General News

The movement of more and more data onto the cloud and the increasing sophistication of cybercrime means that only the only effective defense is a cooperative one, according to one of the keynote speakers at the RSA security conference that begins Monday. "We need corporations, government and community working closer together," says Qualys chief executive Philippe Courtot, who will be joined at the event by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and White House Cyber Security Coordinator Howard Schmidt.

The Defense Department has formally approved use of social-media sites like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook from its unclassified network. The move, a widely expected outcome of a Pentagon review announced in July, permits "limited personal use when authorized" when "sound" security measures are taken.

Microsoft is investigating a newly reported vulnerability for users of the two latest Internet Explorer versions on Windows XP. The flaw's discoverer, Maurycy Prodeus of iSEC Security Research, says it can be used to plant malware on a machine whose user visits a malicious Web page with IE7 or IE8.

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts has revealed a security breach late last year in which hackers stole guest names and credit-card data. The breach, its third in as many years, affected "a limited number of franchised and managed properties," the company said.

Microsoft says it plans to use the tactic it took last week against the Waledac botnet -- a court-ordered shutdown of domains linked to control servers -- on other botnets. ""Each botnet is different, of course, but this is another arrow in the quiver. This is not the last," said Richard Boscovich, senior attorney with Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit.

The number of companies targeted in the Aurora attacks announced by Google in January could number more than 100 rather than the 34 initially tallied, according to a security firm. Ongoing forensics work has uncovered at least 68 command-and-control servers used in the attack, meaning that the number of target companies is "easily over 100," according to Alex Stamos of Isec Partners.

A bill being drafted by Senate Commerce Committee leaders would require federal agencies to prepare contingency plans aimed at insuring continuity of both federal and private Web resources in the event of a massive cyberattack. The president would have the authority to initiate the plans, according to an aide familiar with the draft.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao took to the Internet over the weekend for a rare session of public interaction. The session drew more than 60,000 questions on a broad range of policy issues, but steered clear of political matters.

Delegates at the 16th ASEAN Economic Community retreat in Malaysia on Sunday gave their nations an 85 percent grade on a scorecard designed to measure progress toward economic integration. The Southeast Asia trading bloc has a goal of economic integration by 2015.

The first bill since the mid-1990s that would pull the United State out of the North American Free Trade Agreement is being drafted by Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss. While the measure has no chance of passage, its existence a measure of Democratic discomfort to President Obama's approach to free-trade agreements.

The first change-of-venue case before the Supreme Court in decades will confront the problems the Internet has created in finding completely untainted jurors. In the appeal of Jeffrey Skilling over the Enron scandal, government attorneys argue that continuing the traditional approach would mean "no trial will be possible in the most nationally significant cases."

The first MeriTalk conference, a bid to help technology experts from the public and private sectors meet and greet, is drawing some 1,300 attendees this week from organizations as far apart as the U.S. Postal Service and Google. "Part of my mission here will be to broaden the perspective of these IT directors," says keynote speaker Ray Kurzweil.

Many health-care professionals are questioning the standards proposed for "meaningful use" of electronic medical records systems, necessary to qualify for Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments under the economic stimulus package. "I cannot imagine a hospital system just starting to implement an EHR to reach this level by 2011," says William Fera, M.D., vice president of emerging technologies at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which expects to meet the standard only after bolstering its existing system.

Prescriptions written by hand are seven times more likely to contain errors as those entered into electronic systems, according to research conducted at Weill Cornell Medical College. While the error rate of e-prescription systems started off at 42.5 percent, it declined to only 6.6 percent within a year, the researchers found, while the paper prescriptions maintained an error rate of 37 to 38 percent.

Los Angeles County is expanding its electronic system for sharing police reports of suspected child abuse to include social workers and prosecutors. District Attorney Steve Cooley said the Web-based Electronic Suspected Child Abuse Report System, which already includes 28,000 police reports, is the first of its kind in the country.

Google executives say attorneys who have represented Microsoft are showing up in a suspicious number of antitrust cases filed by third parties against the search giant. Microsoft says the plaintiffs chose the same counsel on their own, but concedes that "It's no secret that we share many of these concerns."

The deal that Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy reached with the panel's ranking GOP member over patent reform "preserves the core" of a compromise on the issue reached last year, Leahy says. The new agreement raises the bar for challenges to patents once granted, and places new limits on relitigation of arguments.

The effort to renew the tax credit for research and development is gaining bipartisan support in both the Senate and House. More than 100 House members have signed onto the effort, and a package slated for Senate vote soon also contains a renewal.

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