water Withdrawal and Supply for Future Decades in the U.S. under Climate Change Scenarios,  features a “water supply sustainability risk index” that includes water withdrawal, projected growth, susceptibility to drought, projected climate change and other factors in individual US counties for the year 2050. It also takes into account renewable water supply through precipitation using the most recent downscaled climate change projections and estimates future withdrawals for various human uses.

By using this water index, the research team was able to conclude that climate change could foster an “extreme” risk of water shortages that may develop in 412 counties in southern and southwestern states, as well as in southern Great Plains states. (more…)

Researchers at Dartmouth University have found potentially harmful levels of arsenic in several commercial food products, including infant formula, cereal/energy bars and high-energy foods used by endurance athletes.

What’s arsenic, which is known to be both toxic and potentially carcinogenic, doing in food products like infant formula and cereal bars?

As strange as it sounds, the common denominator here appears to be organic brown rice syrup.

As an article at the Dartmouth website points out, food manufacturers have recently begun using organic brown rice syrup as an alternative to high fructose corn syrup for sweetening food.

But, most rice produced in the US is grown in southern states where the soil was previously used for cotton farming, and so treated with pesticides containing arsenic.

Here are a few of the –rather alarming –results from the Dartmouth research: (more…)

Many companies aren’t adequately integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues with new SEC requirements, and that’s causing widespread SEC disclosure noncompliance, according to recent research by CSR Insight LLC.

The study, billed as the first independent, comprehensive technical study of how the SEC regime applies to ESG issues found that:

• More than a dozen SEC requirements potentially apply, for 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, and other corporate SEC filings, including narrative disclosure and financial statement requirements, books and records requirements, and management certification requirements.
• There’s a substantial likelihood of widespread corporate noncompliance with one or more of these SEC requirements.

CSR Insight, which is an independent consultancy specializing in analysis of SEC and global financial regulation, global financial regulatory policy, ESG reporting frameworks, ESG capital market issues, and international corporate governance standards,  concluded that the problem is this: (more…)

Most European retailers consider expanded European cross-border e-commerce a medium or high priority for growth. However, many are struggling to navigate diverse local laws, regulations and practices.

A new study conducted by Accenture found that retailers wanting to grow cross-border online sales across Europe are challenged on several different fronts, including:

• The diversity of product returns laws  (cited by 47 percent)
• Difficulties in efficiently handling product returns cross-border  ( 44 percent)
• The cost of compliance with different national laws regulating consumer transactions, such as distance selling, or data transfer requirements (42 percent)
• The differences in labor laws  as being a key challenge (42 percent)
• The cost of compliance with different national fiscal regulations (42 percent)
• Differences in packaging and labeling laws (38 percent)
• Differing VAT levels between markets (34 percent)

As Accenture describes in its press release, the differences between packaging and labeling laws can be particularly problematic. Retailers that have one common inventory for both their store and internet operations are required to put the same label on all inventory and in multiple languages, regardless of the goods’ specific destination. What’s more, while many European markets simply require retailers to report how much packaging they use annually, some may require detailed packaging information at the individual product level.

Still, the increasing willingness of European consumers to use digital channels as part of their shopping experience is driving retailers to focus on delivering both efficient online, cross-border operations and revenue growth in this area.

These are reasonable aspirations. (more…)