Good afternoon, Security readers. I hope you’re getting ready for an amazing weekend!

Without further ado, here’s your weekly wrap-up of Security’s most popular articles this week, plus our top news:

Security 500: Profiles of Top Security Leaders – Who was at the top of the security industry last year? Find out in our Security 500 profiles from 2011, and then go fill out the Security 500 survey here to qualify for your free benchmarking report and invitation to the Security 500 Conference in New York City on November 1.

Mass Shooting in Colorado Leaves 12 Dead, More than 50 Injured – A 24-year-old man opened fire inside a crowded movie theater at an early-morning screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” Friday, killing 12 in the most deadly shooting Colorado has seen since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.

Three Common Misconceptions About Travel Security in Mexico – While drug wars and abductions may be some of the most often reported incidents in Mexico, they aren’t as frequent as you might think, columnist Pablo Weisz says. There are a few more common, but less dramatic, criminal trends that your Mexico-based affiliates should look out for.

Using Education to Prevent Parking Lot Crime – Surveillance cameras are only part of the solution in deterring parking lot crime. A simple PR-style campaign and few flyers can go a long way in keeping crime out of your organization’s parking lots and garages.

453,000 Yahoo Voice Passwords Leaked – An unknown hacker or hacking group has released plain text files of hundreds of thousands of Yahoo users’ passwords, along with a note that the breach shouldn’t be regarded as a threat, but a wake-up call.

Online Identity Theft Is Up 300 Percent – Twelve-million pieces of online personal information were in the hands of fraudsters in the first quarter of 2012 alone.

GAO: Security Clearance Confusion for Civilian Federal Workers Too Costly – Due to a lack of agreed-upon standards for security clearance requirements for federal civilian employees, there has been significant expansion in the number of government jobs requiring security clearances, and, as such, a significant hike in background check costs.

Using Video Management Systems for Effective Investigations – Whether your organization is after flexibility, integration, scalability or a wide spectrum of customizable features, video management systems can be a helpful tool to verify alarms and solve investigations.

How to Physically Secure Data Centers – Your data isn’t only vulnerable to hackers, worms and viruses – physical attacks are just as viable, but also easier to predict and defend.

The Senate and Cybersecurity: Finding a Path Forward – Read our latest guest blog from Nilmini Rubin, director of government relations for the Information Technology Industry Council, on the future of cyber security and the necessary actions that must be taken to protect U.S. critical infrastructure.

 

As always, feel free to leave us a comment below with your favorite news or feature this week, or any questions you might have. You can also email me directly with your comments at meyerc@bnpmedia.com