Breach

A Vermont senator is trying again with a law that would, among other things, standardize requirements on data breach notification.

During a breach containment process, you may be required to call in a Qualified Incident Response Assessor to conduct a thorough investigation and forensic analysis.

The former IT director of the Houston-based LifeGift Organ Donation Center, who had been fired in 2005, was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison and ordered to pay $94,222 for hacking into the computer network of the nonprofit, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Danielle Duann, 51, of Houston pleaded guilty in late April to deleting organ donation database records, accounting files and applications -- then erasing logs to conceal her actions. — AM

CEOs often have a rosier view of data protection in their organization than other executives, according to a study released Wednesday by the Ponemon Institute and security vendor Ounce Labs.

Eight-five percent of organizations have experienced a data breach in the past 12 months -- up slightly from 84 percent a year ago, according to a fourth-annual encryption trends study released Monday by the Ponemon Institute and encryption vendor PGP. The study of 997 IT business managers, analysts and executives in the U.S. also found that 22 percent of organizations have experienced at least five security breaches within the past year -- a rise from 13 percent of respondents last year. — AM

Symantec has been awarded $18.6 million in two federal lawsuits against distributors selling counterfeit software. The judgments were against V-Micro, based in New Jersey, and Higher Model Computer, based in Connecticut, the company announced Thursday. Symantec alleged copyright and trademark infringement and fraud against the distributors for selling counterfeit products such as Norton SystemWorks, Norton AntiVirus and pcAnywhere. — CAM

IBM researchers say they have invented a way to selectively obscure sensitive information before it is displayed on a computer screen.

A trojan has reportedly been uncovered that is harvesting FTP login data of major corporations, including the Bank of America, BBC, Amazon, Cisco, Monster.com, Symantec and McAfee.