contributed by weld pond
After a long and grueling process, Rijndael has been selected by NIST to replace DES. The new algorithm's speed and simplicity helped it beat out the secure designs of other finalists in the competition. Chosen through a completely open process, the effects of Rijndael on security and privacy have unlimited potential. Let's just hope people implement the algorithm in their products as carefully as the algorithm was designed.

Wired
ZDNet
SecurityFocus
AES FAQ
NIST's Press Release

contributed by pyle
The General Accounting Office (GAO) continues to line 'em up and knock 'em down during the course of what has quickly become a notoriously poor string of U.S. government website security reviews. The latest disappointment is FirstGov.gov, a website that links to all 27 million U.S. government sites. Like its predecessors, the site has a long way to go before it meets government-imposed, common sense approved standards.

Reuters via Excite
(new source)
(new source)

contributed by laney
Vulnerabilities discovered on financial sites Nasdaq.com, CBS.MarketWatch.com, BigCharts.com, and FTMarketWatch.com. by Gerrie Mansur, member of Dutch group Hit2000, were plugged after he notified each site's webmaster. Mansur claims to have written the exploit himself however it is believed to bear a strong resemblance to the Source Fragment Disclosure Vulnerability. Mansur has decided against publishing the exploit.

InfoWorld

contributed by pyle and iron river
While the FAA has managed to clean up its act considerably since the General Accounting Office's 1999 audit, other branches of the Department of Transportation are in rough shape when it comes to security measures. The lack of back ground checks performed appears to be of great concern to the Department as well as the ease in which people are able to gain access to supposedly private sites.

Federal Computer Week

contributed by laney
The Security Vision Roundtable, an event sponsored by Andersen Consulting and Purdue University's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS) brought together some of the best security minds in the U.S. to discuss industry trends - past and present. Quality assurance, PKI and research were among several topics covered in the group's recommendations. Dan Geer, CTO of @stake, participated in the roundtable.

CRN via TechWeb