Daily News Archive

Please note that The Daily News is publishing (hopefully) twice a week for the foreseeable future due to time constraints.

Tuesday, April 11th

 "The important thing about science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.” -- William Bragg

 

The Picks of the Day

Small-business 404 Waiver Unlikely: Cox

“Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said Monday that small companies should not necessarily expect an exemption from the internal-controls provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley, according to Bloomberg.”

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/6767198/c_6767453?f=ThisWeekinFinance040706

 

Survey: SOX Compliance Costs Dropping, Average $3.8M

“A new survey says that the average cost for the internal controls provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is $3.8 million, down 16.3 percent from last year and about halfway to the drop anticipated for the second year of compliance.”

http://www.webcpa.com/article.cfm?articleid=19847

 

Frameworks to Answer Questions Managers Ask

"Performance Resources' methodology consists of seven frameworks relating to aspects of an organisation's information security lifecycle. The frameworks are built around questions that Directors of the Board and senior managers usually ask. While this may indicate that these frameworks are for incorporated entities, any organisation can also apply them."

http://www.perfres.net/methodology.asp

[This is a very thorough risk and security methodology that Endre Bihari - a member of the Subject Matter Expert Reviewers of ITGI's new release of Information Security Governance: Guidance for Boards of Directors and Executive Management, 2nd Edition - has assembled over his years of research and practice and is now marketing.  Please contact him for further details.]

 

IT Process Improvement

CCTA Risk Assessment and Management Method (CRAMM)

This risk assessment methodology was originally developed at the CCTA, the same group that began ITIL.

http://www.cramm.com/

http://www.gammassl.co.uk/topics/hot5.html

 

NIST SP800-30 Risk Management Guide for Information Technology Systems

This is the NIST’s risk management for IT guidance

http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-30/sp800-30.pdf

 

Legal and Regulatory Compliance

52-111 overtaken by new proposal

“The Canadian Securities Administrators have decided not to proceed with proposed Multilateral Instrument 52-111, ‘Reporting on internal control over financial reporting.’ Instead, they propose to expand Multilateral Instrument 52-109, ‘Certification of disclosure in issuers’ annual and interim filings,’ to require all reporting issuers other than investment funds, in all Canadian jurisdictions, to certify in their annual CEO and CFO certifications that they have evaluated the effectiveness of the issuer’s internal control over financial reporting.”

http://www.camagazine.com/index.cfm/ci_id/30318/la_id/1.htm

 

Living up to its promise

“The framework now in place goes a long way toward ensuring the integrity and transparency of the markets while offering new opportunities to our public companies. The SEC has done a tremendous job in writing the rules and regulations called for in the legislation, and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is now a highly professional and up-and-running organization.”

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_business/article/0,2777,DRMN_23916_4605174,00.html

[Either Senator Sarbanes wrote the article or a staff writer wrote it after his March 23^rd speech.  It provides a lot of bulleted points for considerations and is interesting regardless.]

 

Fraud law spurs backlash, then buy-in

“Sarbanes-Oxley Act imposes costs and bureaucracy but aids financial integrity, many firms say.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0407/p03s03-usec.html

 

Research Finds Five Compliance-Cost Success Factors

“The federal Sarbanes-Oxley Act on financial and accounting disclosure is in its third year and companies still are struggling with their programs to comply with it, according to research from Parson Consulting and APQC.”

http://accounting.smartpros.com/x52505.xml

 

Security and Risk Management

Compliance, Not Malware, Drives IT Budgets: Survey

“Regulatory compliance and protecting intellectual property (IP) are among the top reasons driving demand for security products – not phishing, worms, spyware and hack attacks, according to a recent report.”

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=184429550

 

Sample virus targets Windows and Linux

“Virus writers have crafted another example of malicious software that can infect computers running Windows or Linux.”

http://news.com.com/Sample+virus+targets+Windows+and+Linux/2100-1002_3-6059140.html?tag=html.alert

 

Security compliance laws still lacking in Asia – IBM

“While the US and the European countries have implemented laws safeguarding personal and corporate data against network attacks and information theft, Asian countries have yet to see any similar laws that would have similar protection clauses for confidential data and ensure accountability.”

http://news.inq7.net/infotech/index.php?index=1&story_id=72121

 

Data breach at Progressive highlights insider threat

“A recent case in which an employee at Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. wrongfully accessed information on foreclosure properties she was interested in buying highlights again the dangers posed to corporate security by insiders.”

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/holes/story/0,10801,110303,00.html

 

Human Error / Safety

NASA vexed by worker accidents

“Over the past three months, workers at the Kennedy Space Center have tripped, dropped things, banged into sensitive equipment and started fires in a deadly string of accidents that has NASA perplexed.”

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/04/07/nasa.mishaps.ap/index.html

 

Bird Flu could reach North America via Scotland

“The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu was confirmed in Britain Thursday following tests on a decomposed swan floating in the harbour of a Scottish town.  But a British ornithological group said the migration of both white-fronted geese from Britain and Canadian snow geese to Greenland in the summer months could provide a possible point of transmission of the virus, which spreads quickly among birds.  From Canada, the highly infectious virus could spread into the US and further south into the Caribbean and Latin America, the experts said.”

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/health/article_1153446.php/Bird_Flu_could_reach_North_America_via_Scotland

 

Outsourcing / Globalization

Globalization protests will grow louder

“In the brave new world of globalization (horrible term), there are winners and losers, but it's the winners -- the multinational corporations -- who've dominated the debate. Until now.”

http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/farmer/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1144385734100320.xml&coll=1

 

Why India Succeeds

“In all of this, I think the most enduring lesson has been the difference between how Indians and Americans have reacted to the same situation. Indians have leaped on the IT/BPO opportunity. Americans displaced by those Indians have done, well, not as much.”

http://www.line56.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=7500

 

Input on Outsourcing

“Fear is a reasonable enough response, but not an effective survival tactic. For that, IT must take a different tack, something that gives techies control of their own destinies and real input into the decisionmaking process, in this new outsource-itall world, IT needs a seat at the table, right alongside the business folks.”

http://www.blackenterprise.com/yb/ybopen.asp?section=ybng&story_id=91559405&ID=blackenterprise

 

Economics / Business / Misc.

Who Would the H-1B Visa Cap Increase Help?

“Business leaders trying to push through an increase to the H-1B visa cap say the move would spur innovation, which, in turn, would create job growth. But U.S. IT professionals say nearly doubling the number of foreign workers allowed to come here would flood the market with cheaper labor and kick start another wave of high-tech unemployment.”

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/career/article.php/3597521

 

Microsoft readies embedded database

“Microsoft is set to release an embedded database for small devices, taking its first step in a plan to bring updates to its flagship SQL Server database every two to three years.“

http://news.com.com/Microsoft+readies+embedded+database/2100-1016_3-6058859.html?tag=html.alert

 

US economic downturn would claim victims across globe

“Every recession is different in nature and a recession in the near future in the U.S. - though it appears hardly likely at the moment - would claim a different set of victims than recessions in the past.”

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B1B81A84F%2D8388%2D4E34%2D9FB5%2D3AF455D2EDA6%7D&dist=newsfinder&siteid=google&keyword=

Thursday, April 13th

 The Daily News will not be published.