Provided by CommunityDNS, the information in this post consists of news items in the security-based Internet community.

Firms still struggling with data security standard

A recent survey of 500 US and multinational IT security practitioners found more than 55% of the organizations handling credit cards secure the credit card information but not information such as the following numbers:
Social security
Drivers license
Bank account details

To combat this PCI DSS specifications were developed to provide businesses of all sizes with guidelines on securing credit card information. Since PCI DSS came out in 2005 the number of data breaches and credit card fraud continued to rise.

Those who adopted PCI DSS at the strategic level of their business found where compromises dropped. Unfortunately though, 71% of those polled said organizations have not embraced PCI DSS as part of their overall business strategy.

On average 35% of an organization’s IT security budget needs to go to PCI compliance.

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Govt report card logs UK hacking conviction success rate

Of the 108 people prosecuted under UK hacking laws between 2003 and 2007, only 61 were convicted. This equates to a 56% conviction rate.

The percentage of successful prosecutions was highest for “section three” offenses which includes the creation of computer viruses and instigator of denial of service (DoS or DDoS) attacks.

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Broadband ISP BT Slams High Cost of Tackling Illegal UK Downloads

Following the moves of Britain’s Business Secretary to forcibly add “disconnection for suspected pirates” into the Digital Britain report, Britain’s largest ISP followed with information on what this means for ISPs.

Claiming already wafer thin profit margins within the ISP industry, the costs associated with tackling illegal UK file sharing (P2P) would result in customers having to pay an additional £2 per month to cover the estimated £1 million per day in added costs.

Citing the fact that watching for violators based on IP address alone is not good enough because IP addresses can be spoofed and people can use shared systems, such as those found in an Internet café. Also, pirates have already developed methods to for better hiding their activity. BT also explained the amount of money required to fight illegal downloads, as identified by the creative industry, exceeds losses by the industry; meaning £1 million per day to fight the problem, or £365 million for ISPs per year versus £200 million per year lost by the creative industry.

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ISPs react, sort of support network neutrality – with caveats

The FCC Chairman recently rolled out six guidelines that should be adopted by the FCC to help enforce Net neutrality within the US. The response from ISPs has been surprisingly supportive. AT&T says it can support all six of the guidelines.

The line is drawn, however, when it comes to wireless networks. While responses from the ISPs have been mild and basically supportive, the various think tanks funded by the ISPs have come out fighting.

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Broadband tax ‘to be made law’

In the desire to make high speed networks available nationally the British government plans to implement a 50 pence per month tax on those who use an old-fashioned wired, or fixed-line telephones.

Projected to raise £175 million per year to fund high speed networks. The amount is expected to be lower as some citizens are expected to ditch their fixed-line phones for wireless phones. The Parliament’s conservative party is expected to strongly oppose the tax.

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