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U.S. Government Launches National Cyber Crime Survey on Financial Costs

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The U.S. government said Feb. 9 it will launch its first national survey to estimate how much cyber-crime is costing American businesses. The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security will try to measure the number of cyber-attacks, frauds and thefts of information and the resulting losses during 2005, officials said in a statement. The survey, to be completed by year-end, will collect information about the nature and extent of computer security violations, the monetary costs, types of offenders and computer security measures now used by companies.

Benjamin D. Thomas
Feb 10, 2006

DHS Seeks Public Comment On Software Security Enhancement Initiatives

The Homeland Security Department wants public comment on two draft documents that are part of a federal program to improve software security, according to today's Federal Register.

Brittany Day
Feb 03, 2006

RISCISO: 60 Members Charged For $6.5 Million Software Theft

A group of cyber-pirates stole copyrighted software, games and movies in what law enforcement authorities on Wednesday termed a "massive" theft for their own pleasure, not profit. The indictments were announced by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago against 19 members of the underground piracy group known as "RISCISO," led by Sean O'Toole, 26, of Perth, Australia. Another member of the group implicated in the FBI's investigation, dubbed "Operation Jolly Roger," was Linda Waldron, 57, of Barbados. Extradition will be sought for both.

Benjamin D. Thomas
Feb 03, 2006

Senator Schumer Proposes Bill Against Social Engineering Practices

New legislation proposed by Senator Chuck Schumer (D, NY) and backed by heavyweights from both major parties, seeks to criminalize both the practitioners and the dupes of "social engineering". That's just a fancy way of smooth-talking someone out of some information they shouldn't normally impart, but it has been the most effective technique for fraudsters, hackers and private eyes over the years.

Benjamin D. Thomas
Feb 02, 2006

DoD Network Security Evaluation Across 1,500 Military Systems

The U.S. Military's point man for global network operations says that a total overhaul of the government's classified and unclassified information networks may be necessary to ward off legions of hackers and adequately protect the military from crippling attacks in future conflicts.

Benjamin D. Thomas
Jan 17, 2006

US Government Tests RFID Passports At International Airports

The US government has started testing electronic passports which contain an RFID chip holding information and a digital photo of the passport's carrier. The tests started yesterday at San Francisco airport, Changi Airport in Singapore and Sydney Airport in Australia. Singapore Airlines crew, some US diplomats and some citizens from Australia and New Zealand are carrying the new passports.

Benjamin D. Thomas
Jan 16, 2006

New Data Breach Notification Laws in Illinois, Louisiana, and New Jersey

Companies struggling to keep up with a patchwork of state laws related to data privacy and information security have three more to contend with, as new security-breach notification laws went into effect in Illinois, Louisiana and New Jersey on Jan. 1. Like existing statutes in more than 20 other states, the new laws prescribe various actions that companies are required to take in the event of a security breach involving the compromise of personal data about their customers.

Benjamin D. Thomas
Jan 09, 2006

Congressional Inaction on Data Protection Amid Rising Breaches

Despite a year's worth of highly publicized security breaches and a lot of talk in Congress this summer on ways to protect consumers, there's been too little done to protect U.S. consumers' data, Gartner research director Avivah Litan says.

Benjamin D. Thomas
Dec 28, 2005

Second Life Cyber Attacks: CEO Rosedale Informs FBI About Threats

It seems that the online virtual world "Second Life" is no place hackers and other digital vandals should take lightly when considering who to hit with denial-of-service attacks. That much became clear this week, according to the blog Second Life Herald, when Philip Rosedale, CEO of "Second Life" publisher Linden Lab, announced during a virtual holiday party in the open-ended digital world that he had turned the perpetrators of a series of grid crashes over to the FBI.

Benjamin D. Thomas
Dec 16, 2005

New York's Breach Notification Law Mandates Alerts for Data Breaches

New York has joined the growing list of U.S. states requiring that companies notify their customers whenever private information has been compromised. On Wednesday, the state's Information Security Breach and Notification Act went into effect, according to a spokeswoman for the state's attorney general, Eliot Spitzer. The law, which is similar to California's SB-1386 notification law, requires businesses and state agencies to inform New York residents "whose unencrpyted personal information may have been acquired by an unauthorized person," according to the text of the legislation.

