There have been major data breach impacting Google employees and patients of the Unniversity of Utah.

The data breaches did not result from cunning hackers penetrating a vulnerable corporate network. It is just another case of computers getting up and walking as a result of an old-fashioned burglary. 

It was reported that Google employees hired before Dec. 31, 2005, received notices that their personal data, including Social Security numbers and birth dates had been compromised by a break-in at an Outsourcing Services, a payroll and human resources outsourcing company.

The break-in occurred at Colt Express on May 26 and Google informed employees on June 9 about the breach. As a result, employees are getting a free year of identity theft protection.

Google employees looking to get an explanation from the outsourcer will find the company's Web site is no help. The site only reports that the "home page will be reconstructed."

The likely reason for the site being down is that Ceridian, the giant payroll processing and human resources company that serves more than 25 million employees, announced in early February 2008 that it had acquired "certain assets" from the outsourcer. Ceridian's benefits services division is now providing services to outsourcers' clients.

   

In the case of University of Utah the backup tapes were taken from an employee of another outsourcer.

This latest cases demonstrate again that poor physical security is a more common cause of data breaches than remote hacking attacks. Most of the biggest data breaches reported over the past couple of years have resulted from laptop computers being lost or stolen.

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Many organizations initially believe that they can create and maintain manual maps that demonstrate how their infrastructure works together to deliver critical business services. In fact, many initial attempts are quite successful with one or two services. However, as time goes on and more services are added, it becomes difficult to the point of being impossible to maintain reliable models due to the number of changes and intricate dependencies. This is an area where automation is key to lowering costs and increasing accuracy for IT groups. By leveraging technology that automates discovery and dependency mapping, companies can reduce costs while reducing mean time to resolution and increasing mean time between failures.

 

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Mozilla's Firefox groupheld its final pre-release meeting for the much anticipated Firefox 3. Apparently, the Apple update causes the browser to hang. RC3 for Mac OSX  is being built and the update is expected to go live tomorrow, according to Mozilla.

It does not appear likely that the glitch will hold up the mid month launch of Firefox 3. The open source product is the second leading web browser on the market next to Microsoft's Internet Explorer with roughly 18 percent market share.

"QA will re do tests on OSX builds," according to meeting notes posted on the site. "Windows and Linux RC2 builds will be copied over into RC3 folders."

Overall, Firefox 3 is in good shape and will soon be released, said one of the project's lead developers. The remaining 17 issues in the web browser update "are pretty well contained," said a Mozilla developer. "We are pretty confident we will have them all resolved by the end of the week."

The Wall Street Journal's said Firefox 3 has recaptured the performance title and gave the browser a solid review.

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Data Beach and Network Intrusion Tools are containted it the Janco Data Breach and Network Intrusion Protection Bundle.  

Janco has defined a set of tools which enterprises of all sizes can use to be prepared to protect against breaches and intrusion, know when it occurs, and provides the ability to respond quickly when it does happen.

The Data Breach and Network Intrusion Detection Bundle  are the tools that are needed and contain:

• Security Manual Template

• Security Audit Program

• Network Event Viewer

• Smart Disk Monitor

• Text Log Monitor

• Internet Service Monitor

 

Required Processes	Recommended Solution
Implement formalized security policies and procedures	Security Manual Template
Audit access to databases and network	Security Audit Program
Monitor network activity to identify unusual activity	Network Event Viewer
Monitor user activity to identify unusual activity	Smart Disk Monitor
Archive logs to meet compliance requirements	Text Log Monitor
Automate monitoring	Network Event Viewer Smart Disk Monitor Text Log Monitor Internet Service Monitor

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With all the all the talk about Windows 7, many users are pondering the question of should they move to Vista.

Bill Gates revealed that the next version of Windows: Windows 7 (formerly called Windows Vienna for some reason) will be out in 2010. Gates said, "We are hard at work, I would say, on the next version, which we call Windows 7. I’m very excited about the work being done there. The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections up to the mobile phone, so those scenarios connect up well to make it a great platform for the best gaming that can be done, to connect up to the thing being done out on the Internet, so that, for example, if you have two personal computers, that your files automatically are synchronized between them, and so you don’t have a lot of work to move that data back and forth."

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(AP) Verizon Wireless is backing a free operating system, Linux, that competes with programs from Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. and expects it to become the preferred software on its network.

