IBM announced a definitive agreement to acquire NovusCG, a privately held storage solutions company based in Manassas, Virginia. Financial terms were not disclosed. Novus will become part of the Storage and Data Services business unit in IBM Global Technology Services.

The combined capabilities of IBM Storage and Data Services and Novus will provide clients improved access to business information, enable stronger regulatory and corporate compliance, and boost their overall information technology performance. IBM will integrate Novus’ storage service assets and best practices with IBM’s existing leadership in storage and data services, storage hardware and software solutions. As a result, IBM will be uniquely positioned to help clients reduce costs and better align their storage and data environment to their lines of business.

IBM announced the findings of a major new study of over 1,200 Chief Financial Officers and senior finance executives from 79 countries worldwide, which concludes that a surprising number of enterprises are not well prepared to handle the impact of a major risk event to their organization.

According to the study, in the past three years 62 percent of enterprises with over $5 billion in revenue encountered a major risk event. When a major risk event did occur–such as strategic, operational or geopolitical–42 percent of these enterprises were not well prepared for the event.

IBM Global Business Services announced a new Client Data Management Solution that can help financial institutions improve their performance and customer service by offering a single, globalized view of their clients.

According to a recent survey from Microsoft of 3,600 security, privacy and marketing professionals in the United States, the UK and Germany, 78 percent of respondents believe their marketing department informs security and privacy executives of what it’s up to with personal data collection, yet only 30 percent of marketers said that that is in fact what they do.

That’s only one finding that exemplifies how lack of collaboration is hurting companies when it comes to figuring out how to protect data. The survey was released on Oct. 23, the same day that the company released its most recent Security Intelligence Report, an analysis of the current threat landscape.

Despite TJX having reported some 46 million consumers impacted by the massive data breach into its computer systems, new documents indicate that as many as 96 million consumers may have been affected, including about 29 million MasterCard victims and 65 million Visa victims, according to documents filed with the federal court in Boston Oct. 23. The new numbers came to light in filing from attorneys representing some of the banks now suing TJX.

Rival technology companies have joined forces to create the Software Assurance Forum for Excellence in Code, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping software developers deliver more secure products. The idea of the organization is to reduce IT vulnerabilities, improve resistance to attack and protect supply chains by uniting key technology companies.

The group, composed of EMC, Juniper Networks, Microsoft, SAP and Symantec, said it will create and promote a set of development practices and controls that protect software, hardware and services. Officials involved in the project said membership is open to all global software, hardware or IT services providers.

IBM is rolling out an extensive refresh of its main storage product lines. Big Blue Oct. 23 introduced a new release for its flagship enterprise disk storage system, new and enhanced storage virtualization products for disk and tape storage, and improvements to lower-end disk and tape storage packages for small and midsize businesses.

The company’s System Storage DS8000 Turbo series now features a storage control console that acts as the equivalent of a "universal remote control," Cindy Grossman, vice president of tape and archive storage systems, told eWEEK.

Called the IBM System Storage Productivity Center, the Web-based console offers a consolidated view of an organization’s storage system nodes for management and configuration, Grossman said. The console allows storage administrators to configure multiple storage devices at one time.

A U.S. magistrate on Friday rejected arguments by the Bush administration and urged a federal judge to order the White House to preserve copies of all its emails. U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola said it is necessary to hold out the threat of a contempt-of-court citation to ensure that White House personnel safeguard backup tapes of electronic messages that may have been deleted. Whether to issue the order is up to U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy.

The Bush administration has 10 days to say why Kennedy should not order preservation of electronic communications by White House officials and aides.

As promised earlier this month, Adobe has shipped a fix for the URI protocol handling vulnerability that left a backdoor open on Windows XP machines with Internet Explorer 7 installed. The patch, rated "critical," addresses multiple flaws in Adobe Reader and Acrobat that could allow an attacker to take complete control of a vulnerable system.

About 140 foreign intelligence organizations are trying to hack into the computer networks of the U.S. government and U.S. companies, a top counterintelligence official said. Joel Brenner, the national counterintelligence executive, told CNN it is not accurate to blame only the Chinese government for recent penetrations of government computer systems. Because it’s easy for hackers to disguise where an attack originates, Brenner said, the best course of action is to tighten up one’s own networks rather than to place blame.