Ever wonder why the Maya Calendar will run out later this year?  Thanks to those crazy folks at Bizarro, now we know.

You have heard of the Last Lecture. What would be your final tweet?

What did you lose, Ziggy?  Sometimes, I think I am losing my mind.

By the way, did you know that Dictionary.com defines “cyberspace” as “the realm of electronic communication?”  Such a mundane definition for such an intriguing subject!

Did you know that Facebook has a population of over 600 million registered users – trailing only the nations of China and India? The following infographic from Search Engine Journal is a fascinating study of the growth of Social Media over the past few years.

Source: The Growth of Social Media: An Infographic

This afternoon, I received word that Veriphyr, a provider of SaaS Identity and Access Intelligence services, announced the results of new survey on Protected Health Information (PHI) privacy breaches. According to the report,

More than 70 percent of the organizations in the study have suffered one or more breaches of PHI within the last 12 months. …

Insiders were responsible for the majority of breaches, with 35 percent snooping into medical records of fellow employees and 27 percent accessing records of friends and relatives.

Some interesting statistics:

Top breaches in the past 12 months by type:

• Snooping into medical records of fellow employees (35%)
• Snooping into records of friends and relatives (27%)
• Loss /theft of physical records (25%)
• Loss/theft of equipment holding PHI (20%)

When a breach occurred, it was detected in:

• One to three days (30%)
• One week (12%)
• Two to four weeks (17%)

Once a breach was detected, it was resolved in:

• One to three days (16%)
• One week (18%)
• Two to Four weeks (25%)

79% of respondents were “somewhat concerned” or “very concerned” that their existing controls do not enable timely detection of breaches of PHI

52% stated they did not have adequate tools for monitoring inappropriate access to PHI

The report’s conclusion was not surprising:

Respondents who indicated strong satisfaction with their monitoring tools also tended to report fewer breaches of PHI and faster resolution times. The reverse is also true: respondents who indicated dissatisfaction with their monitoring tools tended to report more breaches and longer resolution times.

In an Oracle webcast on September 20th, Scott Bonnell, Sr. Director of Product Management, Oracle, and Naresh Persaud, Director of Product Marketing, Oracle, will explore how the Oracle identity platform can mobilize stalled deployments, allowing customers to accelerate identity projects.

This complimentary Webcast will show how the Oracle identity platform can:

1. Mobilize and complete your identity management project
2. Coexist with or replace your existing identity management point solution
3. Reduce security risk and improve regulatory compliance

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about a new Aberdeen Research Brief, “Identity and Access Management – Platform vs. Point Solution.” On September 15th, you can attend a webcast where Derek Brink, Vice President and Research Fellow, Aberdeen Group and Naresh Persaud, Director of Product Marketing, Oracle, will analyze the results of the Aberdeen study and explore how a platform approach can reduce the administrative cost, improve security and reduce audit exposure.

The webcast will show how :

Achieving a successful Identity Management program means integrating tools for administration, governance, sign-on, web-access control and authentication. Choosing an integrated suite or “platform” of solutions from a single vendor can have many advantages over choosing “point solutions” from multiple vendors.

You can register for the event here.

On September 22nd, I will give two presentations at the Oracle Security Solutions Forum held at the W Hotel in Scottsdale, Arizona:

• Identity Management 11g: A Giant Leap in Identity Management
• Addressing Access Governance with Oracle Identity Analytics 11g

If you plan to be in Arizona on the 22nd, please drop by and join us!

Commenting on the lifestyle of the traditional Mongolian herdsman, Mongolian President Elbegdorj stated,

Many people call this primitive, but this is not primitive, it is close to nature, it is a good life.

While my son Eric served a church mission to Mongolia, we grew to love the Mongolian people and their way of life.  In this brief CNN video about the boy herdsman turned President of Mongolia, we find a great leadership lesson about humility, vision and remaining close to our roots. This is a powerful lesson we in the more industrialized world should take to heart.

It’s almost 3:00 AM. In a moment of insomniac epiphany, I found the meaning of life …

… in a Non Sequitur sort of way!