News briefs

• More and more chief security officers are hungry for information — threat and trend data, anecdotal references from peers, and compliance insight — so that they can strengthen their risk management postures and reduce complexity. With this in mind, the next SC Magazine Executive Forum, running October 30 to November 1 at the Silverado Resort in Napa Valley, Calif., will zero in on some of the more pertinent information and intelligence issues affecting IT security pros. The event will be divided into five workshops, a panel discussion and an informative keynote.

Speakers so far include Bryan Palma, former CISO of PepsiCo; Paul Zazzera, senior vice president and CIO of Time, Inc.; Dan Caprio, former CPO of the U.S. Department of Commerce; author Richard Power; and Christopher Burgess, senior security advisor to the CSO of Cisco Systems.

Stay tuned for more information on sessions and speakers in the October issue of SC Magazine and on http://www.scmagazine.com.

• After a month-long investigation, the infamous stolen laptop containing the personal information of up to 26.5 million veterans and current members of the U.S. Armed Forces was recovered and appeared not to have been tampered with, according to the FBI.

An investigation determined that the sensitive information residing on the missing laptop was not compromised.

The White House's Federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) ordered government agencies to improve their security controls in less than two months.

A memo sent out by OMB Deputy Director Clay Johnson Jr. laid out a number of concrete recommendations for agencies to follow in order to better protect U.S. citizens' private information held on government systems.

The memo's recommended steps are not mandated regulations; however, the memo stated that the office will work with its inspectors to ensure agencies are complying by the deadline.

• In an effort to spur growth and earnings, open-source software provider Novell replaced both its CEO and CFO.

The Waltham, Mass.-based company's board of directors named Ronald W. Hovsepian its new CEO. Hovsepian, who had been president and COO since October 2005, replaced Jack L. Messman.

The company also appointed Dana Russell, corporate controller and vice president of finance, as the interim CFO.

• A new type of email nuisance made its mark in the form of image spam, a technique that allows spammers to craftily wrap messages in an image file so they go undetected by filters.

A study released by anti-spam vendor IronPort revealed that image-based spam has grown from less than one percent of all spam in June 2005 to more than 12 percent now.