Howard Schmidt, White House cybersecurity coordinator and special assistant to the president, on Friday unveiled a draft plan for improving online privacy and security through the use of a trusted digital identity system. The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) seeks to improve cyberspace for all those who conduct business online. It would enable individuals to voluntarily obtain a secure credential, such as a smart identity card, from public and private sector providers to authenticate themselves online when banking, accessing electronic health records, sending email and making other online transactions. The White House is seeking comment on the draft strategy and plans to release a finalized version in the fall. — AM

Join Imprivata in exploring which authentication modality is right for your organization. This session will explore the pros and cons of user authentication options in addition to reviewing how you can mix and match various modalities to provide greater security.

With Friday, June 25 marking the one-year anniversary of the death of pop star Michael Jackson, new rounds of spam are exploiting the occasion. News of Jackson's death spurred spam hours after his passing and has continued in various guises since. A new iteration noted by Symantec this week promotes the sale of a commemorative anniversary coin, soliciting personal information from recipients including credit card details. - GM

A U.S. Senate committee unanimously passed a cybersecurity bill, which would grant the president emergency power over critical infrastructure networks.

The personal information of Florida International University students and faculty members was discovered in an unsecure database that may have been accessible to the public.

The personal information of hundreds of thousands of Blue Cross customers was recently exposed following a website glitch made by a third party.

SC Magazine's Angela Moscaritolo learns from Application Security Inc.'s Thom VanHorn of the latest trends around database security. A majority of the attacks come from insiders, but external attacks are quite prevalent as well. For example, government databases undergo constant "probing" from adversaries.

As expected, Adobe is planning to release updates to its flagship Reader and Acrobat products on Tuesday, the company announced Thursday. The updates affect Reader 9.3.2 and earlier versions for Windows, Mac and Unix and Acrobat 9.3.2 for Windows and Mac. Tuesday's release comes two weeks earlier than scheduled because Adobe rushed to correct a zero-day vulnerability that is being actively exploited. An unknown number of other "critical" holes also are expected to be plugged, according to a bulletin released Thursday. — DK