Data Security

It started out as a data breach like many others. The hackers penetrated the computer network of a small medical practice in a wealthy suburb of northern Illinois, The Surgeons of Lake County, and broke into a server containing email and electronic medical records. But instead of sneaking out undetected and selling the stolen data on the black market,...

Now that Governor Mitt Romney has picked U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan to be his vice presidential running mate, there is little doubt that the budget will be a major issue in the 2012 campaign. While both parties will vigorously debate which path should be taken regarding taxes and spending, one area of little dispute will be the efficient collection...

On August 2, Congress did it again. They acknowledged the looming threat of cyberwarfare while discussing the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, and then they "kicked the can down the road." It's what they do best. The "Party of No" hurt us all on a critically necessary piece of cyber-security legislation, and continued the U.S. Senate's proud tradition of failing...

Scott Walker has earned a national reputation for his hack-and-slash approach to government spending. Working hand-in-glove with both houses of the GOP-controlled legislature, the Wisconsin Governor gutted the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions. While tight with the purse strings when it comes to public employees and a self-proclaimed advocate for small business (though very well-funded by big business),...

So what's it worth to you to prevent world-wide economic collapse, or even a major interruption of essential services, like power or water? These are not hypothetical questions. Nor will they be caused by the Eurozone disaster, a double-dip recession, the disintegration of institutions deemed "too big to fail," or government spending run amok. I am talking about cybergeddon -- or...

For those of us who care about privacy, these past seven days have truly sucked. With relatively little fanfare in the midst of a cacophonous (that means "noisy," Senator Santorum) parade of news, three significant events seriously undermined our constitutional right to privacy and highlighted (in a muted sort of way) the extent to which new business practices and perhaps...

Last week was a pretty good one for the notion of privacy in America, which has increasingly become forlorn and tattered as a result of the advancement of digital technology. First, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Jones that warrantless GPS tracking of a criminal suspect by the FBI was unconstitutional, and then later in the week...

By now almost everyone I know (and millions of people I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet) has read or heard about Sony’s announcement last week that its PlayStation network was hacked and that the Personal identifying Information (PII) of potentially 77 million individuals worldwide has been compromised. Then, earlier this week, Sony notified us that there’d been...

A massive cyber attack on American infrastructure is the 21st-century equivalent of the neutron bomb. All buildings remain standing but systems inside them are rendered useless. Human beings aren't killed on a large scale, but few, if any, are left standing either. And while this sounds pretty dire, it's quite likely some segment of this nation will at some...

The recent revelations regarding the outrageous escapades of certain News Corp. subsidiaries, and the employees thereof, have been so scandalous as to capture and dominate the attention of the worldwide media for several weeks. For once, most Americans began to follow business news with the obsessive fascination normally accorded “Jersey Shore” and “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” This story has...