Finishing up the Month

You know how much I love the fallout from the data breach at TJX. Here is more info on the shear arrogance of the company. The new report out of Canada states: "... Canada's Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, blasted the parent of the TJ Maxx, Marshalls and A.J. Wright chain of stores, for failing to protect its customers. "The company collected too much personal information, kept it too long and relied on weak encryption technology to protect it—putting the privacy of millions of its customers at risk," Stoddart said in releasing the report." Why aren't heads rolling here? From Baseline Magazine:

http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1397,2188613,00.asp?kc=BARSS03129TX1K0000628


Good news for consumers from CNN, Equifax Fraud Solutions Help Businesses Win the Fight Against Fraud.

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/CLW08726092007-1.htm


IT News, Australia, has an interesting article based on a presentation by McAfee's president. The one item that sticks out is the acknowledgment that cybercrime is now a $105B business, bigger than the word-wide illegal drug trade.

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/61497,cyberthreats-outpace-security-measures-says-mcafee-ceo.aspx



Well, it had to happen at some point. I've seen this a couple of places but this is from vnunet.com.... hacking tools are now for sale on eBay... how convenient!

http://www.vnunet.com/computing/news/2199102/hackers-training-sold-ebay


IT Security explains what it sees as The Top 10 Types of Cybercriminals. I'm not sure #5, Online Loan Sharks, is really accurate, but overall, it's a keeper.

http://www.itsecurity.com/features/top-10-cybercriminals-091007/


A little more specific topic, but if you are in a manufacturing or other environment that employs SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), this is yet another wake up call. SCADA, for those who do not use it, is used to control machine tools, robots, etc. SC Magazine relates a simulated event where a hacked SCADA device self destructs. Cool!

http://www.scmagazineus.com/Video-shows-simulated-hacker-attack-on-electrical-grid/article/35872/


SC Mag also highlights the unique position of colleges and universities relative to the cascade of multiple regulations and compliance.

http://www.scmagazineus.com/Back-to-school-Compliance-in-higher-education/article/35684/


And, last but not least, ComputerWorld talks about creating a data-centric, as opposed to a deveice-centric environment as the only real way to defend important information.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9038960&pageNumber=1


Onward to October!