President George W. Bush on Monday proposed a $2.4 trillion federal budget that boosts spending on information technology and on computer crime investigation. The record budget request for the 2005 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, 2004, asks Congress to ignore a widening deficit of $521 billion and to increase defense spending by 7 percent and homeland security spending by 10 percent. . . .
Electronic signatures are backed by valid European laws and thus qualified digital signatures have great potential. Strong digital signatures have great importance to all businesses who must do electronic transactions with European partners because they have a very deep juridical value. Once again, a secure digital signature warrants the authentication, integrity, confidentiality, and non-repudiation of a signatory; these are the most desired guarantees in e-business. Strong digital signatures thus have widespread use for high value e-commerce situations: everyone wants to be sure her/his contract is valid and there is no hacker interference. . . .
The federal government yesterday announced a new, centralized system to alert the country to threats to computer systems, as a virulent worm continued to play havoc with e-mail around the world. The alert system, announced by the cybersecurity division of the Department of Homeland Security, will be a clearinghouse of information on hacking, viruses, worms and cyberterrorism. It will also be a place for consumers to learn about their systems' vulnerabilities and how to fight computer crime. . . .
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security plans to announce details of a cyberalert system on Wednesday, two days after a virus called MyDoom spread rapidly across the Internet. The system, which will be detailed by the department's National Cyber Security Division, could mimic the color-coded scheme the government uses to warn citizens and alert law enforcement authorities of terrorism threats, a source familiar with some details of the plan said. . . .
Depending on how this goes, this might well have a strong influence on future computer privacy and anti-hacking laws. It appears as though, due to security negligance on the Democrats' part and weak ethics on the Republicans, the GOP side of the isle has been reading Democrat internal memos for at least a year. On the other hand, the information was highly embaressing for the Democratic victims, who may want to avoid calling further attention to the stolen memos. . . .
"A computer expert in North Korea who has a number of personal computers and an internet connection can download the latest version of Linux, complete with multiprocessing capabilities misappropriated from Unix, and, in short order, build a virtual supercomputer," the letter says. . . .
Homeland Security Department officials said Monday that the government does not plan to place many security requirements on private industry when it comes to protecting the nation's critical infrastructure. James Loy, the department's deputy secretary, said the federal government will back away from issuing new security mandates to industry, and instead let private companies take the lead "in most cases" to protect critical infrastructure, such as power plants and water reservoirs. . . .
Similar to Gramm-Leach, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, is designed to protect the privacy and confidentiality of patients and their medical records. Much as Gramm-Leach has made financial institutions assess the security of their customer data, HIPAA forces health-care organizations to evaluate the security of their patient data. . . .
As any corporate IT administrator knows, network security is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. If your network is not secure, not only do you risk losing valuable corporate information, but you also run the risk of being liable if your network is used to disrupt other sites, as with Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. With this in mind, corporations are spending more and more on network security, even while other corporate spending is being curtailed. . . .
A 13-year-old girl sat at a computer in Orangeburg, making arrangements to have sex with an older man from Charleston. At least that's what the man thought. When he arrived at the appointed place in Orangeburg, it was not a young girl who met him. It was the law. . . .
Just in case we needed more evidence that the US court system alone will not be enough to stem the tide of spam, here is a story which demonstrates one of the big stumbling blocks to enforcement: jurisdiction. . . .
A growing number of people will carry their identifying data on microchips in passports, employment ID cards or drivers' licenses in 2004, analysts say. But the data is useless unless the technologies and public records are integrated, a job that has become a fast-growing business for data processing giants like I.B.M., Unisys and Siemens. "The technology is advancing rapidly," said Ed Schaffner, director of positive ID and access control solutions at Unisys, who said that the first government agencies to adopt the technology would put their systems in place in 2004. "The big growth will be in 2005 and 2006," he said.. . .
The compensation demand, believed to be the first time an organisation has used the UK criminal courts to recover the costs of repairing hacked computer systems, could set a precedent for future prosecutions against computer criminals. Joseph James McElroy, 18, a . . .
The federal government should leverage its legislative and purchasing power to force rapid improvement in the state of operating system and application security and quality. And it must quickly do a better job setting itself up as a model of IT security, as called for in the government's plan to secure cyberspace.. . .
You can count on companies to talk about implementing cybersecurity guidelines and best practices until they're blue in the face. Truth be told, however, you won't see major changes until the law holds actual fannies to the fire.. . .
A group of high-level IT officials in the federal government has begun collaborating on configuration benchmarks that government agencies could be required to use in future purchases of hardware and software. The development of the benchmarks is at once an indication . . .
Known as the CAN-SPAM Act, the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 takes effect Jan. 1. The law prohibits the use of false header information in bulk commercial e-mail and requires unsolicited messages to include opt-out . . .
The US federal government's latest computer-security report has given the Department of Homeland Security a failing 'F' grade US federal departments and agencies are showing some improvement in protecting their computer networks, but many -- including the Department of Homeland Security . . .
DULLES, Virginia (CNN) -- Virginia authorities Thursday announced felony charges against two men accused of violating the state's new anti-spam law. They described the indictments as the first of their kind.. . .
The Treasury Department on Tuesday signed a $2 million one-time contract to upgrade the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS/ISAC), which serves as the central point for the sector's critical infrastructure warnings. . .
