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A Breach a Day…Or More

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More and more we are hearing of the increased frequency with which data breaches are occurring. You read about it the newspaper, see it on the news and sometimes you get notices in your inbox in real-time, like I do. What used to be a once-a-week data breach email alert from DataLossDB.org, an open security foundation, now comes as multiple emails, several times a day.

Quite frightening.

Here are some of the most recent data breach events:

February 27, 2013: TEKsystems, a company affiliated with Bank of America, was charged with monitoring hacker activity from groups targeting the bank — most likely, the collective hacking group known as Anonymous. Not liking the sound of that, a group affiliated with Anonymous released what it claims is “14GB of data belonging to the bank and other organizations, including Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg and TEKsystems.”

February 27, 2013: I thought the first email I received with the title “Laptop of Head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission Stolen” was bad, but then I received one the very next day that was even worse. According to various news reports, a second laptop belonging to Shaul Horev was stolen from his home in just one week. It might be time for tighter security.

February 26, 2013: Though this only counts as a potential data breach, it’s still quite alarming. According to the same open security foundation (OSF) from which I receive data breach email alerts, a hospital has left sensitive data belonging to patients and staff exposed on the internet. The worst part is, OSF has made “multiple phone calls, filled out a formal (outsourced) service desk ticket addressed to the hospital’s sysadmin and technical analyst, and sent a direct email to the hospital’s CEO.” Still, they’ve received no response.

February 25, 2013: We’ll head to Canada for this one. According to news reports from the great white north, the loss of a thumb drive has prompted an investigation that has widened to include the Justice Department. The drive contained information regarding Canada Pension Plan disability benefits related to more than 5,000 individuals.

February 21, 2013: Even peacocks are not immune. Last week, NBC announced it was the victim of an attack. Hackers added links to malware on the site, using the Citadel Trojan worm, the same one that plagued the websites of U.S. banks recently.

February 21, 2013: Zendesk, a customer service software provider, announced a security breach that allowed hackers into its system, where they had access to information from three customers — Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr.

February 5, 2013: The U.S. government seems to be no match for sophisticated system spies. Earlier this month, The U.S. Department of Energy revealed that hackers breached 14 of its servers and 20 of its workstations, making off with personal information belonging to several hundred employees. “It’s a continuing story of negligence,” Ed McCallum, former director of the department’s office of safeguards and security, told the Free Beacon. “[The department] is on the cutting edge of some of the most sophisticated military and intelligence technology the country owns and it is being treated frivolously by the Department of Energy and its political masters.”

These are just a few of the many, many data breach alerts I’ve received in the month of February alone. It leaves one questioning whether we will ever win the war against hackers.

Jeff Zucker Leaving NBC Post-Comcast Merger

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NBC chief exec Jeff Zucker today told his employees that he will be leaving the network — not of his own volition — as soon as the company’s pending merger with Comcast is complete, something that is expected to occur right around the end of the year.

Even as he said he accepted the logic of a new owner seeking to install its own chief executive, Mr. Zucker also described his departure as both “incredibly emotional” and “gut-wrenching in the sense that you have spent your whole life here at NBC.”

In the face of persistent rumors that Comcast would seek to remove Mr. Zucker the first chance it got, Mr. Zucker had said in previous interviews that he had in no way foreclosed the possibility of staying on. G.E., which retained 49 percent of the company, had done its part by locking Mr. Zucker into the position, awarding him a new three-year contract seven months ago that was designed to take him into and past the takeover by Comcast.

Aaahhh … Mergers: Always messy, always difficult, always tumultuous.

Especially during the transition period, the uncertainty among employees can have a significant effect of morale, stress and, ultimately, productivity. Even Zucker himself has been unsure of the company’s direction for some time.

“Look, I knew from the day this was announced that this was a possibility,” Mr. Zucker said. “I wasn’t going to shut the door on anything. But in the last nine months it became increasingly clear that they did want to put their own team in place — and I didn’t want to end up being a guest in my own house.”

While he often faced withering criticism in Hollywood circles for his leadership of the entertainment division of the NBC network — in his note to the staff he mentioned the “ups and downs” the company had experienced — Mr. Zucker said he did not detect “any particular reason” beyond the broad desire for new leadership for Comcast’s inclination to make a change.

Change inevitably happens.

And obviously when two companies come together, there is going to be a lot of deliberation and lag time in major announcements. The process of merging is just that — a process. But companies need to know that this uncertainty can lead to a working environment that is less than optimal.

That effects all mergers. But specifically when it comes to media companies, there are a bevy of other risks involved.

