Emergency Preparedness

Experts call for establishing near-earth asteroid surveillance network
Scientists have identified almost 6,000 near-earth objects (NEOs) whose orbits intersect with the Earth’s; five-hundred to 1,000 NEOs have a diameter of over 150 kilometers
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Can China's future earthquakes be predicted?
To predict earthquakes, China relied on GPS data, which showed movements of two millimeters per year in certain areas of Szechwan province where a May 2008 earthquake killed 70,000 people (20,000 are still missing) and destroyed more than eight million homes; scientists examine a better way to predict disasters
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Report: Private sector can better prepare for cyber attack risks
New expert panel report suggests shifting control of corporate cyber infrastructures from IT departments to chief financial officers
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U.K. businesses lack understanding of threats they face
U.K. companies invest billions in software for intrusion detection, encryption, and identity management, but are still struggling with basic security processes
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DHS, industry promote security awareness month
Companies offer tips on avoiding and dealing with attacks; October will also see major cybersecurity initiatives in Europe, Asia
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Keep IT security simple
New study of corporate security breaches says that 87 percent of all security breaches could have been avoided “if reasonable security controls had been in place at the time of the incident”
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GAO: U.S. computer emergency readiness team is not ready
Government Accounting Office criticizes US-CERT for lacking “a comprehensive baseline understanding of the nation’s critical information infrastructure operations” and for not exhibiting “aspects of the attributes essential to having a truly national capability,” among other things
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Computer model to help in smoother hurricane evacuation
Software developed at MIT could save lives and money by improving hurricane planning
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Terrorism: What the next president will face
Richard Clarke, special editor of a new volume on the terrorist threat the United States is facing: “Like the cold war, this struggle is ideological at its root and will likely take many years to end. As with the cold war, however, skillful management could eventually cause the threat to go away, not with a bang but with a whimper”
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New Orleans coped well with Gustav
The planning and execution of hurricane emergency measure was far superior to what happened during Katrina, even if the challenge was not as demanding; analysts worry that with Gustav failing to live up to expectations of devastation, we may witness “evacuation fatigue” next time
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New metrics to help measure enterprise security
A non-profit IT security organization is working toward releasing a set of metrics for enterprises to measure the effectiveness of their security controls
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Designing earthquake-resistant buildings
New NIST publication series addresses design of earthquake-resistant structures
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Major flooding risk could span decades after Chinese earthquake
Earthquake-induced landslides cause rocks and sediment to be dumped in the river valleys, and this material then moves downstream to settle on river beds; this means that river and lakes become shallower, pausing much greater risks of flooding for decades to come
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Bureaucratic bafflegab hobbles Canada's disaster readiness, report says
New Senate report slams the Canadian government’s disaster coordination efforts; the report suggests that past floods, ice storms, the SARs epidemic, blackouts in Canada, and the 9/11 attacks should have — but have not — served as a wake up call for various levels of government to hatch concrete plans to work together to ward off disaster
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China quake forces rethink over hazard maps
Following the Sichuan earthquake, in which more than 65,000 people died, researchers say that similar regions may also be in danger and that seismic hazard maps should be redrawn
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