By Ryan Kamauff
Here are the top cyber news and stories of the day.
Study: EHR adoption fueling health information exchange – “Health information exchange between hospitals and other providers increased 41 percent between 2008 and 2012, according to recently published research from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.” This jump in sharing can be hugely beneficial to doctors and healthcare professionals. The federal government is even implementing an incentive programs for facilities to use EHR. Via FierceGovernmentIT, more here.
Army finishes migration to DoD enterprise email – “The Army announced that it has completed its large-scale migration of more than 1.4 million unclassified users and 115,000 classified users to the Defense Information Systems Agency-managed enterprise email, one of the service’s highest priority IT programs.” The Army expects this program to save them millions of dollars, and up to $380M through 2017. Via FierceGovernmentIT, more here.
Report shows growth in Android-based malware – “Android-based malware achieved a 35 percent growth rate, according to the McAfee Threats Report: Second Quarter 2013.” This growth is higher than last years. Clearly Android users are the target of choice for malware distributors, so users need to be even more careful. However, most of the damage is done by users trying to get illegal (or free) software, and is self inflicted. Via ComputerWorld, more here.
Google applies for location-based security patent for mobile devices – The latest patent application by Google shows promise for differing security settings based on your location. It could switch from slide to unlock at home to PIN unlock when away. This could also provide a great deal of security for BYOD users, locking down the work environment when the device is not in the office. Via Android Community, more here.
Networking, security issues still irk large AWS shops – “Networking and security cloud challenges topped the list for most of the five panelists at an Amazon Web Services (AWS) meet up group this week, all of whom have at least 1,000 instances running on AWS.” AWS is having security group issues, which manifest when users change settings or implement new rules. This can lead to a large security hole in the AWS instance. There are also issues with ensuring compatible or identical security group rules among different data centers. AWS security issues will be increasingly important as more and more federal agencies adopt AWS. Via Search Cloud Computing, more here.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Awards HP Continuous Monitoring Services Contract – “HP today announced it has been selected as a technology provider by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM), Tools and Continuous Monitoring as a Service (CMaaS) General Services Administration (GSA) Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA). The one-year contract has a ceiling of $6 billion if all four one-year options are exercised. HP is one of 17 vendors chosen to make up the BPA.” Via Dark Reading, more here.
How DHS views security – ‘The Department of Homeland Security has been an early adopter for years: cloud, mobility, agile acquisition. And as Margie Graves, the agency’s acting CIO, said, “We’ve got the scars to prove it.” Thursday, Graves shared some of those scars from integrating and securing new technologies at FedScoop’s fifth annual Lowering the Cost of Government with IT conference.” Via FedScoop, more here.
Cloud security: understanding your data value pyramid – “The benefits of cloud computing are well known – cost saving, flexibility, instant scalability and an “anytime, anywhere” mentality all wrapped up in an appealing pay-as-you-go business model. But, does this new-world packaging simply become too hard to resist, putting organisations at risk of becoming addicted to the cloud at the expense of security?” This article offers good insight into some of the data issues faced by today’s IT decision makers. As well, it can help guide those looking to move to the cloud in the most appropriate cloud strategy. Via The Guardian, more here.
Popular download management program has hidden DDoS component, researchers say – “Recent versions of Orbit Downloader, a popular Windows program for downloading embedded media content and other types of files from websites, turns computers into bots and uses them to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, according to security researchers.” This software has been downloaded 36M times in total, and over 12,000 times last week alone. This is horrifying, and makes me reconsider pretty much every program I’ve ever downloaded. Be careful folks! Via ComputerWorld, more here.