BC student fights warrant seizing his computer
Boston College is in the middle of a controversy over its handling of a case involving a student who allegedly sent an e-mail claiming that a fellow student was gay and used a college computer network to change grades. Read more...

Researcher finds possible bug in Apple's iPhone

Reports: Yahoo plans more job cuts

Reports: Yahoo plans more job cuts

Privacy rules hamper adoption of electronic medical records, study says

Critics tear into PCI security rules at congressional hearing

Kaiser hospital cans 15 for peeking at octuplet mom's medical records

IBM, Mayo form open-source health IT consortium

PCI security standard gets ripped at House hearing

Kaiser fires 15 workers for snooping in octuplet mom's medical records

More Privacy Stories

Reports: Yahoo plans more job cuts
Yahoo may announce a new round of layoffs next week, the third since early 2008 and the first staff-trimming under new CEO Carol Bartz, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are reporting.

Unforeseen Impact of the Economic Meltdown
Without question, 2008 was an eventful year for major financial institutions, with massive losses, questions of solvency and, ultimately, government bailouts now totaling over a trillion dollars. The corporate fire sales, downsizing and mergers now commonplace in the financial industry are a cause for not only serious concern about the health of our economy, but also concerns relating to the security of personal and financial data. With companies being sold and mergers taking place, and on such tight deadlines, mistakes regarding the confidentiality and privacy of the data are likely being made every day. Significant risk is increasing for personally identifiable information entrusted to these firms.

HITECH: Be afraid, be very afraid
Maureen Martin of The Heartland Institute, a think tank promoting public policy based on individual liberty, limited government and free markets, argues that the new Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act  exposes too much personal information.

Facebook exec on balancing privacy, business needs
CPO Chris Kelly talks about Facebook's view of privacy and how that affects its ability to serve up ads.

Diary of a Data Breach Investigation
Monday

Data Security: Whose Job Is It Really?
Forrester has a recommendation for CISOs struggling with how to secure corporate data:

Preventing Fraud Requires Customer Data Discipline
Customarily, retailers relax their policies relating to returns in the months around the holiday gift-giving season. The understanding is that many of the sales are in fact gifts and recipients will often want to return or exchange such items. By offering flexible returns, retailers hope to inspire higher sales.

LinkedIn Privacy Settings: What You Need to Know
Since LinkedIn doesn't require you to share the same types of personal information as you do on Facebook, the service's privacy settings appear to be much more straightforward than its less business-oriented competitor. But if you leave the default settings in place, you might be surprised to know what information you make public on LinkedIn.

Kundra takes leave, Google raises privacy flags
Well, at least the issue is not unpaid taxes this time -- but Vivek Kundra, the brand-new, first-ever federal CIO after just a few days on the job is already on a leave of absence after the office of the Washington, D.C., CTO was raided by federal agents. Kundra had been the District's CTO before President Barack Obama appointed him the nation's CIO. In other news, Google peeved privacy advocates by announcing a behavioral advertising program and separately saying it is testing a new service that will transcribe voice-mail messages and make them searchable.

People Search Engines: Slam the Door on Info
As we slowly put more and more pieces of ourselves online, specialized search engines are making it easier than ever to pull them together into a highly detailed (and potentially invasive) profile of our virtual lives.

Editors' Picks

Linux, Mac, Windows XP: Whatever your choice of operating system, we have some fun things for you to try. The operating systems of yesteryear weren't all sunshine and roses. Cyber cynic Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols names his picks for some of the worst OSs of all time. Apple's newest Mac Pro takes a significant step forward with the move to Intel's new Nehalem processor and an infrastructure that should be able to squeeze the utmost out of the upcoming Mac OS X 10.6. Satellite radio will die soon anyway, but Apple will accidentally perform a mercy killing of Sirius XM Radio this summer, says Mike Elgan.

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Ritz Camera Centers Snap "Common Sense" Image for PCI Compliance (Source: Bit9) Ritz Camera Centers has strived to protect cardholder data since the early days of payment card security programs. Their consolidation into the PCI DSS helped elevate corporate visibility to threats on cardholder data. When it became critical to integrate PCI compliance efforts with Ritz's business processes, learn how they were able to deploy solid controls to identify users, authorize them to do specific things, and track everything they do with the guidance of PCI DSS. Whitelisting Your Way to FISMA Compliance U.S. Restaurant Chain Bakes in Whitelisting Say Yes to Virtualization Server Virtualization Case Study Virtual Trend Advisory Ovum Summit: Making the Case for Oracle Database on Windows Information Lifecycle Management for Business Data Oracle Database 11g High Availability Best practices for a Data Warehouse on Oracle Database 11g Oracle Audit Vault Oracle Database 11g: Transparent Solutions for Security and Compliance Third-Party White Paper by Clarity Consulting: Application Portfolio Optimization Perfect Marriage Common Pitfalls in Server Virtualization Virtual Servers, Real Savings Retail Grocery Chain Checks out Whitelisting Security Always-on Windows® Server - Mission Impossible? Think Again. Speeding business innovation with HP Data Center Transformation solutions IDC White Paper: The Benefits of Datacenter Transformation with HP HP Data Center Transformation solutions More White Papers

If you are faced with the complexity of meeting stringent privacy policies and continually changing government requirements, the new Novell® Compliance Management Platform will provide welcome relief. Only the Novell Compliance Management Platform integrates identity, access, and security information and event management technology to provide a real-time, holistic view of all network events across an enterprise. This tight integration eases implementation while creating the ultimate governance solution; ensuring business policy becomes automated IT practice. Identity and Security Management and Strong Information Technology Governance: Novell's Solution Suite Automates the Approach to the Perfect Union This IDC White Paper examines Novell's identity and security management (ISM) solutions and how these integrated offerings can play a key role in enforcing security compliance for enterprise organizations. Success Story: New York City Transit One of the top priorities of New York City Transit is to ensure that its employees have secure and timely access to information. With a Novell® solution, the agency has automated identity management for 85,000 users, giving 49,000 employees secure, single sign-on to applications and providing 36,000 retirees with online access to benefit information. Balancing Security Against Productivity What makes for great security? Is it about keeping the bad guys out or letting the good guys in? About detecting attacks or preventing them? Security is a balancing act of all three of these and requires a holistic, integrated approach. All three disciplines must interact automatically and seamlessly to ensure an effective level of service that enables good business. View Entire Zone

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"There's a new division inside Microsoft dedicated to the security and identity problems IT face...." Read more "More than ever before, we live in an information-generated society. Gone are the days when most folks had to hear..." Read more "There are all kinds of differences between the two, but a major one, which often gets over-looked, is that Linux..." Read more "Firefox fans take note: A just-released report from the security company Secunia found that Firefox is far more vulnerable than..." Read more More Security Blogs See all Computerworld Blogs

In Security Stripping away the trappings of applications, systems and networks, information is the core asset of most organizations. Our columnist describes how asserting the importance of information governance is crucial to making that asset tangible, addressable and protected. Click here to read the latest column by Jon Espenschied