Category: News

The provision, which goes into effect Nov. 15, will cost public companies 63 percent on average more than they had previously thought, according to a new survey by Financial Executives International (FEI).

The increase in Section 404 compliance costs stems from unexpected burdens experienced in connection with the two major requirements of the provisions.

First, each company’s annual report must contain a statement of management’s responsibility for an adequate internal-controls structure and procedures for financial reporting and management’s assessment of the effectiveness of those procedures. Second, the provision requires the company’s auditor to report and sign off on that assessment of the effectiveness, in accordance with standards set up by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).

For the first requirement, many companies are documenting internal controls for 92 percent of total revenue, the survey showed.

In January, survey respondents estimated an average $590,100 in fees to their auditors to attest their internal controls. In July, the average projection for attestation fees was $823,200 — on top of annual audit fees.

Another reason for the revised compliance costs is a 42-percent jump in other external costs, such as an average added $1.037 million for software and IT consulting.

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/3084035/c_3084056?f=home_todayinfinance

Comes in as a zip file. If you are at risk, then you will need to montior for some specigfic web sites. AV vendors have started releasing signatures. Sent via BlackBerry – a service from AT&T Wireless.

Now published to corporate users. On Friday, they released the package to OEMs and manufacturers. Sent via BlackBerry – a service from AT&T Wireless.

This unique hardware and software combination is designed to keep computers protected against certain malicious viruses, computer worms and Trojan horses.

When combined with the Data Execution Prevention technology found in Windows XP SP2, it provides a multi-layered defense against many common online threats. It not only identifies certain malicious code, specifically those that execute buffer overflow attacks, but also prevents them from replicating and spreading throughout the system.

The hardware and software technology from AMD and Microsoft is designed to proactively defend computers from these far too prevalent attacks, providing critical protection from some of the fastest-growing and most damaging viruses in the world today,” said Rob Enderle, President and Principal Analyst, Enderle Group.

Every AMD Athlon64 FX-53, AMD Athlon64 mobile and desktop, and Mobile AMD Sempron processor customer will be able to use the built-in EVP capability when enabled by Windows XP SP2.

http://www.cooltechzone.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=457&Itemid=0

In a note headlined “To patch” or not to patch” posted Friday on its corporate intranet, IBM tells its employees not to download SP2 when it becomes available because of compatibility issues.

“While this patch may be good news for other Microsoft Windows XP owners, IBM is directing XP users not to install SP2,” the note states.

Currently, some high profile, business-critical applications are also known to conflict with SP2,” IBM tells its employees in the note. Microsoft has made something of a trade-off, focusing on security at the expense of compatibility. Earlier this week the software vendor released an update for Microsoft CRM (Customer Relationship Management) 1.2 because SP2 will prevent the original application from running correctly.

Because of the broad changes, analysts have compared the XP service pack to a Windows upgrade instead of a simple update. Business users typically take much longer to install a new version of Windows than a service pack because of compatibility testing.

http://www.itworldcanada.com/Pages/Docbase/ViewArticle.aspx?id=idgml-e2660c5c-be61-46fe&s=334096

According to a survey of more than 1,200 small- and medium-sized businesses by the Institute of Directors, half said that they’d been hit by attacks caused by personnel “misuse.”

Workers do dumb things, said managers, such as downloading non-work programs, opening worm-infected e-mail, and turning off security software.

Done for security vendor McAfee, the survey said the second highest cause of security problems, at 45 percent, was due to poorly updated anti-virus software. “All too often businesses are preoccupied with patching holes, updating anti-virus, and configuring firewalls without looking at the dangers posed by their employees,” said Sal Viveros, the director of McAfee’s small- and medium-sized enterprise group, in a statement. “Businesses can have the most robust and integrated security system in the world but one rogue end user could still be responsible for introducing malicious code onto the network.”

http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20040806S0004