IT security

Photos: What went on at Infosec 2009

If you missed Infosec 2009, have a look at our photo story and it will feel like you were there! Continue Reading

By

• Faisal Alani, UK at eBay

Get cracking crushing Conficker

Conficker will activate its botnet on April 1st. Sophos, Symantec, Webroot, BitDefender and other vendors say you should remove it ASAP before the real trouble starts. Continue Reading

By

• Ron Condon

Photos: Top ten cybersquatter cases

Here's our top ten cybersquatting cases. Continue Reading

By

• Faisal Alani, UK at eBay

How to plant a listening device

Part two of our Les Goldsmith interview reveals how to plant a listening device if you feel like conducting a little industrial espionage. Continue Reading

By

• Patrick Gray, Contributor

Exclusive: Computer Weekly publishes 'secret' gateway review

This is the first publication of an entire gateway review by an online news service. Continue Reading

By

• Tony Collins

Ian Yates' quite literal year in review

Ian Yates product reviews are unique and make ideal holiday reading. Continue Reading

By

• Ian Yates

MoD was warned not to fly Chinook on day of crash

A senior defence official warned the Ministry of Defence to suspend flights of a Chinook helicopter because of safety concerns on the day the aircraft crashed... Continue Reading

By

• Bill Goodwin, Computer Weekly

Chronology: The Chinook

1985 : Almost at the start of development of the Chinook's Full Authority Digital Engine Control ( Fadec ) computer system there... Continue Reading

By

• Tony Collins

Chinook ZD576: How the Fadec engine control software worked and what could have gone wrong

What follows is some of the evidence ... Continue Reading

By

• Tony Collins

Victory over Chinook crash after 14 years

A brave, independent stand by the Defence Secretary John Hutton and his predecessor Des Browne, against 14 years of obfuscation and immovable arrogance by the Ministry of Defence, has led finally to justice over the notorious crash of a Chinook helicopter in June 1994. Continue Reading

By

• Tony Collins

Tens of thousands of IT jobs at risk in global finance sector

The investment banking industry will see thousands of job cuts as mergers are completed and companies prepare for a slowdown in business. Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

How the Mytob virus caused havoc in the NHS

The Mytob virus has been removed from 5,000 PCs at Continue Reading

By

• Tony Collins

Using Wireshark to monitor and secure your network

Learn how to use packet analyser, Wireshark, in this illustrated tutorial. Continue Reading

By

• Mike Chapple, University of Notre Dame

How to manage Hyper-V's security permissions

Learn how to operate Hyper-V's Authorization Manager (Azman) in this How-To guide. Continue Reading

By

• Anil Desai

Minister hails Fujitsu’s leaving NPfIT as sign of strength

The termination of Fujitsu's... Continue Reading

By

• Tony Collins

Facing up to security perils of outbound traffic

What about the threat from within and, more specifically, the security issues that arise from outbound traffic risks? Continue Reading

By

• Steve Gold

Gary McKinnon broke into 73,000 US government computers, Lords told

Self confessed British hacker Gary McKinnon, who is fighting extradition to the US, broke into more than 73,000 US government computers, including those of the US Army, Navy and Nasa, and deleted critical data, the House of Lords heard today. Continue Reading

By

• Ian Grant

Windows registry forensics guide: Investigating hacker activities

Ed Skoudis explains how investigators and administrators can interact with the Windows registry to analyse a compromised system. Continue Reading

By

• Ed Skoudis, SANS Technology Institute

Chinook helicopter disaster - computer software failure or pilot error?

Chinook helicopter crash: was it computer software failure or a cause we'll never know? This article gives the background to the Chinook helicopter disaster with links to all the relevant articles published by ComputerWeekly and other useful web links. Continue Reading

By

• Tony Collins

New doubts raised on Chinook crash ruling

A former senior officer who helped write rules for RAF accident inquiries has spoken publicly for the first time about his concerns over the cause of a controversial Chinook helicopter crash 14 years ago. Continue Reading

By

• Tony Collins

What are the dangers of using Facebook, other social networking sites?