Benjamin D. Thomas
Dec 08, 2005

Insider Threats Insight: Vulnerabilities in Agency Networks

Agency networks are more vulnerable than ever, according to a former CIA official and cybersecurity expert, and the greatest threat to an organization’s network security may come from within. Eric Cole, who worked for the CIA for more than five years, told an audience of government and corporate security professionals today at the inaugural Techno Forensics Conference at the National Institute of Standards and Technology that despite their best efforts, networks are only getting more porous.

Benjamin D. Thomas
Nov 29, 2005

Exploring Global Government Adoption Of Open Source Software

The number of open source deployments by governments across the world has accelerated over the last few years. To date at least 160 international local and national governments have deployed open source software and over $2bn has been spent on the Linux open source operating system, according to figures from Linux vendor Red Hat.

Brittany Day
Nov 17, 2005

Congress Fails to Enact Key Data Security Measures Amid Rising Data Threats

Despite the seemingly unending torrent of citizens' data pouring into the hands of identity thieves, Congress is unlikely to pass any data-security bills by the end of the year, according to Hill watchers. After the nationwide uproar when ChoicePoint admitted it sold 145,000 dossiers to Nigerian identity thieves, 20 states followed California's lead and passed laws requiring companies to notify citizens when their data had been compromised.

Benjamin D. Thomas
Nov 11, 2005

New Data Security Legislation Addresses Consumer Privacy Risks

It has been a bad year for data security. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer advocacy group in San Diego, has counted 80 data breaches since February, involving the personal information of more than 50 million people. The sensitive data--names, Social Security and credit card numbers, dates of birth, home addresses and the like--have either been lost by or stolen from companies and institutions that compile such data.

Brittany Day
Nov 01, 2005

28% of Companies Cite Sarbanes-Oxley As Major IT Time Waster

The Sarbanes-Oxley rules will be the biggest waste of IT resources for public companies this year, according to a poll of 444 US companies by IBM user group Share. Share polled those who were pre-registering for its Boston conference and asked people to imagine themselves transported to 2015 and looking back at 2005, and asked what they thought in retrospect would prove to be either an ineffective or wasteful use of their IT time.

Benjamin D. Thomas
Aug 23, 2005

Exploring Hacker Accountability And The Legal System's Failures

In the Internet criminal justice system the people are betrayed by two separate, yet equally important groups: the hackers who investigate and exploit security problems and the legal authorities who don't take the offenders seriously. These are their stories.

Brittany Day
Jul 13, 2005

Proposed Data Protection Laws: Major Concerns for Webmasters

Our esteemed leaders in the U.S. Congress are vowing to enact new laws targeting data thieves, backup-tape burglars and other information-age miscreants. We should be worried.

Brittany Day
Jul 05, 2005

U.S. Senate Unveils Groundbreaking Data Security Bill for Privacy Reforms

Corporate data-security practices would be hit with an avalanche of new rules and information burglars would face stiff new penalties under a far-reaching bill introduced Wednesday in the U.S. Senate. The bill represents the most aggressive--and at 91 pages, the most regulatory--legislative proposal crafted so far in response to a slew of high-profile security breaches in the last few months.

Brittany Day
Jun 30, 2005

Government Initiatives in Secure Open Source for Remote Work

The Cabinet Office's Central Sponsor for Information Assurance, which co-ordinates information security projects across government, is investigating applications based around a highly secure open source operating system. The proof-of-concept systems being developed by the CSIA will use security enhanced Linux to support remote working and web services. Ministers were prompted to disclose details of the work following parliamentary questions tabled by Lord Harris of Haringey about the CSIA's activities in evaluating the security of open source software.

Benjamin D. Thomas
Jun 24, 2005

U.S. Initiative: Addressing ISP Data Retention and Privacy Concerns

The U.S. Department of Justice is quietly shopping around the explosive idea of requiring Internet service providers to retain records of their customers' online activities. Data retention rules could permit police to obtain records of e-mail chatter, Web browsing or chat-room activity months after Internet providers ordinarily would have deleted the logs--that is, if logs were ever kept in the first place. No U.S. law currently mandates that such logs be kept.

Brittany Day
Jun 17, 2005

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