In fact, we broke down the NBC/Comcast merger in our May cover story, detailing the liability, intellectual property, data security, privacy and insurance integration issues associated with a media merger.

We also took a look at the epic failure of the AOL/Time Warner merger and Google’s acquisition of YouTube.

conan obrien

Jeff Zucker’s decision to reinstall Jay Leno into The Tonight Show over Conan O’Brien will go down as one of the last stamps he put on the only company he has ever worked for.

The Comcast/NBC Merger Faces a Diversity Hurdle

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In May, we covered the the risk management complications of the proposed merger between NBC and Comcast. The crux of the piece was to look at the unique difficulties of any media sector merger and we also looked back at the failed AOL/Time Warner marriage as well as the legal liabilities that Google inherited when it bought YouTube for $1.6 billion in 2007.

Now, however, the future of a combined Comcast/NBC look murkier than expected.

On Monday, a House Judiciary Committee hearing into whether or not the deal would be approved took an abrupt turn. The Los Angeles Times show business blog Company Town explains:

C-SPAN didn’t cover Monday’s nearly four-hour House Judiciary Committee “field hearing” on Comcast’s proposed deal to take control of NBC Universal. But if it had, viewers accustomed to the network’s trademark colorless coverage would have been treated to a Hollywood-worthy drama.
After all, who would expect a gathering of staid Washington lawmakers to feature a congresswoman implying that she had been offered a bribe, another member oblivious to media consolidation, one witness likening a corporate giant to a “plantation,” and three attendees arguing about race?
But this hearing had all that, plus plenty of grandstanding from lawmakers and the witnesses, who both faced cheers and groans from the audience.

C-SPAN didn’t cover Monday’s nearly four-hour House Judiciary Committee “field hearing” on Comcast’s proposed deal to take control of NBC Universal. But if it had, viewers accustomed to the network’s trademark colorless coverage would have been treated to a Hollywood-worthy drama.

After all, who would expect a gathering of staid Washington lawmakers to feature a congresswoman implying that she had been offered a bribe, another member oblivious to media consolidation, one witness likening a corporate giant to a “plantation,” and three attendees arguing about race?

But this hearing had all that, plus plenty of grandstanding from lawmakers and the witnesses, who both faced cheers and groans from the audience.

Reps. Maxine Waters (D-CA), John Conyers (D-MI) and Louie Grohmert (R-TX) all questioned company executives on the diversity — or lack thereof — of their staff and airwaves. None of Comcast’s stations are wholly owned by African Americans and, given the increasing consolidation of media in today’s world, this was viewed by some lawmakers as not just less than adequate in 2010.

The New York Times‘ Media Decoder blog highlighted the issue by quoting one of the hearings witnesses.

“Black executives have never had greenlight power at a major studio or network,” said Suzanne DePasse, the chief executive of DePasse-Jones entertainment, and an established film and television producer who broke into the business with Motown.

“We need greenlight power,” she said.

Those from the corporate side of things disagreed. Comcast carries TV One, for instance, they claim, which while not 100% owned by African Americans is a network aimed at black families. Hip Hop on Demand is another black-targeted channel on the Comcast roster, noted Company Town.

Such analysis provoked a rebuke by TV One Chairman Alfred Liggins, who said the relevant factor is that his network is managed by, and programmed for, African Americans.

Will Griffin, head of Hip Hop on Demand, a video channel, found Washington’s logic even more perplexing. In testimony, he said Washington’s view of “racial purity in public policy almost cost us a chance at American history. Our president is black enough … and so is TV One, and so is Hip Hop on Demand.”

Furthermore, Griffin added that Comcast is “blacker” than much of the other media companies out there.

Will Griffin, the chief executive of the Hip Hop OnDemand, a service that has been closely associated with Comcast, described that large minority base as reason to approve the merger, rather than oppose it. “This is far more direct and immediate market leverage than minorities have over other media companies,” Mr. Griffin said in prepared remarks that were distributed before the session began. During the hearing, Mr. Griffin spoke forcefully in favor of Comcast, as did a handful of others.

In her testimony, NBC’s VP of diversity Paula Madison outlined a post-merger plan to add “two new independent cable two new independent cable services annually for the first next three years, with substantial minority ownership in at least half of them.”

That’s a good start, say some. But it’s now beginning to look like this issue, which has led some minority advocates to call for a boycott against the companies, will present a much larger hurdle to the media marriage than most expected.

“It’s not going to happen without conditions,” said Alex Nogales, the president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition

Stay tuned — quite literally.