Lead Off!
All of us have personal identity information that we don't want published. That information is held by multiple companies and ranges from credit card and social security numbers to medical records and insurance policies. You'd be surprised what they know about you. Have you ever wondered what really happens to your credit card number when you hand your card to your waiter? Is he the only one who sees your personal information? Can you really trust him with it? What about the cashier in the hotel lobby? And that Web site where you made your last purchase? Are they protecting your personal identity? Do those companies have processes in place to keep your personal information confidential
As your identity is important to you, your customers' identities are important to them. Are you protecting your customers' identity information? Well, the laws say you had better. If your company captures customer information of any kind, it's increasingly your responsibility to protect that data. A steady stream of legislation—THE EUROPEAN UNION DATA PROTECTION DIRECTIVE, GOVERNMENT INFORMATION SECURITY REFORM ACT, SARBANES-OXLEY, HEALTH INSURANCE PORTABILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT (HIPAA), GRAMM-LEACH-BLILEY AND OTHERS—puts constant pressure on you to keep that data secure.
So how can you protect yourself and your company from privacy breaches caused by identity theft? In Identity Robbed Blind, Laura Chappell shares some staggering statistics that show why you must be aware of—and guard against—identity theft. For the fifth year in a row, identity theft was the top consumer fraud filing with the US Federal Trade Commission totaling almost 250,000 cases during 2004. And those are only identity thefts in the US! You need to know your company is not involved in those cases.
Laws provide for significant financial penalties for violations. For example, HIPAA violations could cost you $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison for wrongful disclosure of individually identifiable health information. This article explains several ways you can protect yourself—and your company—from identity hackers.
The Novell development teams have been hard at work to release new versions of three Novell products:
1 SECURE LOGIN 6.0 2 IDENTITY MANAGER 3.0 3 AUDIT 2.0
Check out Password to find out about the new Secure Login. Who What When Where explains the latest version of Identity Manager. And Aud-it explains how Novell made something great even better—Novell Audit 2.0.
And GroupWise has some exciting developments too: it now ships with Intellisync technology in the box so you can sync the vast majority of your company's wireless devices to GroupWise. You can also get support for all those Blackberries floating around out there. Read Freeme, to find out all about it.
THE NEW GLOBAL BRAINSHARE 2006 IN SALT LAKE CITY PROMISES TO BE THE BEST YET. With more than 20 years in the making, read A Fresh Twist on an Industry Favorite to find out how Novell is pushing the limit and how you can be a part of it.
And now there's even more to be a part of. With its move to Linux, Novell has become the open source leader. Many of you have asked what that means to you and how you can get a piece of the action. Go Ahead. It's Open tells you how you can get involved in that action. It's easy. So dive in. There's enough to go around.
If you have anything on your mind or want to talk back to us, we'll always listen. E-mail the editor at editor@novell.com and as always, enjoy this issue of Novell Connection.
Regards,