Diplomat accused of program breach
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UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations diplomat who ran Iraq's "oil-for-food program" engaged in "ethically improper" behavior, and the program flouted the world body's financial and purchasing rules, a UN panel found in a preliminary report yesterday.
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PARIS, Sept. 29 -- A secret U.S. program to monitor millions of international financial transactions for terrorist links violated Belgian and European law and will have to be changed, the Belgian government said Thursday.
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A hacker has released attack code that could be used to exploit a critical bug in some versions of the Windows operating system.
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Suspect accused of stealing and distributing source code over the Internet.
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Patricia Dunn was charged in connection with an illegal spying operation.
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The flaw affects both Mac and Windows systems, allowing a hacker to booby-trap an Excel document.
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TechWeb - The software maker argues that a vulnerability recently identified is not new but a duplicate of a flaw found in December 2006.
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US diplomats have confronted the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) with new allegations that its funds were misused and improperly diverted by North Korea, the US mission to the UN said Saturday.
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A former senior State Department  official has been charged with concealing a trip to Taiwan a  year ago when he met with a Taiwanese intelligence officer,  according to court documents and law enforcement officials.
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(InfoWorld) - The communications network used to transmit medical data for the U.S. government's Medicare and Medicaid programs has security vulnerabilities that could expose patients' medical data and other personal information, according to a report released Tuesday. The report, released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), identified 47 weaknesses in the way the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) used a WAN (wide-area network) operated by an unnamed contractor. CMS uses the network to transmit claims data -- including patient names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses and medical information -- to health-care facilities, contractors, financial institutions, and state Medicaid offices. "A security breach in this communication network could lead to interruptions in the processing of medical claims or to unauthorized access to personally identifiable medical data, seriously diminishing the public's trust in CMS's ability to protect the sensitive beneficiary data it is entrusted with," the GAO said in the report. GAO, in its review of CMS security procedures early this year, found that the agency and contractor did not use adequate identification and authentication controls for access to the network, did not restrict user access to only those programs and files workers need, did not close off all access from the private network to the Internet and did not consistently encrypt sensitive data. CMS did not always ensure security policies it has in place, GAO said. "CMS did not always ensure that its contractor effectively implemented controls designed to prevent, limit, and detect electronic access to sensitive computing resources and to devices used to support the communication network," the GAO said. GAO gave CMS an early copy of the report, and Dr. Mark McClellan, CMS administrator, said in a July 10 letter the agency took quick action to fix the problems. CMS, working with its contractor, had fixed 22 of the 47 vulnerabilities identified by the July letter, and an additional 14 were scheduled to be fixed within weeks. The final 11 vulnerabilities were "somewhat more complex" and were scheduled to be fixed by Jan. 7, he wrote. "We are taking further steps to assure that none result in actual security breaches," McClellan added. "We have been proactive in our oversight of the network but are taking further steps to enhance security." GAO does not typically name contractors in its reports because its focus is on agency performance, a GAO spokesman said. A CMS spokesman said he did not know which contractor was involved in the network targeted by the GAO report. CMS uses multiple contractors, he said. The Medicare program is the nation's largest health-insurance program, covering 42 million U.S. citizens.
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The Department of Homeland Security violated a congressional funding ban when it continued to develop a computerized program that creates risk assessments of travelers entering and leaving the United States, according to lawmakers and privacy advocates.
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(InfoWorld) - A former Chinese national is facing U.S. federal charges of stealing trade secrets from a Silicon Valley company and selling them to foreign governments. The U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco Thursday filed a 36-count indictment in U.S. District Court for Northern California against Xiaodong Sheldon Meng accusing him of stealing military application trade secrets from Quantum3D, of San Jose, California, and using them to try to sell the technology to the People's Republic of China, the Malaysian Air Force, and the Thailand Air Force. Quantum3D designs high-end graphics computers that run visual simulation training software for military applications such as flight simulators. Meng, a one-time employee of Quantum3D, stole the trade secrets with the intent that they would be used to benefit those foreign governments, according to the U.S. Attorney Kevin V. Ryan. The technology is covered by the U.S. Economic Espionage Act of 1996, which prohibits its sale abroad without an export license. Quantum3D has cooperated fully in the government's investigation, the U.S. attorney said in a statement. Meng, 42, was released on a $500,000 bond and is scheduled to appear before a federal magistrate in San Jose on Monday. The indictment follows a two-year investigation of the case involving the U.S. Attorneyâs Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security.
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The State Department is  investigating &quot;anomalies&quot; in its unclassified computer system,  the agency said on Tuesday, declining to comment on a report  that the department&#039;s computers had been hacked.
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SecurePoint's decision to hire the alleged author of the Sasser worm has upset a software partner.
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NORFOLK, Dec. 4 -- A sailor accused of stealing a Navy laptop computer and peddling its classified contents to a foreign government at an embassy in Austria pleaded guilty Monday to espionage, desertion and other charges.
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A former security researcher who served time for hacking has been charged with new cybercrimes.
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A Chinese engineer was charged Thursday with stealing trade secrets from a Silicon Valley company that made military training software and attempting to sell them to Asian governments.