The notorious Conficker worm struck some 700 campus computers at the University of Utah, including those at the school’s three hospitals last week. The outbreak was first detected Thursday and by Friday had spread throughout the Salt Lake City school. While no patient data was affected, a university spokesperson said that log-in and password data, credit card numbers and banking information may have been at risk among the affected personal computers.

Internet access at some campus locations was shut down Friday for up to six hours so the virus could be isolated. University officials were expected to work through the weekend to eradicate it from the system. Directions for purging the virus from personal computers and equipment like thumb drives, digital cameras and smart phones has been distributed to staff and students.

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ActivIdentity Corp., a provider of strong authentication and credential management, announced that it has signed a contract with The Co-operative Financial Services, part of a consumer financial services provider in the United Kingdom. 

Launched in mid-January, JustAskGemalto.com has registered more than 800,000 hits. The site aims to answer consumer questions on how consumers can keep personal information safe and has also had 500 questions asked on various security topics.


The site features questions and answers by category - traveling, communicating, surfing, personal data, buying and working. 

Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) has unveiled a health ID card through partnerships with EXTENSION Inc. and TrustBearer Labs. This system has been deployed at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City with the issuance of the first G&D patient health cards on April 1.

EXTENSION Health Connect provides patient identification and information exchange. It links data, patients, and health care providers together to reduce administrative costs and improve the patient experience. EXTENSION Health Connect uses G&D patient health cards to securely identify patients to hospital information systems. The card also holds a personal health record for each patient that can be securely accessed. 

Digital security provider Gemalto is providing Vietnam’s largest bank with a two-factor authentication solution that utilizes MasterCard’s Chip Authentication Program and Visa’s Dynamic Passcode Authentication (DPA), both which are part of the EMV standard. 

CSC announced that the UK Identity and Passport Service (IPS), an agency of the Home Office responsible for issuing UK passports and ID cards, has awarded the company a 10-year managed IT services contract to upgrade the IPS application and enrollment system. The agreement has an estimated value of $570 million.

IBM was awarded $390 million contract to run the UK’s National Biometric Identity Service, which will deliver a database for storing facial and fingerprint biometrics for the U.K. passport and ID card, according to a Bloomberg News report. The company will replace the Border Agency’s existing biometric database.