Intellectual Property
According to PricewaterhouseCoopers Product Piracy Survey 2003, 19 percent of global companies were victims of product piracy in the last two years, with nearly 61 percent of these companies reporting repeated incidence of these crimes. Of these cases of detected crime, 92 percent were committed external to the organization, and 15 percent of companies who reported piracy crimes had losses between $1 million and $10 million. More than one-third of the cases of detected piracy (34 percent) were discovered accidentally.
Homeland Security
House and Senate negotiators have agreed to close down a Pentagon office that was developing a vast computerized terrorism surveillance system. They also agreed that no money should be spent to use the high-tech spying tools under development against Americans on U.S. soil. But some of the high-powered software will be shifted to different government offices, to be used to gather intelligence from U.S. citizens abroad and foreigners in this country and abroad.
Virus
A computer worm has hit the U.S. Department of State, affecting the performance of the governments information technology system that manages visa approvals, according to reports. The worm shut down the State Departments Consular Lookout and Support System (CLASS) on Tuesday, according to published reports from Reuters and the Associated Press. According to spokeswoman Joanne Moore, at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, the departments IT workers discovered the Welchia worm on an “unclassified open network” area of the CLASS system and began taking measures to contain the attack.
Enterprise
Network Engines, a manufacturing partner for security and storage software and equipment vendors, has debuted Release 2.0 of its Steel-Belted Radius Enterprise Edition Appliance, which manages network authentication and logging of security events. The newest version of the security appliance is pre-loaded with Funk Softwares Steel-Belted Enterprise Edition v4.5 software, as well as Windows 2000, and can be rack-mounted. The appliance will be sold through TidalWire, Network Engines distribution arm.
Privacy
The FBI said it will soon demand reporters notes in its attempts to nail the so-called Homeless Hacker, Adrian Lamo. On Friday, FBI agent Christine Howard told a Wired News reporter to expect a federal order to surrender all notes related to Lamo. In March 2002, Wired News published a profile of the 22-year-old Lamo from Sacramento, California, who has been charged with multiple computer crimes, including breaking into The New York Times intranet.