In This Issue
- CISA Bill Is in Trouble
- Cybersecurity Worries
- Have to Wait until Fall
- Report from the CEO
- Cal-ECPA Advances
- Cloud and Shadow IT
- Finance Sector Cloud
- Cloud to $70 Billion
- Cloud Now Necessity
- Telefonica/MobileIron
- Swisscom and Verizon
- Digital Broadcast DRM
- Vualto Multi-Platform
- Amazon vs. Wal-Mart
- Alibaba $1B to Cloud
- Tech Group Views IoT
- Coming DCIA Events
The Senate’s Cybersecurity Bill Is in Trouble
Excerpted from National Journal Report by Kayeh Waddell
After a pair of massive cyber-attacks compromised the personal information of more than 21 million people, most of whom work or worked for the government, lawmakers saw an opportunity to push for cybersecurity legislation that has been stuck in Congress for years.
Despite the calls for urgency, passing a bill won’t be easy.
The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA, a Senate bill intended to facilitate the exchange of cyber-threat information between the private sector and the government, has been dogged by conflict and concerns about overreach, and is falling prey to partisan fights that have nothing to do with the issue.
Although the plan was to turn to CISA after the highway bill gets a vote, according to multiple Senate sources, Senators may instead take up a measure that would defund Planned Parenthood — eating into time the Senate needs to vote on CISA.
There’s also a possibility that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will send lawmakers home this week after they vote on a highway funding bill, leaving the cybersecurity bill for the Fall… Read More
Cybersecurity Worries Have Risen Sharply
Excerpted from FierceGovernmentIT Report by Dibya Sarkar
Three-quarters of executives from US companies, law enforcement, government agencies, other organizations, and other security experts said they were more concerned about cybersecurity threats this year than in the past 12 months, representing a major jump in their uneasiness, a recently released major survey found.
More than 500 respondents were surveyed in this year’s report, which was sponsored by PwC, International Data Group’s CSO, the CERT Division of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, and the Secret Service.
This year’s numbers are significantly higher than last year’s, since US State of Cybercrime Survey found that only 59 percent of participants were concerned about cyber-threats in 2014.
In a recent survey on Federal IT Reform, senior government IT executives laid out their vision for the coming year, detailing challenges and identifying priorities.
“Heightened awareness and concern are well-warranted,” according to the report. “A record 79 percent of survey respondents said they detected a security incident in the past 12 months. Many incidents go undetected, however, so the real tally is probably much higher… Read More
Cyber Bill Will Have to Wait until Fall
Excerpted from The Hill Report by Cory Bennett
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) on Tuesday said the upper chamber is unlikely to move on a stalled cybersecurity bill before the August recess.
Senate Republican leaders, including Cornyn, had been angling to get the bill — known as the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) — to the floor this month.
But Cornyn said that there is simply too much of a time crunch in the remaining legislative days to get to the measure, intended to boost the public-private exchange of data on hackers.
“I’m sad to say I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he told reporters off the Senate floor. “The timing of this is unfortunate.”
“I think we’re just running out time,” he added.
An aide for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he had not committed to a specific schedule after the upper chamber wraps up work in the coming days on a highway funding bill… Read More
Report from DCIA CEO Marty Lafferty
The White House responded this week to all outstanding We the People Petitions.
This included the one submitted by the Digital Due Process (DDP) coalition, in which the DCIA participates, on reform of the seriously outdated Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA).
ECPA was written thirty years ago, before widespread adoption of the Internet by consumers or the advent of cloud computing.
While Americans expect that their homes and offices will not be subject to government searches of personal, financial, and medical records — or reading of mail — without a duly obtained search warrant; under current law, as soon as those records are scanned and stored in the cloud, or the message is sent by email, the government has free access.
ECPA reform will provide the same level of protection and security to digital data as US citizens already have for printed material.
Our submission dates back to 2013, and had more than 113,000 signatures; but, frankly, the response was disappointing.
It just reiterated the Administration line that, yes, ECPA needs to be reformed; but, no, the White House won’t endorse a specific proposal.
Our questions are, why did it take so long for the White House to respond, and why won’t it support a bill that has enormous backing?
The Electronic Communications Privacy Amendments Act of 2015 was submitted by Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) in the Senate, with the House version — which now has 290 co-sponsors — submitted by Congressmen Kevin Yoder (R-KS) and Jared Polis (D-CO).
