Danger days are just six weeks away

June 7, 2009

The "Tide of the century" may hit Mumbai on 24th July 2009

Mumbai could be facing a re-enactment of the catastrophe that devastated life and property four years ago--perhaps on the very same dates.

While the severity of the flooding would probably be unabated, better prepardness and closer co-ordination among government bodies, corporate & general public can help in minimizing its impact.

What caused floods in 2005

Mumbai is at an average elevation of 10-15 meters above sea level and receives an annual rainfall of 2,200 mm out of which 50% is in the month of July.

On 26 July 2005, Mumbai got a record single day rainfall of 944mm (42% of the city's annual rainfall). This coupled with a high tide of more than 4.8m, overwhelmed the drainage systems and flooded the city

Mumbai lost close to $200 million of revenue and over 1,000 lives. The floods also caused serious damage to property, infrastructure and left serious diseases in its wake. Many were even traumatized.

Mumbai faces a similar situation now

The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) has indicated the possibility of a high tide of 5.01m & 5.05m on 23rd and 24th July 2009 respectively.

The South West Monsoon which is expected to hit Mumbai by 10th June could prove disastrous if it rains heavily on any of these two days. Low lying areas could experience flooding even with moderate rains.

While MCGM has apparently undertaken measures to improve the city's disaster management capabilities, it is imperative for individuals & corporates's to review their prepardness for responding effectively.


 

Deloitte named a leader in information security and IT risk consulting in Q1 2009

May 5, 2009

According to the March 2009 report, The Forrester Wave™: Information Security And IT Risk Consulting, Q1 2009, "Deloitte stands as the leader in information security consulting as well (as a leader in information technology risk consulting) thanks to 'its depth and breadth of services.' " The groundbreaking comparative evaluation looked at the 15 leading global information security and risk consulting service providers.

In the report, Forrester Research, a respected independent analyst firm...


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Report: Facebook to open up to developers

April 27, 2009

Facebook plans to announce at a developer event Monday that it will open up user-contributed information to third-party developers, according to a report Sunday in The Wall Street Journal.

The move would allow developers to build applications and services that--with users' permission--access user videos, photos, notes, and comments. The move would be a significant change for the social-networking site, which had previously retained tight control over the site and how developers interact with...


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British Council Violated Data Protection Act, Says Information Commissioner's Office

April 22, 2009
The UK Information Commissioner's Office says that the British Council's loss of an unencrypted disk containing personally identifiable information constitutes a breach of the Data Protection Act. The disk holds sensitive data belonging to more than 2,000 staff members. The breach was reported to the ICO promptly; the ICO has required the British Council to officially agree to a number of security measures to guard against future data loss. Among those measures are ensuring that all portable ...
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Spies Penetrate Pentagon's Joint Fighter-Jet Project

April 22, 2009
Cyber spies have stolen tens of terabytes of design data on the US's most expensive costliest weapons system -- the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project. Similar breaches have been found in the Air Force's Air Traffic Control System. The attacks began as far back as 2007 and continued into 2008. The spies encrypted the data that they stole, making it difficult for investigators to know exactly what data was taken. The fact that fighter data was lost to cyber spies was first disclosed by ...
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Microsoft 10 Immutable Laws of Security

April 11, 2009

Microsoft technet has an article listing ten immutable laws of security according to Microsoft. I personally agree with these laws which are:

  • Law #1: If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it’s not your computer anymore
  • Law #2: If a bad guy can alter the operating system on your computer, it’s not your computer anymore
  • Law #3: If a bad guy has unrestricted physical access to your computer, it’s not your computer anymore
  • Law #4: If you allow a bad guy to upload p...

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Google Docs Viagra Spam

November 23, 2008

I was going through my yahoo inbox and found Viagra spam with a link to http://doc.google.com/View?id=dfpqm7ft_0tt6xhdd2.

Its nothing new that spammers have been taking advantage of Google. Its just kind of annoying to me that this message was sent on October 30th, today is November 23th and the linked Viagra Google doc is still up ("consult a physician if the link stays up longer than 4 weeks"). Am I to believe that no one has reported this link to Google?

The paranoid part of me wonders if...


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Saumil's Information Security Blog

November 23, 2008

Hi, welcome to my blog. It started out as a place to be able to post links and news so I could find them again. I began adding my own commentary. Thanks for stopping by. Dont forget to use the search if Google dropped you off at this page and you dont see what you're looking for.


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Saumil's Infosec Blog


Information Security Hi, welcome to my blog. It started out as a place to be able to post links and news so I could find them again. I welcome you to share your thoughts or any opnions you may have on any of the posts by me. Thanks for stopping by. Dont forget to use the search on the home page if you dont see what you're looking for.

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