Ken Munro discusses the dangers associated with allowing employees to access social networking sites such as Facebook, and explains how corporations can avoid these risks by monitoring the information placed in employee profiles and using email filters. Continue Reading

By

• Ken Munro

How to scope the liability clause in your software license agreement

Standard limit of liability clauses favour the vendor. Here's how to modify them to protect your firm from IT risk. Continue Reading

By

• Matt Karlyn, Cooley LLP

Getting the best bargain on network vulnerability scanning

When it comes to enterprise network analysis, is it best to use a commercial vulnerability scanner or an open source product? Mike Chapple explains. Continue Reading

By

• Mike Chapple, University of Notre Dame

Web 2.0 presents no new security challenges, is just marketing hype: Secure Computing

Secure Computing's Scott Montgomery says Web 2.0 security is marketing hype, application flaws come from overworked programmers and Australia is doing better at cyber-security than the USA and Europe. Continue Reading

By

• Simon Sharwood

Five command line tools to detect Windows hacks

Learn about five of the most useful Windows command-line tools for machine analysis and how they can tell if a machine has been hacked in this tip. Continue Reading

By

• Ed Skoudis, SANS Technology Institute

Losing the war to lock down networks might help enterprises innovate

While security concerns cannot be set aside, users unwilling to leave their own applications at home might bring some innovation to the office. Continue Reading

By

• Michael Morisy, TechTarget

penetration testing tutorial day one the basics

TechTarget ANZ expert Ed Eliff explains botnets and offers advice on how to make sure your machines do not get get caught up in one. Continue Reading

By

• Ed Eliff, Contributor

Network managers: master project management to get better salaries

Network technicians will need to learn project manager skills if corporate rollouts of wider and more advanced networks are to be successful, according to attendees at the Cisco Networkers 2008 this week. Continue Reading

By

• John-Paul Kamath

Fujitsu may quit NHS National Programme for IT

The board of an NHS trust has learned of a "significant" risk of ­Fujitsu ending its £900m contract to supply and implement hospital systems across southern England as part of the National Programme for IT. Continue Reading

By

• Tony Collins

Wireless network security made easy - from "The Book of PF"

How to get wireless networks running and some options for making your wireless network more secure, including encryption for IEEE 802.11 wireless networks. Continue Reading

By

• No Starch Press

Wireless networks as secure as wired, study says

Wireless security may not be as dire as previously thought, according to a new 3Com study. Continue Reading

By

• Voice & Data Staff

Holidays are over; now beware the gadgets

The post-holiday influx of consumer devices poses increased risk of data leakage and other threats to network security. Continue Reading

By

• Michael Morisy, TechTarget

Virtualisation provides utilisation and IT efficiency boost

Yorkshire-based Raleys Solicitors has solved a space problem in its computer room by using virtualisation technology. Continue Reading

By

• Joe O’Halloran, Computer Weekly

Cisco Trusted Security to boost network security, management

Cisco's Trusted Security (TrustSec) hardens network security while easing some management. Continue Reading

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• Michael Morisy, TechTarget

San adoption cuts costs and power

Advanced storage driving datacentre area and energy consumption reduction Continue Reading

By

• Joe O’Halloran, Computer Weekly

Ofcom fines broadband provider

Ofcom has fined broadband provider Prodigy £30,000 for failing to comply with requirements to provide information on how it allows customers to switch broadband provider. Continue Reading

By

• John-Paul Kamath

Security's dirty little secret

When Simon Sharwood met AVG's Larry Bridwell, he learned the security industry's dirty little secret. Continue Reading

By

• Simon Sharwood

Experts: Privacy and security officers living in silos

To better deal with the data breach threat, industry experts say security and privacy officers must break out of their silos and work as a team. Continue Reading

By

• Bill Brenner

Unified communications considerations for 2008

Unified communications (UC) created awareness and confusion in 2007. Next year, UC will reach the masses and be used to its full potential. Continue Reading

By

• Andrew R. Hickey

Home Office awards £650m e-Borders contract

The Home Office has awarded its £650m eBorders contract to a consortium led by Raytheon Systems. Continue Reading

By

• John-Paul Kamath

Adaptec reports losses

Adaptec's revenue was down year over year, as well as sequentially; DataDirect says the InfiniBand business is booming. Continue Reading

By

• SearchStorage.com Staff

CommVault revenues spike after update of Simpana backup app

CommVault attributes a spike in sales to the integration of features such as archiving, replication and search into its backup products. Continue Reading

By

• Dave Raffo

Cisco upgrades Catalyst 4500 and 6500 switches

Cisco today released updates to its modular Catalyst 4500 and 6500 switch series to add more capacity, scalability and redundancy. Continue Reading

By

• Andrew R. Hickey

ISCSI storage gets performance makeover

Suppliers, including Ibrix, Mellanox, Alacritech and EqualLogic, are offering juiced-up new iSCSI configurations, while 3PAR, CipherMax and NeoScale boost data security products. Continue Reading

By

• SearchStorage.com Staff

Riverbed adds disaster recovery features to WAFS

A new version of Riverbed's software will sense when users are doing massive restores over the Wan and optimise traffic accordingly, the company says. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Vanderbilt hospital fights archive growth with grid

