Anna Chapman need never have bothered with moving to Manhattan to become a sleeper agent for the Russian intelligence service. The experience of another femme fatale, Robin Sage, suggests the 28-year-old spy, who posted raunchy photos on her Facebook profile, should instead have honed her social networking skills.

In just a month, Sage made connections with hundreds of people from the US military, intelligence agencies, information security companies and government contractors. The 25-year-old navy cyberthreat analyst was invited to speak at security conferences and offered jobs at companies including Google and Lockheed Martin.

Her Twitter profile proclaimed: “Sorry to say, I’m not a Green Beret! Just a cute girl stopping by to say hey! My life is about info sec [information security] all the way!”

But there was a slight hitch: Robin Sage did not exist. The pretty cybergeek, supposedly educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a prep school in New Hampshire, was in reality an avatar created by a security researcher to find out how social networking sites could be used to covertly gather intelligence.

Read more here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jul/24/social-networking-spy-robin-sage

KUALA LUMPUR: Bank Negara and relevant enforcement agencies have intensified investigation and prosecution against Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (AML/TF) activities.

Bank Negara deputy governor Datuk Zamani Abdul Ghani, said last year the government formulated a three-year National AML/TF Strategy Plan 2010-2012 as a tool to achieve the desired results as part of the National Key Result Areas.

“Bank Negara and other agencies have started to implement the action plan in stages. The AML/TF investigation and prosecution have been intensified. To date, there have been 94 money laundering cases at various stages of prosecution with more than 3,000 charges involving proceeds amounting to RM1.2 billion,” Zamani said in his keynote address at the International Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing Conference here this morning.

Zamani said the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act 2001 had been in effect for the past eight years and was recognised internationally.

Read more here :

http://www.mmail.com.my/content/43525-bank-negara-curb-money-laundering-and-terrorism-financing

The air traffic crisis provoked by the Icelandic volcano eruption, with its accompanying economic and societal effects, is analyzed through the lens of the ISO 31000 risk management standard by the leader of the group of ISO experts who developed it.

Read more here:

http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1317

The Privacy Commissioner, Karen Curtis, has embarrassed Communications Minister Stephen Conroy by playing down the seriousness of Google’s Wi-Fi spying bungle.

Authorities all over the world are investigating Google, including the Australian privacy watchdog and Australian Federal Police, for sucking up 600GB of “payload data” from unsecured wireless networks over several years while taking pictures for its Street View mapping service.

Senator Conroy described the move as deliberate and labeled it the “single greatest breach in the history of privacy”. He also claimed personal banking details were hovered up by the search giant.

Read more here :

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/google-wifi-snooping-not-so-bad-privacy-commissioner-20100622-ytdf.html?autostart=1

Methodware released ERA7.1 with engine CS7.1.44.

Clients on Methodware ERA7.1 can download the latest release from the client centre.

Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, has signalled for the first time that his job could be under threat if the company is unable to swiftly resolve the oil slick crisis in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr Hayward admitted that, while he felt under no immediate pressure to step down, his career was likely to hinge on the company’s ability to end the crisis.

“I think I will be judged by the response,” he said in an interview at BP’s US headquarters in Houston. “I don’t feel my job is on the line but of course that might change.”

Mr Hayward — who has been in the US since shortly after the fatal accident on the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20 — revealed that he had difficulty sleeping and that he was refusing to watch television or newspaper reports about the accident.

“I don’t want my judgment to be clouded by what has been written,” he said. “I will stay here until we have fixed it.”

He added that he was “genuinely proud” of the company’s efforts to stem the leak from the sunken rig, which measures 5,000 barrels per day and have so far proved unsuccessful. He said that BP – whose market valuation has fallen by $30 billion (£20 billion) since the accident — would survive despite claims that it could face damages and costs exceeding $10 billion.

“I feel the company can deal with this and we will get through,” he said. “We will fix this — the only question is when.”

Mr Hayward said that he had received a text message of support from Lord Browne of Madingley, his predecessor, and had also been backed by long-term shareholders and by the group’s new chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, who visited the Houston operation last week.

It also emerged that that Mr Hayward has received hate mail and is being bombarded with calls from US federal officials, who declared their intention to keep a “boot at the throat of BP” amid fierce recriminations for one of the worst oil spills in US history.

“The Cabinet now has my personal mobile phone number and I am getting a lot of calls,” he said, although he said that relations with the US Administration remained positive.

Speaking after meeting with the US Energy Secretary Steven Chu and the Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Mr Hayward acknowledged that the accident was likely to have a profound and lasting impact the offshore oil industry.

