Nasa appoints deputy CIO

Nasa has appointed Valarie Burks as its deputy CIO for Information Technology Security, reports Computer World UK.

Burks was previously the associate CIO for cyber and privacy policy and oversight at the US Department of Agriculture and was responsible for managing the department's governance, risk, crisis management and compliance functions.

Burks' appointment to her new role is likely to be closely watched by security analysts.

The China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) revealed guidelines for implementing risk management systems for life insurance companies, with an aim to set up a risk alert and monitoring system for the industry by 2012, states Insurance News Net.

Under the guidelines to take effect 30 April, insurers are required to optimise their organisational structures, develop risk management plans and submit their first annual overall risk management reports to the CIRC.

“The development and supervision of China's life insurance industry is a process of optimising risk prevention and solutions,” says Chen Wenhui, assistant to the chairman of the CIRC.

eGestalt, a provider of IT governance, risk management and compliance solutions, has released a compliance tool called SecureGRC SB, says Online PR News.

SecureGRC SB is a software-as-a-service (Saas) application that aims to help small medical practices achieve and sustain HIPAA/HITECH compliance.

Anupam Sahai, eGestalt president, says: "By leveraging our SaaS-based automated tool, channel partners are able to deliver these packaged security and compliance services to small medical practices in a cost-effective manner thereby meeting a huge unmet demand as communicated to us by our channel partners and end-customers."