Security is not at the top of employee concerns...

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=20049

Why Hackers Find Many US Companies Easy to Hack?

Why do big companies fall prey to cyber attacks very easily? According to hackers taking part in Defcon conference, the world’s largest hacking convention in Las Vegas, workers at big corporations are poorly trained in security, which makes it “ridiculously easy” for hackers to trick them and reveal key information to plan cyber attacks against them.

[...]

“Oracle was wiped,” said Hadnagy, who o-author of the book “Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking.” Employees at Oracle, one of the world’s largest software makers, gave away most number of data, he said.

Read more on International Business Times.

When does minor crime escalate to an act of war? At some point, South Korea will tire of dealing with its mentally challenged neighbor.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-20089302-62/north-koreas-army-of-online-game-hackers/

North Korea's army of online game hackers

From the "I guess this makes sense" files, the New York Times reports that North Korea has unleashed a squad of hackers to infiltrate South Korean gaming sites. The two countries have technically been at war for almost 60 years, and cyber-attacks are the modern-day equivalent to a slap in the face. [Didn't that used to result in a duel? Bob]

Where does this come form? Is it leftover British paranoia or are they truly convinced that information on terrorists will pop out of the Tweets of normal people?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=23963

India wants special monitoring access for Twitter, Facebook

John Ribeiro reports:

India’s communications ministry has been asked by the home ministry to monitor social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook amid fears that the services are being used by terrorists to plan attacks.

The request suggests that the Indian government is trying to broaden the scope of its online surveillance for national security.

Telecommunications service providers in India provide facilities for lawful interception and monitoring of communications on their network, including communications from social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter, in accordance with their license agreements, Milind Deora, the minister of state for communications and IT, told Parliament, according to the country’s Press Information Bureau.

But there are certain communications which are encrypted, Deora said Friday.

The government did not provide details of what encrypted data they would like to have access to.

Read more on Network World.

(Related) Perhaps they should subscribe to the data like a local advertiser?

Gov’t motion for cell phone location data from its GPS merely for an attempted arrest denied

Via FourthAmendment.com:

The government’s motion for cell phone location data to locate a person it has an arrest warrant for where there has been no showing of any attempt to flee or that the data would reveal a crime is denied. In Re an Application of The United States for an Order Authorizing Disclosure of Location Information of a Specified Wireless Telephone, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 85638 (D. Md. August 3, 2011)

Read more on FourthAmendment.com

Not being able to see some of the “evidence” sounds very North Korea-like...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=23960

We don’t need no due process – just trust the government

Scott Greenfield writes:

Now that everything’s changed, and the war against terrorism demands that all our nastiness falls under the doctrine of state secrets (for our own good), the nature of litigation is taking a turn as well. As the 9th Circuit prepares to hear argument in Jewel v. National Security Agency, the government is making sure that the judges are good boys and don’t spill any beans. From Politico:

On Wednesday, Justice Department Attorney H. Thomas Byron sent the court a letter (posted here) essentially warning the judges that since the argument is taking place in a courtroom open to the public the court should be careful not to discuss any national security secrets during the session.

“All classified information has been provided to the Court with the understanding that the secrecy of this information will be properly protected,” Byron said. “We are prepared to argue this case publicly, in an open courtroom, without referring to any classified information…. If the Court has questions about the classified information in the record, we are prepared to address those questions in an appropriate secure environment with only the judges, cleared court personnel, and the attorneys for the government present, to ensure appropriate safeguards against disclosure.”

Wait, you say. What about the plaintiff’s lawyers being able to offer argument, part of that whole “due process” thing they keep talking about in the Constitution? Heh. Don’t get your panties in a twist, as it’s not like the plaintiff’s lawyers were allowed to see the government’s secret brief anyway. That was for judge’s eyes only.

Read more on Simple Justice.

For my Business Continuity students...

Lightning Strike KOs Amazon, Microsoft EuroClouds

"A lightning strike has caused power outages at the major cloud computing data hubs for Amazon and Microsoft in Dublin, Ireland. The incident has caused downtime for many sites using Amazon's EC2 cloud computing platform and Microsoft's BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite)."