What outstanding issues does the White House see, and what is it doing to solve them?
The 2015 companion ECPA reform bills will protect Americans’ digital privacy — in their emails and all the other files they store in the cloud.
The measures will build consumer trust, while also providing law enforcement with the tools it needs to ensure public safety.
Click here to ask the White House to endorse the widely supported ECPA reform bills currently before Congress.
And click here to ask Congress to move ahead. Now is the time to bring our privacy protections into the digital age. Share wisely, and take care
California’s ECPA Legislation Advances
Excerpted from JD Supra Report
On July 14, 2015, the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“Cal-ECPA”) unanimously passed the California State Assembly’s public safety committee.
The bill would forbid warrantless cellular “stingrays” as well as searches of documents and data stored online. Digital privacy activists are optimistic that the full State Assembly will approve the bill soon.
State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) introduced the current version of Cal-ECPA in February 2015 and the California State Senate passed the bill unanimously in June.
Even if the bill passes the full State Assembly, however, enactment is not guaranteed, because Governor Jerry Brown twice vetoed Cal-ECPA’s predecessors, in 2012 and 2013.
If Cal-ECPA is indeed enacted, it would be the most comprehensive state law on digital searches and seizures in the United States.
The bill would codify in California the US Supreme Court’s 2014 holding in Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473 (2014)… Read More
Cloud Computing and Shadow IT Security Risks
Excerpted from Computing Report by Danny Palmer
The vast majority of CIOs are worried that cloud computing is reducing their organization’s control over IT and creating long-term security risks.
That’s according to an independent survey of UK CIOs from enterprises with over 1,000 employees by market researchers at Vanson Bourne on behalf of Fruition Partners.
The research found that 84 per cent of CIOs are worried that cloud is causing them to lose control over IT.
The survey also reveals that 89 per cent of CIOs don’t apply the same IT service management (ITSM) processes to services running in the public cloud as they do for IT services that have been built in-house.
A lack of maturity surrounding cloud computing has also led to unsanctioned use of shadow IT services within organizations, something that 89 per cent of CIOs surveyed feel presents a long-term security risk for the business… Read More
Finance Sector More Comfortable with Cloud Adoption
Excerpted from CloudTech Report by James Bourne
Analyzing cloud adoption across industry verticals, the banking and financial industry is as good a yardstick as any to assess progress due to its stringent data security requirements.
A new report from CipherCloud shows financial firms have an increased confidence in cloud technologies; 100% of respondents said they put certain personally identifiable information (PII) in the cloud.
This does not extend to all PII however — only one in three respondents said they use the cloud to store particularly sensitive data, such as social security numbers, birth dates and tax IDs.
Yet there is a clear trend from financial firms to improve security as the sensitivity of data increases.
40% of organizations polled say that for the most sensitive information, they use tokenization and strong encryption.
One of the more interesting facets of the report related around how companies classify their data.
CipherCloud asked respondents to put their data in four categories; highly sensitive PII; regular PII; personal finance data; and business sensitive data. Intriguingly, a piece of ‘highly sensitive’ data at one company can be relegated to standard at another… Read More
Cloud Computing to Approach $70 Billion in 2015
Cloud, as one of the substantial transformative forces, is impacting all areas of IT supply, composition, and consumption; and provides the basis for many of the big data, mobile, and social solutions.
In fact, International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts the number of new cloud-based solutions will triple in the next four to five years.
To examine the current status of cloud deployment in the context of different vertical industries, IDC is offering “Cloud Computing: The Essential Foundation of Industry Digital Transformation — Worldwide and US Cloud Forecast by Vertical, 2015—2019,” the first of four special reports IDC will be publishing on the 3rd Platform technologies by vertical.
This study identifies industry drivers and barriers of using cloud technology and presents insights in terms of how to leverage cloud computing to create new value.
Industry-specific applications will be a driving force as businesses look for solutions that can be easily configured to their unique business and vertical requirements.
With the huge increase in the number and diversity of services available in the market, organizations across the industries will shift… Read More
Here’s Why the Cloud Is Now a Necessity
Excerpted from CloudPro Report by Clare Hopping
Cloud is no longer a “nice to have” for businesses, but is a necessity in every company’s IT infrastructure, according to research by Harvard Business Review (HBR), sponsored by Verizon.
