CT News Update August 16, 2005

• 08/16/05

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* NIST Launches National Database of Latest Hacker Stratagems
* Undergraduates Seeking Blue Chip Employers, Survey Says
* Deals: Higher Ed Buying Co-op Adds Online Text Services
* Equity Group Acquires SunGard Data Availability Services Firm
* New Products: Firm Markets "Clone" of CMS Platforms
* Wal-Mart Offers Dorm Room-in-a-Box; Ships Direct to Campus

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NIST Launches National Database of Latest Hacker Stratagems

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
launched a database on the latest vulnerabilities hackers
are exploiting to illegally break into institutional
computer systems.

The new National Vulnerability Database (NVD) will
maintain information on the 300 or so new vulnerabilities
discovered each month, which will make it easier for
system administrators and other security professionals
to learn about vulnerabilities and how to remediate them.

The NVD will integrate all publicly available U.S.
government resources on vulnerabilities and provide
links to many industry resources. NVD is built upon
a dictionary of standardized vulnerability names and
descriptions called Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures.
The NVD, which will be updated daily, contains information
on about 12,000 vulnerabilities. It allows users to search
by a variety of characteristics, including vulnerability
type, severity and impact; software name and version
number; and vendor name. NVD also can be used to research
the vulnerability history of a product and view vulnerability
statistics and trends.

NVD was developed by researchers in NIST's Computer Security
Division with support from the Department of Homeland
Security's National Cyber Security Division.

For more information, visit
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Today's Undergrads Target Blue Chip Employers, Survey Says

IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Apple Computer, and Dell Computer,
respectively, are the top five most sought after employers
among undergraduates concentrating in information technology.

This is one of the results found in a 2005 study on
undergraduate employer preferences. Universum, a research
and management consulting firm focusing on student career
expectations, conducts the survey annually.

The lineup shifts for undergraduate engineering and
science majors. For them, the top five most ideal
employers are: B'eing, Lockheed Martin Corp.,
Johnson & Johnson, BMW, and Pfizer. When the sample
is undergraduates as a whole, BMW is in the pole
position, with the CIA and FBI rounding out the top
10. To conduct the study, Universum surveyed 29,000
undergrads at 123 universities between Dec. 2004 and
March 2005.

Deals: Higher Ed Buying Co-op Adds Online Text Services

The Southern Universities Purchasing Consortium (SUPC),
a European purchasing combine for more than 40 universities
and colleges in the U.K. signed a four-year agreement
with ebrary.

The schools will use ebrary's Dynamic Content Platform,
which provides full-text online books to its member
institutions. The deal with SUPC will enable the consortium
to provide its patrons content and research tools at better
licensing rates.

Under the terms of the contract, consortium members will
be able to chose a variety of licensing options for either
subscription or perpetual access. ebrary currently offers
a selection of more than 60,000 full-text, online books,
reports, and other content from more than 200 academic,
scientific, and professional publishers.

Equity Group Acquires SunGard Data Availability Services Firm

A consortium of private equity firms has acquired SunGard,
an IT services firm specializing in disaster recovery and
remote data protection for the financial and higher education
markets.

The transaction, for $11.4 billion in cash. represented
the largest technology privatization as well as the second
largest leveraged buyout ever completed, according to the
investors, which included Bain Capital, The Blackstone Group,
Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
& Co. L.P., Providence Equity Partners and Texas Pacific Group.

SunGard's "availability" services help organizations minimize
risks from security breaches, network and hardware failures,
as well as extreme occurrences such as natural disasters and
acts of terrorism. It offers access to more than 3 million
square feet of hardened facilities at 60 data centers. The
centers are linked by a 25,000 mile-dedicated network and
supplemented by more than 50 mobile facilities.

New Products: Firm Markets "Clone" of CMS Platforms

The maker of a course management "appliance" says its
system can serve courses produced in multiple file formats,
including courses created for Blackboard.

It claims to be the best least-cost alternative to expensive
enterprise CMS systems.

"The analogy we are using to describe this . is the PC to
clone comparison," said Zeb Bhatti, CEO of Digital Learning
Management Corp., describing the company's Java-based VUS
(Virtual University System) Appliance. "This is truly
revolutionary in that it opens the door for smaller institutions,
or those that just don't want to pay hundreds of thousands,
to millions of dollars to run an e-learning program."

The VUS Appliance is a hardware and software solution
incorporating the company's CourseMate Virtual University
system. The device is a standard 1U rack mounted device
and is pre-configured with a Course Builder, a Courseware
Repository, a LMS and Registration System, an Online Exams
Server, an Online Evaluations Server and a Collaboration Server
for Online Discussion Forums & Chat Sessions. The system can
accept content created in multiple formats and presents that
content over the Internet or intranet.

Wal-Mart Offers Dorm Room-in-a-Box; Ships Direct to Campus

Wal-Mart's online retailer, Walmart.com, is offering campus
bound college students packages of dorm essentials and
accessories, including futons, moon chairs, video rockers,
storage ottomans, designer MP3 players, laptops, and microwaves,
delivered right to the dorm. The four new "room collections,"
in styles dubbed Hot Dot, City, Luxe and Chill, "offer college
students the chance to express their unique personalities, while
providing the ease and convenience of shipping items directly to
their dorm room or apartment," said Tricia Doty, Walmart.com's
director of merchandising, home and family.

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