NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 12 January
12-01-2009
by Deirdre McArdle
Irish companies fail to delete data properly | IT security budgets to increase in 2009
Following a public consultation ComReg has published a new framework for the regulation and management of Ireland's dot-ie domain. ComReg will stick with IE Domain Registry (IEDR) as the manager of the dot-ie domain, but IEDR will set up and maintain a policy advisory committee "representative of all stakeholders" with a focus on more transparent policy development. ComReg said it will implement a dot-ie domain monitoring framework and will consider further regulatory measures in the future. Under the Communications Regulation (Amendment) Act 2007, ComReg is responsible for making regulations to ensure the effective management and administration of the dot-ie domain.
Irish organisations need to implement robust data deletion practices to fully protect themselves from security breaches, according to data recovery specialists Kroll Ontrack Ireland. The company has revealed that only 3 percent of the total demand for its software in 2008 came from the need to permanently delete data, compared with over 90 percent for data recovery. According to the company, this trend suggests that Irish organisations are placing low emphasis on protecting end-of-life or deleted data, and are unaware that deleting a file does not permanently remove the information from the drive or device. Kroll Ontrack is encouraging companies to increase awareness of proper data deletion strategies, to update their data deletion practices and to ensure that industry standard data deletion methods and software are used.
Worldwide IT budgets may be coming down, but IT security spending is likely to hold steady -- and even increase -- in 2009, according to the results of a survey released by Finjan on Monday. Finjan provides web gateway solutions to the enterprise market. The survey found that while total IT budgets for 2009 will be reduced compared to 2008, organisations intend to dedicate a larger part of their total IT budgets to IT security. Thirty-four percent of respondents indicated that their IT security budgets for 2009 will increase, indicating a general trend that organisations will allocate a larger part of their overall IT budget to security. Meanwhile, 43 percent of respondents expect their IT security budget for 2009 to remain the same. The survey also found that the upward trend in IT security budget allocation was more pronounced in the financial and governmental sectors than in others.
McAfee's "January Spam Report", published Monday, is predicting a busy 2009 for spammers. The company predicts that spammers will increasingly abuse free webhosting and blogging services that don't require the purchase of a domain name; that so-called "corporate blackmailing" will increase in 2009, with sensitive personal and company information being sold in greater quantities on the black market; and that do-it-yourself home business scams will target the growing ranks of unemployed. The report can be downloaded here (PDF).
Let your fingers do the roaming: The Golden Pages has gone mobile with the launch of m.goldenpages.ie, a WAP site for mobile phones with web browsing features. Created by Truvo, the company behind the Golden Pages website, the service is free to use and requires no downloads. Amongst the site's special features is the ability to e-mail suppliers from your phone and visit their website to get further information.
e-Net, the company behind Ireland's fibre-optic Metropolitan Area Networks, has announced the appointment of Leo Clancy as Service Delivery Director. Clancy's responsibilities will include assurance of service delivery and network availability to e-Net customers. Previously, Clancy served two years as Head of Service Delivery for Ireland with Ericsson.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 