The FISMA Focus IPD

Editor’s Note:  American industry should take particular note of the following statement from the article below, “this year’s ITU report found that young people on the continent are about 2.3 times as likely to use the Internet as the overall population, a ratio higher in Africa than in any other region on earth.”

From: International Business Times

By Jacey Fortin

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The African Union is gearing up to discuss a brand new security initiative for the continent, one that has the potential to improve safety for hundreds of millions. But this decision has nothing to do with the violence and turmoil currently upending countries like South Sudan, the Central African Republic or the Democratic Republic of the Congo — instead, its focus is on Internet crime.

From: Roll Call

By Eliza Newlin Carney

Deficient computer security at the Federal Election Commission has already led to high-level breaches and puts the agency “at high risk” of continued hacking, according to a federal Inspector General report released this month.

FEC information systems, which in the previous election tracked more than $6 billion in political spending, “have serious internal control vulnerabilities and have been penetrated at the highest levels of the agency,” according to the FEC Inspector General’s final audit for fiscal 2013.

From: Healthcare Informatics

by Rajiv Leventhal

Industry expert weighs in on the most pressing issues surrounding data security     

In healthcare, the access to data and information is so strongly demanded by patients, providers, payers and employees, that it is fast becoming a target of security and risk. Regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) require organizations to implement safeguards to ensure the integrity and privacy of patient records. However, because the wealth of data in the industry that can be monetized by cyber criminals, healthcare organizations are now increasingly vulnerable to cybercrime.

From: InformationWeek

Deepak Kumar

The Internet of Things is poised to bring a flood of WAN traffic and new Internet-enabled devices to enterprise WANs. Be sure your corporate network is ready for it.

From: The Blaze

Dave Urbanski

Although the fact that the still-unsolved attack on a power station near San Jose occurred just a handful of hours after the Boston Marathon bombing — and apparently raised a few eyebrows initially — its ride in the public eye has been decidedly under the radar to date.

But that may be changing.

Now that the ranking member of the House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee is decrying the incident as possibly indicative of a wider security issue, the brazen attack is getting a bit more attention, noted Foreign Policy.