October 31, 2005
A Word document sent in error to UK IT media website, Silicon.com, has revealed that the UK’s National Hi-Tech Crime Unit has been soliciting support from companies willing to part with between £50,000 and £150,000 to be associated with its ‘getsafeonline’ campaign.
In return, the sponsors are offered the opportunity to use the public sector-run campaign to drive sales and promote their own products and services to the consumers and businesses which the secure computing initiative is targeting.
More on ZDNet UK
At the same time, the initiative itself has been getting a mixed reation from security experts, who have been pressing the UK Government for some time:
“While this action by the Government is certainly a step in the right direction, it could be argued that this measure is merely shifting what should actually be a problem for ISPs onto the shoulders of the public,” said Jamie Cowper, senior technology consultant at secure messaging company Mirapoint.
More on SC Magazine
October 28, 2005
Executives of Australian policy consultants ACIL Tasman will face Melbourne Magistrates Court next month charged with stealing scores of documents that formed the basis of Australian government policy reviews.
The documents were allegedly hacked by a former Access Economics employee, who at the time of the alleged thefts worked part-time for ACIL Tasman, and then provided to ACIL. Among the documents allegedly stolen and provided to ACIL Tasman were an Access Economics tender for the Intergenerational Review by the Department of Health and Ageing, which led to the Hogan review of pricing arrangements in residential aged care.
More from Australian IT
October 27, 2005
IT directors have hit out against the use of digital music players at work because they increase the workload on the helpdesk, a study published this week claimed.
Conducted by research company, Vanson Bourne, the research questioned 100 IT directors and found that music players are creating extra work that the IT department is struggling to cope with. Two-thirds of IT directors said that new devices, such as iPods and smartphones had increased their departement’s workload.
More on ZDNet
BBC switches off Blackberry service
The BBC has suspended the BlackBerry PDA service used by more than 300 senior executives, including Director General Mark Thompson.
A BBC spokeswoman told vnunet.com: “Last week we noticed a fault in that some users were getting fragments of other people’s email in their own email. So we suspended the service and it will remain suspended until it is fixed.”
Banks to blacklist rogue workers
Major U.S. financial institutions are working to set up a new defense against insider fraud: a database of employees who are known to be scam risks.
“There is a phenomenon of people being able to literally walk down the street to another financial institution and get hired,” said Cheryl Charles, a senior director at BITS.
Reports of insiders attacking financial services systems are on the increase. In a 2004 Deloitte survey of IT security in the industry, 35 percent of companies said they had come under an attack from an internal source. That’s up from 14 percent in 2003.
More on ZDNet
October 25, 2005
The countdown has begun until a UK worker’s iPod is confiscated and searched by companies probing into corporate data theft, a team of US investigators has declared.
Experts at Kroll Ontrack predict it’s no longer a question of ‘if’ but rather ‘when’ a UK professional hands over the innocuous music player, for independent scrutiny into data loss, leakage or theft.
Speaking to The Independent, the electronic investigations unit said already US workers have lost iPods and other portable media devices as part of the ’discovery process” by legal investigators.
Concern over the use of portables as mini hard drives able to store, steal or unleash information has affected Deloitte, the business consultant, which came close to being forced to search “all its computer systems, servers and other storage devices,” in 2003.
Earlier this year, a divorce hearing in the US ordered one man “to stop using, accessing, turning on, powering, copying, deleting, removing or uninstalling any programmes, files or folders, and booting up her laptop computer.”
The order added CDs, zip files and similar types of “computer storage devices” were also to be handed over.
Now experts are warning that UK workers using iPods and the like during office hours are in line for independent investigations in the wake of a security breach, particular in companies absent of authorised user policies or software to encrypt sensitive data.
More from Contractor UK
October 24, 2005
“What did you say your name was? Really? It’s just that there is someone about to board a flight at Heathrow with exactly the same name on their passport. They also have a driving licence with your details on it….”
According to British newspaper, The Independent, ID thieves are after more than just your money; they want your entire life.
“If it all sounds far fetched, consider the gang from Essex that forged documents to steal the identities of 60 people across the country. The ringleader was driving a £160,000 car and wearing a Rolex worth £32,000 when he was caught. Or the man from Staffordshire who received a letter from a firm of solicitors telling him he had come into some money. They just needed his date of birth and the maiden name of his mother as security before it could be released. He replied, but heard nothing. Then letters started coming from credit companies about loans taken out in his name. The solicitors were not real, they were fraudsters who stole £20,000 from his accounts and then disappeared without trace.”
