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Daily Archives: May 30, 2014

GAO Report – Agencies Need to Improve Cyber Incident Response Practices

INFORMATION SECURITY: Agencies Need to Improve Cyber Incident Response Practices, GAO-14-354: Published: Apr 30, 2014. Publicly Released: May 30, 2014.

Twenty-four major federal agencies did not consistently demonstrate that they are effectively responding to cyber incidents (a security breach of a computerized system and information). Based on a statistical sample of cyber incidents reported in fiscal year 2012, GAO projects that these agencies did not completely document actions taken in response to detected incidents in about 65 percent of cases (with 95 percent confidence that the estimate falls between 58 and 72 percent). For example, agencies identified the scope of an incident in the majority of cases, but frequently did not demonstrate that they had determined the impact of an incident. In addition, agencies did not consistently demonstrate how they had handled other key activities, such as whether preventive actions to prevent the reoccurrence of an incident were taken. Although all 6 selected agencies that GAO reviewed in depth had developed parts of policies, plans, and procedures to guide their incident response activities, their efforts were not comprehensive or fully consistent with federal requirements. In addition, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) conduct CyberStat reviews, which are intended to help federal agencies improve their information security posture, but the reviews have not addressed agencies’ cyber incident response practices. Without complete policies, plans, and procedures, along with appropriate oversight of response activities, agencies face reduced assurance that they can effectively respond to cyber incidents.”

What Have We Learned About Austerity Since the Great Recession?

Michael Madowitz, What Have We Learned About Austerity Since the Great Recession?, May 2014. “There are three major lessons for policymakers from this research: Direct government intervention during recessions, either through deficit-financed tax cuts or deficit-financed increases in government spending, is a more powerful tool for fighting recessions than we realized before the Great Recession. In a slack… Continue Reading

The Texas Tribune and Oyez® to launch multimedia site for Texas high courts

IIT Chicago Kent College of Law – “Texas will soon benefit from an online archive for its two highest courts, launched through a partnership between The Texas Tribune and Oyez®, a free law project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Amidst a scarcity of news coverage about… Continue Reading

Staying safe this hurricane season

Google Official Blog – “Since 2010, we’ve been working to make disaster-related information immediately available and useful in a crisis, through tools like Public Alerts, Crisis Map and Person Finder. And since next week marks the start of hurricane season in the North Atlantic, we thought we’d provide a few tips to help you prepare for potential summer disasters—from… Continue Reading

International Journal of Central Banking

The International Journal of Central Banking (IJCB) is an initiative of the central banking community. Published quarterly, the journal features articles on central bank theory and practice, with a special emphasis on research relating to monetary and financial stability. The main objectives of the International Journal of Central Banking are: to disseminate widely the best policy-relevant and applied… Continue Reading

Report – Half of American Adults Data Hacked So far This Year

EPIC:  “A new report finds that 432 million online accounts in the US have been hacked this year, concerning about 110 million Americans. In the last year, 70 million Target customers, 33 million Adobe users, 4.6 million Snapchat users, and potentially all 148 million eBay users had their personal information exposed by database breaches. Earlier this month, the President’s science advisors found… Continue Reading

New GAO Reports – DOD Financial Management, DOE Loan Programs, Info Security, Treasury IG, Public Transit, SBA, Trusted Travelers

DOD FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: Improvements Needed in Army’s Efforts to Ensure the Reliability of Its Statement of Budgetary Resources, GAO-14-60: Published: May 30, 2014. Publicly Released: May 30, 2014. DOE LOAN PROGRAMS: DOE Has Made More Than $30 Billion in Loans and Guarantees and Needs to Fully Develop Its Loan Monitoring Function, GAO-14-645T: Published: May 30, 2014. Publicly Released: May 30, 2014.… Continue Reading

New federal database will track Americans’ credit ratings, other financial information

Washington Examiner, Richard Pollock: “As many as 227 million Americans may be compelled to disclose intimate details of their families and financial lives — including their Social Security numbers — in a new national database being assembled by two federal agencies. The Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau posted an April 16 Federal Register notice of an expansion of their joint National… Continue Reading

Corpus of Contemporary American English

“The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) is the largest freely-available corpus of English, and the only large and balanced corpus of American English. The corpus was created by Mark Davies of Brigham Young University, and it is used by tens of thousands of users every month (linguists, teachers, translators, and other researchers). COCA is also related to other large corpora that we have… Continue Reading