THE MAGAZINE

Security and the sissy factor.

The del.icio.us site also provides a location for saving personal bookmarks that can be accessed from any computer so that if you’re on the road and want to visit a bookmarked page but don’t have your regular computer, you can find the links easily nonetheless. Best of all, the site is completely free.

How many passwords do you need to remember? A survey by RSA Security Inc. of 1,700 enterprise technology end users found that 71 percent had as many as 12, and almost one-quarter had more than 15.

Wayward wireless networks, a quarantine for malicious code, and infosec troubles at the Department of Transportation.

The Department of Defense (DoD) is using radio frequency ID (RFID) tags throughout its supply-chain operations; by January 2007, all DoD commodities will have these tags.

Wayward wireless networks, a quarantine for malicious code, and infosec troubles at the Department of Transportation.

The time between the disclosure of a computer vulnerability that can allow infection by a worm or virus and the release of an exploit that can attack that vulnerability has dropped from 6.4 days to 6.0 days.

When the Zotob worm appeared only days after Microsoft released a patch that would have prevented infection, 700 Department of Transportation (DOT) computers were infected after a contractor connected a laptop to the DOT’s network against the department’s policy.

A music center rings in a new security system.

Google Earth now lets computer users zoom through space to specific sites all over the world. Mapping is also making great strides in the law enforcement world, where geographic information systems (GIS) have been replacing pin maps. Systems such as New York City’s COMPSTAT have been highly successful in mapping and depicting virtually any combination of crime/arrest locations, crime hot spots, and other information in real time.

Convincing executive management of the merits of a stable and secure network infrastructure is a difficult and ongoing battle for IT managers

Ever heard of CPED? You probably think the “T” is missing from CPTED—crime prevention through environmental design—and you’d be right. But the authors of Proactive Security Administration inexplicably eschew the well-known “CPTED” acronym, using in its place “CPED,” standing for “crime prevention planning by environmental design,” which really should be CPPED in any case.

Navarro explores the motivations and personae of terrorists, similarities among terrorists, and behavior patterns. This broad overview would be fine for students studying introductory criminal justice or psychology, but experienced investigators need to know much more about the mind-sets of terrorists and the structure of terrorist organizations.