 

It is the first U.S. carrier to join the LiMo Foundation, which aims to unite handset makers, software companies and carriers on a software platform that will make it easier and cheaper to create a wide variety of phones.

 

The carrier's endorsement Wednesday is an important boost to the stature of LiMo, or Linux Mobile, and its prospects in the U.S. It already has the backing of large Asian and European carriers, as well as handset makers like Motorola Inc., Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics.

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Nearly one in four CIOs polled by Robert Half International in a recent survey said finding skilled IT professionals is their greatest staffing challenge. It’s gone so far that major company heads like Bill Gates of Microsoft have urged the U.S. government to increase the number of H1-B visas to help fill gaps.

   

But to hiring managers looking for very specific qualifications, it really does not matter whether there are copious amounts of technology drones in the workforce. It only matters whether their organizations can find just the right workers for the jobs at hand.

Many technology recruiters and industry association insiders believe that even though there may be enough sheer numbers of IT workers out there applying for jobs, there are still definite gaps in select skill sets that employers require to keep their IT departments running smoothly.

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(Ziff Davis) Messaging has moved beyond simply being a way to exchange email. Today, it enables employees throughout an organization to work on projects together. This valuable level of collaboration can be extended beyond a company to outsiders, including business part­ners, clients and customers.

 

    

 

The shift in messaging use was duly noted in a survey conducted by Ziff Davis Media in conjunction with the independent research firm The Strategy Group. Specifically, of the 167 organizations surveyed, virtually all have installed email, calendaring and file shar­ing capabilities, 81% have instant messaging, 73% have unified communications and 70% have whiteboard conferencing installed.

 

The survey also found that workers are stratified into two groups: power users who need all or most of the collaboration applications’ features and moderate to light users who primarily use email, calendars and file sharing. The survey further confirmed that today’s workforce is geographically dispersed. This increased need for collaboration between more and more remote users puts a strain on IT to support these users.

A combination of two classes of users and the need to support many remote users has led companies to utilize Web-based collaboration tools to help reduce support costs.

 

 

 

The survey also found that security, corporate culture and user training were the key chal­lenges to gaining maximum benefit from collaborative applications. Those who make use of collaborative applications report that the main benefits their companies derive are efficient information sharing, improved communications, increased productivity and faster project turnaround times.

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User Access Control on Vista is very frustrating for users.  Many do not know what it does.  The four major things it does are:

UAC has four major benefits:

• On a shared computer, you can set up standard user accounts for users who do not have the experience or training to make smart decisions about installing software or making system changes. As a result, they will not be able to do any damage if a malicious website fools them into trying to install a piece of spyware or a Trojan.
• As an administrator, you get a warning before a piece of software attempts to make a change that can adversely affect the system. In Windows XP, clicking OK to a single malicious installer program could install a dozen programs in the background, with no warning to you. In Vista with UAC, you will have to give consent to each installation (and presumably will say No, early and often.)
• Badly written programs sometimes try to write user data to system areas, such as the Windows or Program Files folder or a registry key that affects all users. In Windows XP, running this type of program as a standard user would probably cause the program to fail. With Vista, those operations are intercepted and written to a virtualized location in your user profile. The program thinks it wrote a file to the Windows folder, but the actual file appears in your profile.
• Internet Explorer 7 runs in Protected Mode when UAC is on. That causes processes in a browser window to run at a low integrity level, where they’re blocked from interacting with processes that have a higher integrity level. The net effect is to stop entire classes of web-based attacks in their tracks.

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(C/Net News) Are all of those Apple OS X vs. Vista commercials making an impact? Microsoft’s client revenue–Vista and XP came in below expectations–and the company cited three primary reasons: A tough comparison from year ago levels, OEM inventory build and piracy. But the elephant on the conference call may have been Apple and its Mac.

Microsoft’s reasons for the client malaise are all legitimate. What is curious is that piracy (always a big deal for Microsoft) was mentioned 12 times on the conference call by the CFO  to Microsoft analysts.

The takeaway: Microsoft is facing tough growth comparisons and any blip in piracy levels can be the difference between Vista and XP hitting Wall Street targets. If Microsoft did not need that extra percent of growth or two it is unlikely we would get a conference call where piracy chatter was dominant.

But diggnig deeper: Could it be that the real elephant in the room was Apple? Apple is not taking over operating system dominance, but it is growing fast enough to take away a few incremental dollars from Microsoft.

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