He played down suggestions, though, that it could lead to a ban on offshore drilling. “It will undoubtedly be a transforming event in the industry … But Apollo 13 did not stop the space programme,” he said.

He said that investigations into the accident would focus on the blowout preventor — the key piece of equipment that failed on the sunken rig — which he said had been subpoenaed by US investigators.

He said that it would be retrieved from the seabed and subjected to forensic analysis to establish the cause.

Source :  http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article7125186.ece

The main goals/aims of the publication are expanding the 2009 COSO Guidance on Monitoring of Internal Controls by bringing emphasis to the monitoring of application and IT general controls and discussing the use of automation (tools) for increased efficiency and effectiveness of monitoring processes. The authors also move away from a mere conceptual elaboration on the concepts and applications for monitoring and move toward providing multiple examples, case studies and practical tools that can help the professional and the enterprise itself implement monitoring.

The publication is written with executives/senior management, business process owners and IT professionals in mind. It opens with an executive overview of the subject matter and suggests questions that senior management should ask to determine whether the monitoring of internal controls is adequately addressed within their enterprise. For the business process owners it describes how to monitor key IT application controls and how to automate monitoring processes and for the IT professional it goes beyond theory by providing templates and tools that can be leveraged when developing and implementing a monitoring project.

All comments are encouraged, and must be submitted no later than 3 May 2010. Comments on the exposure draft may be provided by any of the following electronic submissions methods:

• Use the ISACA online questionnaire in the link provided above, or
• Send an e-mail to research@isaca.org.

We are pleased to announce the latest release of our flagship GRC software, ERA.

ERA 7.1 is part of Methodware’s continuing effort to provide solutions that meet the changing needs of our clients.

The most significant new feature is Audit Management – now you have fully featured audit planning and scheduling integrated with the risk, compliance and audit assessment functionality already found in ERA.

Audit Management is ideal for audit teams who are following a risk-based approach. You’ll be able to prioritize projects, schedule strategically and assign staff based on skills, experience and availability. Some of the specifics include the ability to:

• Create and update a high-level plan hierarchy to map out the objectives outlined by the audit committee, review progress toward those goals and compare results according to category, process or risk level.
• Identify and rank auditable areas, determine the areas to be included in your audit program and monitor the execution of that program.
• Compare audits across the organization and against prior periods at a glance, using the new audit universe analyzer. As changes occur to your environment, whether through changes in risk assessments, audit plans or other user-defined criteria, use the analyzer to adjust priorities.
• Develop calendars organized by person and by date. Track schedules for individual auditors and the whole enterprise in order to better understand and manage expectations.
• Sign off and archive audit records upon completion of an audit period.

ERA 7.1 features many other enhancements. Reporting is easier than ever, with consolidation server allowing data aggregation and analysis in seconds, improved ad hoc reporting and new data extraction tools to feed external reporting databases. Usability updates to many administrative functions and the overall look and feel of ERA also contribute to a better user experience.

To learn more about ERA 7.1, visit our ERA page, the Methodware Client Center or contact us if you are in Malaysia or Singapore.

P&G Stock Down By 20%, Accenture Hits 1 Cent: Computer Glitch?

Stock Market Today: Why did the Proctor and Gamble (P&G) stock price drop?

In a was a crazy ride for the NYSE and Dow Jones today, Proctor and Gamble (P&G) stock dropped suddenly by 20% in almost 5 minutes fueling a massive drop in the Dow Jones which was down 900 points before recovering to close down 505 points.

Some of the losses were fueled by technical glitches and computer trading

Proctor and Gamble helped to fuel the roller coaster ride for them markets because an apparent computer glitch on the NASDAQ caused PG stock to plunge.

Besides Proctor and Gamble another stock price that was up and down was Accenture. At one point the stock price of Accenture fell down to 4 cents. It closed on Wednesday at $42.17 before closing around $41 on Thursday.

In addition, their were overall nervousness surround news out of Greece. The Greek economy, the protesters responding to the austerity measures, and the chance Spain and Portugal cold be hit next all pushed to the markets down on Thursday.

The Atlantic has good round up of the factors that could have contributed to markets sudden down turn on Thursday.

Source :

http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/p-g-stock-down-20-accenture-hits-1-cent-computer-glitch-2614136.html

ISACA recently released an Audit Guideline on Continous Monitoring.

Read more here:

http://www.isaca.org/Template.cfm?Section=Standards&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=55823