Out of 452 senior business executives from global organizations, 84 per cent said their use of cloud has increased over the last 12 months.
They are no longer just using small, easy to adopt apps such as Salesforce, but are now running up to the entire supply chain on cloud-based technologies, which has had a massive impact on their business, HBR found.
The respondents reported that the key benefits of the cloud are business agility and collaboration, with 72 per cent of those questioned saying collaboration is a key part of their cloud adoption because it allows colleagues to quickly share information and work together.
Although security is always a key concern when it comes to adopting the cloud, 39 per cent found security has improved since they moved to the cloud because businesses find the support given by cloud providers helps create a buffer when it comes to risk. This has also changed the attitude towards cloud suppliers and vendors… Read More
Telefonica and MobileIron Bring EMM to Enterprises
Excerpted from PR Newswire Report
Telefonica Business Solutions, a leading provider of a wide range of integrated communication solutions for the business-to-business (B2B) market, has reached an agreement to partner with MobileIron, the leader in mobile enterprise security, with the aim of offering Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) to Telefonica’s Multinational and Enterprise customers.
With Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) companies can secure and manage the increasing array of mobile devices, wireless networks, mobile apps, and cloud services to enable broad use of mobile computing in a business context.
This new partnership with MobileIron enables Telefonica’s customers to embrace mobility as a primary computing platform giving their employees secure access to critical business applications with a native user experience.
Telefonica Business Solutions, a leading provider of a wide range of integrated communication solutions for the B2B market, manages globally the Enterprise (large and small-to-midsize enterprises), MNC (multinational corporations), Wholesale (fixed and mobile carriers, ISPs and content providers) and Roaming businesses within the Telefonica Group.
Business Solutions develops an integrated, innovative and competitive portfolio for the B2B segment including digital solutions (M2M, cloud, security, eHealth, digital marketing or education) and telecommunication services… Read More
Swisscom & Verizon Extend Global Partnership to 10 Years
Excerpted from PR Newswire Report
Verizon and Swisscom are extending their partnership to take the two companies’ co-operation to a full decade of service.
A newly announced, three-year extension to Swisscom and Verizon’s 2008 partnership agreement will enable the continued provision of enhanced global service and support capabilities to Swiss multinational companies and companies with operations in the Swiss market.
The Swisscom and Verizon alliance offers Swisscom customers with multinational operations seamless access to Verizon’s expansive global network and solutions.
Verizon’s customers with operations in the Swiss market benefit from Swisscom’s extensive local market expertise, dense infrastructure, and customer service organization.
Working together, Swisscom and Verizon offer customers a consistent, high-quality experience and a comprehensive suite of voice and data services, thanks to a worldwide, streamlined service offering including integrated networks, convergent services, security, seamless processes and comprehensive customer services.
Verizon and Swisscom are also planning to leverage their joint capabilities to deliver innovative next-generation solutions… Read More
Digital Broadcasting Drives Global DRM Market
The digital media market has witnessed massive growth over the last couple of decades with innovative methods of entertainment delivery.
A number of the most popular online entertainment services include gambling, online dating, online video, gaming, online music, and social networks.
Further, the most popular social media networking sites, like MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google Plus have provided new opportunities for digital media.
According to our latest research study, “Digital Rights Management Market Outlook 2020”, the global DRM market has been witnessing significant growth due to this promising growth in digital broadcasting.
Online video and online publications are now acknowledged as a powerful format for communication and entertainment.
As the digital broadcasting is growing the scope of piracy is booming with it side by side which is expected to drive the digital rights management (DRM) market with a CAGR of around 16% during the forecast period of 2015-2020… Read More
Vualto Simplifies Online Delivery to Multiple Platforms
Vualto, global specialists in innovative content delivery and management, is demonstrating at IBC2015 — taking place in Amsterdam from 11 to 15 September — on stand 14.D24, how emerging standards can simplify the way content is protected online, making it easier for broadcasters and service providers to implement delivery systems which are simple and secure to operate.
Digital rights management (DRM) continues to be a minefield, with different platforms and devices preferring their own technology. Vualto will demonstrate how these can be managed simply and cost-effectively.
“The need for multiple DRM systems across browsers and devices continues to be a headache and an unwelcome distraction from the day job for content providers,” said James Burt, CTO of Vualto.
