Three IT giants–Cisco Systems, EMC, and Microsoft–have formed an alliance to create a new common IT architecture for sharing and protecting sensitive government or business information, representatives from all three companies told eWEEK July 9.

The alliance was born of a shared project with the Department of Defense, during which the companies designed and engineered the so-called SISA (Secure Information Sharing Architecture), a new security-enhanced, end-to-end information-sharing design framework. The nature of the DOD project was not revealed.

Drexel University Online, a pioneer in Internet-based education programs, has recently launched an online Post-Bachelor’s Certificate in Computing Technology degree program.

The Certificate in Computing Security Technology is designed for students who have extensive experience in networking, a bachelor’s degree in computing technology or similar field, and are seeking a career change or professional advancement with an additional focus on security.

This certificate program’s curriculum will provide students with a deep understanding of security-related issues and technologies. It includes six required courses and two electives for a total of eight courses or 24-credits.

Similar to Drexel’s other online degree programs, this fully-accredited online degree in computing and security technology is offered entirely online, and is intended for working professionals. Students will have 24/7 online access to class materials, group discussion, instructor feedback and exams.

Tools4ever announced the release of a new version of its User Management Resource Administrator suite that supports full account lifecycle management for Lotus Notes.

By utilizing the powerful capabilities inherent in UMRA, organization of all sizes can easily manage User Account Lifecycles. Input from a variety of sources may be utilized, including human resource systems, Web-based forms or the delegated users.

The new functionality extends the capabilities from managing accounts in Active Directory, LDAP, Novell and Exchange to allow for automatic provisioning and deletion of accounts in Lotus Notes. In addition to automating the management process, UMRA has built-in capabilities to insure user account name uniqueness, eliminating what can be a tedious manual process.

Symantec released security updates for AntiVirus Corporate Edition and Backup Exec, fixing flaws attackers could exploit to gain extra user privileges, cause a denial of service or possibly launch malicious code.

The antivirus giant said in its SYM07-017 advisory that the first flaw is in the Real-Time scanner component of Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition, which provides notification and logging services for the product.

Building IBM Lotus Sametime on top of IBM Lotus Expeditor lets you use Eclipse as a Plug-in Development Environment (PDE) to extend Lotus Sametime’s functionality in many ways. This article, part 3 of a four-part series, shows how to test and debug plug-ins.

This article provides an overview of IBM Lotus Quickr with a focus on its core services. Lotus Quickr includes team places feature, content libraries, wikis, blogs, and connectors. Learn about the installation options and technical requirements for the product along with simple ways to customize the services.

The U.S. and Japan have the top national environments for their IT industries to grow and flourish, including intellectual-property protections and IT infrastructure, according to a study released by the Business Software Alliance.

The study, conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit, ranked 64 nations on several factors, such as PC ownership, broadband adoption, government regulation, enrollment in higher education, IT employment, research and development spending, and cybercrime laws.

Using 25 weighted factors, the EIU ranked the U.S. first in IT competitiveness and Japan second. Also in the top five: South Korea, the U.K., and Australia.

India ranked 46th out of 64 countries included in the study, while China ranked 49th. Iran, Nigeria, and Azerbaijan were the bottom three on the list.

The United Kingdom’s information commissioner is calling on chief executives to take the security of customer and staff information more seriously.

"The roll call of banks, retailers, government departments, public bodies and other organizations which have admitted serious security lapses is frankly horrifying," Richard Thomas wrote in a report. "How can laptops holding details of customer accounts be used away from the office without strong encryption? How can millions of store card transactions fall into the wrong hands?"

The Information Commissioner’s Office received almost 24,000 inquiries and complaints concerning personal information, and it prosecuted 16 individuals and organizations in the past 12 months, according to its annual report for 2006 and 2007.

After more than $75 million in bogus credit card charges, several Cuban nationals in Florida have been arrested with more than 200,000 credit card account numbers, many of which came from the TJX and Polo Ralph Lauren data breaches, according to U.S. Secret Service officials, commenting on the July 9 announced arrests.

The numbers were sent to the Florida defendants, who specialize in manufacturing bogus credit cards complete with embossing, logos, holograms and properly encoded magnetic strips, from a group of Eastern European residents who specialize in collecting the stolen credit card numbers, the Secret Service said.

Claiming that security researchers are dissatisfied with current remuneration–white-hat chump change or the potential of black-hat broken kneecaps–a Swiss company has launched the first non-black-market auction site for zero-day vulnerabilities.

The eBay-like bug market, called Wabisabilabi, launched July 3. Security researchers and vulnerability brokers like the concept of selling vulnerabilities for fair market price just fine, but they also say the auction site has some serious flaws: lack of transparency, lack of ethics in selling vulnerabilities as opposed to just getting vendors to fix their products ASAP and thereby getting users protected ASAP, and lastly, the fact that you can’t reveal details about a vulnerability without tipping off researchers on how to find it.