InformationWeek Daily Archives
05/24/2013 01:00:06 Daily, March 15NIST Likely To Lift Windows Vista Ban
In This Issue:
1. Editor's Note: Data Safety -- The Old-Fashioned Way
2. Today's Top Story
- NIST Likely To Lift Windows Vista Ban If Microsoft's New OS Passes Muster
3. Breaking News
- Pitney Bowes Merges With MapInfo In $408 Million Deal
- Offshore Outsourcing Cost Advantages To Disappear By 2027: Study
- Verizon Wireless Paces Mobile Phone Call Quality Survey
- Skype Offers A PBX-Like System For Four Users
- Another Week, Another Scam On Cisco Systems
- Microsoft CEO Ballmer Talks Up 'Software + Services'
- WellPoint Finds Missing CD With Data On 75,000 People
- Firefox 3 Public Beta Due In Spring
- Cisco To Buy WebEx In $3.2 Billion Deal
- Google Aims To Bolster Privacy Of Web Surfer Data
- BenQ Offices Raided By Police
4. The Latest Personal Tech Blog Posts
- Travel Tools That Let You Leave The Laptop Behind
- Viacom Vs. Media Fans: No One Wins
- Bono's A Fake, But The Green Is Real
- Twitter Is Hot At South By Southwest
5. White Papers
- Enabling Technologies For Power And Cooling
6. Get More Out Of InformationWeek
7. Manage Your Newsletter Subscription
Quote of the day:
"Better be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident security." -- Edmund Burke
We can all breathe easier. WellPoint, the country's largest managed care firm, has found its missing disc -- the unencrypted one that contains the personal information (including Social Security numbers and medical records) of 75,000 people. It had been lost in transit by UPS. But it was found. Don't you feel better?
The idea that these companies still think it's OK to stick a CD with highly confidential information into an envelope and drop it off at the nearest UPS office (or hand it to the UPS guy), even after all the other examples of lost and stolen data that we've had over the past couple of years, has got to make you wonder: What were they thinking? I've got nothing against UPS, but how many packages get lost/torn/misrouted every year by package services?
And the icing on this particular cake is that the disc wasn't even encrypted. Thousands of Social Security numbers, and not even the most basic security protocols were followed. Heck, I have better security on my trusty USB flash drive (which contains my secondary e-mail app and a few personal documents). If I know the value of encryption, shouldn't the experts entrusted with our medical data have some kind of clue?
Actually, I should be fair to WellPoint's personnel. They didn't actually send the disc out via UPS. It was a third-party vendor, Health Data Management Solutions (which, according to its Web site, "prides itself on setting the standard for data management and analytic services") that sent the disc out via UPS. It makes you wonder just what the standard for data management is these days.
WellPoint has stated that Magellan Behavioral Health Services, the intended recipient of the disc, from now on will only transmit data through a secure network. That's certainly nice to know. These companies sound so up to date technologically that one can't help wondering if they'll have to upgrade their systems first -- to Windows XP.
What do you think? Is there anything that those of us who use these services can do to keep our data safe? Leave a comment at the InformationWeek Blog and let us know.
Barbara Krasnoff
NIST Likely To Lift Windows Vista Ban If Microsoft's New OS Passes Muster
Pitney Bowes Merges With MapInfo In $408 Million Deal
Offshore Outsourcing Cost Advantages To Disappear By 2027: Study
Verizon Wireless Paces Mobile Phone Call Quality Survey
Skype Offers A PBX-Like System For Four Users
Another Week, Another Scam On Cisco Systems
Microsoft CEO Ballmer Talks Up 'Software + Services'
WellPoint Finds Missing CD With Data On 75,000 People
Firefox 3 Public Beta Due In Spring
Cisco To Buy WebEx In $3.2 Billion Deal
Google Aims To Bolster Privacy Of Web Surfer Data
BenQ Offices Raided By Police
On the go?
Virtual Reality
InformationWeek 500 -- Now Accepting Applications!
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Travel Tools That Let You Leave The Laptop Behind
Viacom Vs. Media Fans: No One Wins
Bono's A Fake, But The Green Is Real
Twitter Is Hot At South By Southwest
Enabling Technologies For Power And Cooling
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InformationWeek Daily Newsletter
1. Editor's Note: Data Safety -- The Old-Fashioned Way
bkrasnoff@cmp.com
www.informationweek.com
The agency is likely to begin full testing of Windows Vista in a month or two after it finishes a project to encrypt all of its laptop computers in order to comply with new government security policies.
MapInfo sells software and data related to geographic locations and offers a variety of data packages for the telecommunications, retail, insurance, and banking industries, as well as public-sector organizations.
But despite increasing wages, for now India is still an offshore hot spot for U.S. technology companies.
How well does your carrier rate? J.D. Power and Associates' survey covers seven key areas.
The DUALphone 3088 from RTX Telecom A/S has Skype software embedded in it and operates with up to four wireless handsets, permitting conference calls, intercom calls, and call transfer among handsets.
With four retailers charged with defrauding Cisco Systems of $1 million, the Justice Department says it will continue to investigate fraud schemes against the networking equipment maker.
In order to bring customers that blended model, Microsoft will have to build out its software-as-a-service infrastructure, much of which is still in its infancy.
Less than a week after beginning to notify customers that their personal and health information had been lost, WellPoint found the missing and unencrypted disc.
New features will include standardized support for running Web apps such as mail and office suites while disconnected from the Internet, and support for Places, a redesigned bookmarks and history manager.
Cisco has reached an agreement to buy WebEx Communications, which specializes in software that allows businesses to conduct online meetings.
"Unless we're legally required to retain log data for longer, we will anonymize our server logs after a limited period of time," Google said in a statement.
Police raided the offices of Taiwan's BenQ Corp., leading to the arrest of two senior executives in relation to irregularities over bonuses paid to overseas employees.
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4. The Latest Personal Tech Blog Posts
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/consumerpersonal_tech/index.html
The South by Southwest conference gave Mitch Wagner an opportunity to try out travel tools he's been reading and writing about for a couple of years.
From Barbara Krasnoff: If I didn't feel like renting a film, I could always and download a copy. You say that Viacom is suing Google for copyright infringement on YouTube? I'm sorry, did I say anything about the Web?
Maybe it's the change to DST, maybe it's the fake Bono sightings in Boston, maybe it's the approaching St. Patrick's Day festivities, but something green is afoot.
Twitter, a simplified blogging service founded by Blogger co-founder Evan Williams, is hot at South by Southwest. John Edwards, a Democratic presidential candidate, seems to have a Twitter account.
This IDC technical briefing outlines the critical factors for power and cooling and analyzes the HP next-generation blade portfolio, the BladeSystem c-Class.
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