Single security accredition for public and private sectors

Single security accredition for public and private sectors

UK government and private sector information security professionals are to have a common competency accreditation from 2009.

The Institute of Information Security Professionals (IISP) will take over the accreditation phase of the government's in-house Infosec Training Paths and Competencies (ITPC) scheme in April.

The Cabinet Office is preparing to hand over the accreditation process to the IISP, which has developed a competency assessment that goes beyond the ITPC scheme.

This will standardise competency accreditation across the public and private sectors and allow for greater interchange of people and ideas, said Paul Dorey, chairman of the IISP.

Read the whole article here.

-Ken

How to avoid the WPA attack entirely

How to avoid the WPA attack entirely

The latest crack in wireless Internet security, specifically, the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) security standard, can threaten the safety of enterprise networks and business-sensitive information or data. Last week we explained how to cope with WPA cracks. Today we explain how to avoid them altogether, and what the difference is between WEP, WPA and WPA2.

It's been seven years since 802.11's Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) was cracked. WEP's first replacement, Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), has been required of all new Wi-Fi certified products since late 2003. But last month, reports surfaced about a crack in WPA -- specifically, a new attack against the Message Integrity Check (MIC) used by the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP). While this new attack is not a death-knell for wireless local area networks (WLANs) using WPA, it is a note-worthy chip in their armor that you can avoid.

Read the whole article...

ISPs told to store all users' e-mails for a year

ISPs told to store all users' e-mails for a year

The UK's internet service providers will from 15 March have to start collecting and storing details of all their customers' e-mail and other electronic communications for a year.

The measures are necessary to fulfil the terms of the European Data Retention Directive, the Home Office said today.

ISPs hope to recoup the estimated £75m cost of the scheme from the government.

Privacy advocates have called the government's proposals a massive potential invasion of privacy because theoretically the collected information will be available to some 500 central and local government bodies under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

Local councils have been criticised for using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which was brought in to fight terrorism, for catching fly-tippers and other minor law-breakers.

Read the rest of the article...

Energy-guzzling plasma TVs will be banned in Brussels eco blitz

Energy-guzzling plasma TVs will be banned in Brussels eco blitz

The plasma screen television is poised to become the next victim of the battle to curb energy use.

Giant energy-guzzling flatscreens are expected to be banned under legislation due to be agreed by the EU this spring.

Plasma screens have been nicknamed the '4x4s' of the living room because they use up to four times as much electricity and are responsible for up to four times as much carbon dioxide as traditional cathode ray tube sets.

Read the whole article here.

Compliments to Arroryn for the find

-Ken

Russians start selling Wi-Fi encryption cracker

Russians start selling Wi-Fi encryption cracker

The Russian security company that caused a stir some months by talking up its cracking tool for recovering Wi-Fi encryption keys, has started selling its software to all-comers in a specially packaged product.

Normally, running a tool to do this on a conventional Intel Core 2 Duo desktop PC would take months to brute force even a single 8-character WPA/WPA2-PSK password, of which there are trillions of possible alpha-numeric combinations at that bit length.

Elcomsoft claims that Wireless Security Auditor 1.0 can perform the same function by capturing traffic from a Wi-Fi connection using a separate packet sniffer, processing the data through up to four high-end graphics cards in order to retrieve the password in a fraction of that time.

Read the rest of the article here.

-Ken

IT sector takes responsibility for tackling recession

IT sector takes responsibility for tackling recession

UK businesses in the IT sector are attempting to reduce the impact of recession through pay freezes and reduced payouts to shareholders, according to the Chartered Management Institute (CMI).

But almost a third of firms in the IT sector are considering merging with competitors to help them ride out the economic storm.

A survey of technology businesses in the UK revealed that some were taking responsibility and reducing payments to investors.

"Employers accept some responsibility for tackling the recession, with many respondents focusing on reducing payouts so that funds are available to ease cashflow," said the CMI.

Read the rest of the article here.

-Ken

Danish SWAT team surrounds PlayStation shoot-'em-up

Danish SWAT team surrounds PlayStation shoot-'em-up

A couple of Danish gamers indulging in some light PlayStation shoot-'em-up action were on Saturday night treated to a visit by uniformed blokes carrying real guns after concerned neighbours called in the cops.

As far as we can make out from this report, two young men from Valby near Copenhagen were giving it some stick on a large flatscreen telly with the volume cranked up, prompting residents in their apartment block to suspect someone had been shot.

Cue rapid SWAT intervention, with the area sealed off and heavily-armed officers using megaphones to order the pair to surrender. The two apparently came quietly, and suffered nothing more than a temporary cuffing while police ascertained that the only danger posed was to the neighbourhood's peace and quiet.

Read the rest of the article here.

-Ken

MoD concealed the truth on £7bn DII project costs

MoD concealed the truth on £7bn DII project costs

A report by MPs on the £7bn Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) has confirmed that the Ministry of Defence knew the costs of the project would be at least £5.8bn when parliament was given a figure of £2.3bn.

The discrepancy of more than £2bn between what the MoD knew and declared as the costs of the DII suggests that questions put by MPs to the MoD are an unreliable way for parliament, project participants and the public to find out the real costs of large, government IT-based programmes.

Read the rest of the article here.

-Ken

Joint ITP-IET Registration Scheme Launched

Joint ITP-IET Registration Scheme Launched

A new partnership has been formed between the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (ITP) to create a joint professional registration scheme to raise professional standards across the telecoms sector.

This joint ITP-IET member registration agreement means that members of the ITP can apply for professional registration as the IET is a licensing authority. ITP members of this scheme will be entitled to use qualification designatory letters CEng, IEng, EngTech or ICTTech after their name once they are awarded registration.

Read about this here.

-Ken

Police In Mumbai Shutting Down Open WiFi

Police In Mumbai Shutting Down Open WiFi

Perhaps it's no surprise that, following the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, people are freaking out and blaming technology, as if that will prevent another terrorist attack. First, there were the calls to ban Google maps and now a large number of police are sweeping through all of Mumbai to find open WiFi networks and get the owners to shut the networks down. Of course, there are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons for offering an open WiFi network, but it seems that no one is even considering that. Because such networks were used in the past by terrorists and possibly could be again, they all must go.

Source: Techdirt.com.