“Our multi-vendor DRM solution hides this complexity from the content provider and makes use of both traditional DRM and common encryption (CENC) to provide content protection across devices.”
The latest version of the Vualto vudrm system includes a much richer administration portal, giving users access to comprehensive statistics as well as token generation and key provision… Read More
Amazon’s Value Surpasses Wal-Mart after 2Q Profit
Excerpted from What’s Hot Report by Mae Anderson
It’s official: Amazon is bigger than Wal-Mart.
Amazon shares surged almost 10 percent on Friday after the e-commerce powerhouse reported a surprise second-quarter profit and a better-than-expected 20 percent jump in revenue.
The sharp increase in shares brought Amazon’s market value to $247.77 billion, more than its biggest rival, Wal-Mart Stores, signaling a sea-change in retailing.
Amazon, which just turned 20, is now valued higher than the world’s largest retailer.
Bentonville, AR based Wal-Mart Stores is valued at about $230.53 billion.
The company, with 11,767 stores worldwide, still has much higher sales, $485.65 billion in the year ended January 31st, compared with Amazon’s $89 billion in annual revenue last year.
But investors applauded Amazon’s ability to keep costs in check while growing its revenue.
Amazon credited the profit to continued strength of its cloud-computing business and strong revenue growth both domestically and abroad… Read More
Alibaba Eyes $1 Billion Cloud Computing Expansion
Excerpted from PC World Report by Michael Kan
Enterprise customers can expect to hear more from e-commerce giant Alibaba Group.
The Chinese company is accelerating the global expansion of its cloud computing business, with a $1 billion investment.
Alibaba announced the move on Wednesday, months after it opened its first data center in the US, in an effort to target customers there.
The Chinese company clearly has more in store. Part of the $1 billion investment will go toward the international expansion.
The rest will go to developing new products, and building up partnerships with other companies in the industry.
Although Alibaba is well known for its e-commerce activities in China, the company has also emerged as the leader in the country’s cloud computing market, according to analysts.
It has attracted major clients including Chinese government agencies, as well as local gaming and financial firms.
The company now wants to tap the global market with plans to build more data centers in Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East… Read More
Tech Group Ponders IoT Implications
Excerpted from Denver Post Report by Tamara Chuang
Just because you can put the Internet into something, should you?
Denver, CO area technologists tackled that question Wednesday at the launch of an Internet of Things (IoT) community called Tech rIoT.
On many minds was how hackers gained control of a Chrysler Jeep and slowed it to a crawl on the highway.
“When is it right to integrate systems, and when is it wrong?” one man asked the packed room at the Wildlife Experience in Parker.
Market researcher Gartner projects that the number of connected devices will quintuple from 4.9 billion this year to 25 billion in five years.
Much of the new stuff will come from start-ups, according to Pete Basiliere, a Gartner research director.
Security for devices that connect to the Internet is all over the place — and not always used.
Alarming tales of hacked IoT devices range from baby monitors and home automation systems to medical devices and public utilities… Read More
Coming Events of Interest
The Internet of Things (IoT) Show — September 2nd-23rd in Singapore. The IoT Show will facilitate new collaborations and partnerships as well as generate new ideas and thinking. The IoT Show is about getting the prototypes out of the lab and into the market.
ADRM Working Group Meeting — September 24th via Global Videoconference. Contact the DCIA for information about joining the group and attending the meeting that will focus on interoperability among DRM platforms and simplifying DRM implementation.
New York Media Festival — October 6th-9th in New York, NY. NYME brings together 5,000 expected attendees including 1,500 senior digital, games, music, television, advertising and video leaders, brands, investors and start-ups. Networking, meetings and deal-making.
Digital Hollywood Fall — October 19th-22nd in Marina Del Rey, CA. The future of the entertainment industry. Digital Hollywood debuted in 1990 and has from its start been among the leading trade conferences in its field.
2015 US Cyber Crime Conference — November 14th-20th in National Harbor, MD. This is the only event of its kind that provides both hands-on digital forensics training and an interactive forum for cyber professionals to network.
Internet of Things World Forum (IoTWF) — December 6th-8th in Dubai, . IoTWF is an exclusive event that brings together the best and brightest thinkers, practitioners, and innovators from business, government, and academia to accelerate the market adoption of the Internet of Things.