Vanderbilt University Medical Centre simplifies document management using Bycast's archiving grid system. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

NetApp releases $3K iSCSI SAN

NetApp pushes further down-market with the release of the S300, the latest SMB iSCSI SAN in its StoreVault line. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Tackling the backup and recovery challenges of tomorrow

Your data backup and data recovery challenges never stop changing. In this videocast, an EMC executive and a storage analyst discuss the new approaches you'll need to solve tomorrow's backup and recovery challenges. Continue Reading

Intellectual property lawsuits dog storage industry

The proliferation of patent litigation among data storage companies could stifle technological innovation and drive up costs to the user. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

USB storage devices: Two ways to stop the threat to network security

USB storage devices pose a significant threat to network security. This tip discusses some basic strategies for blocking unauthorized USB device use. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

SNW Preview: Data protection makes a stand

Led by EMC's integration of data deduplication and CDP into its backup software, data protection products are prominent at Storage Networking World. Continue Reading

By

• Dave Raffo, News Director; Beth Pariseau, News Writer

Juniper updates network access control

Juniper has updated its Unified Access Control NAC products to include better pre- and post-admission, identity and role awareness and other new features. Continue Reading

By

• Andrew R. Hickey

Checklist for purchasing hardware-based encryption

Encryption appliances sit inline on a network and use specially designed electronics to encrypt data at line speeds, essentially eliminating the performance penalty imposed by encryption software running on a general server. While software-based encryption is typically handled as a specific event or process (e.g., encrypting data during a backup process), appliance-based encryption normally can handle any quantity of data in flight. Continue Reading

Researchers warn of new attack methods against Cisco IOS

Several new attack methods against Cisco IOS were uncovered during an analysis conducted by researchers at Information Risk Management. Continue Reading

By

• Bill Brenner

Podcast: the true cost of IT security

In this interview, Cliff Saran speaks to Martin Sadler, director of HP's Trusted Systems Lab, about how much should we be expected to spend and how much security is enough. Hackers are getting smarter and Martin believes newly trained IT professionals are ill-equipped to deal with the sophisticated nature of modern attacks due to limitations in the current way IT security is taught. Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

Pillar announces support for 1 TB SATA drives

Pillar is one of the earliest to announce 1 TB SATA drives in an enterprise array. IBM's SVC becomes the first storage virtualization product certified with VMware. Continue Reading

By

• SearchStorage.com Staff

How to select the right IP PBX

Selecting the right IP PBX system for your company can be complicated. Here are some important things to consider when purchasing an IP PBX. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

UK will lead £13m study on electronic ID

The UK is to spearhead a £13m pilot project covering 13 European countries to test the interoperability of several electronic identity verification systems. This may eventually give citizens and businesses access to e-government services across the EU, if governments can agree to accept one another's vetting processes. Continue Reading

By

• Ian Grant

Pacific Hydro finds UTM improves its environment

Renewable energy company Pacific Hydro has found Watchguard's unified threat management devices make a valuable contribution to its defence in depth strategy. Continue Reading

By

• Simon Sharwood

Microsoft releases Windows Server 2008 RC0

Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate 0 (RC0) is now available for customer review. Continue Reading

By

• Antony Savvas

How to purchase a data encryption product

Data security is now a critical problem for every company, regardless of size. This buying guide explores the factors involved in purchasing data encryption hardware and software products. Continue Reading

ITIL v3 Service Operation: FAQs on Book 4

ITIL expert David Pultorak answers common questions about the new ITIL Service Strategy Core Practice Book 1. Continue Reading

By

• David Pultorak

PCI council adds Pin security to remit

The PCI Security Standards Council has added Pin Entry Device (PED) security technology to its payments industry testing portfolio to streamline standardisation. Continue Reading

By

• Computer Weekly Staff

Storage session downloads: infrastructure track

This track looks at San and Nas issues, virtualization, distance demands, remote offices and how to build out systems. Continue Reading

Bringing the network perimeter back from the 'dead'

Many have expressed the importance of endpoint security, going so far as to say the perimeter is dead. Not so fast, says network security expert Mike Chapple. Continue Reading

By

• Mike Chapple, University of Notre Dame

Communications-as-a-service taking hold

Communications-as-a-service is taking hold worldwide as a viable hosted IP telephony system. Continue Reading

By

• Andrew R. Hickey, News Editor

NAC switches, appliances help track users, malware

Some vendors are offering switches and appliances to monitor traffic for malware and unauthorized access, as the NAC market sorts itself out. Continue Reading

By

• Neil Roiter, TechTarget

Virtual appliance lets users convert DAS to iSCSI San

LeftHand Networks has released an edition of its SaniQ iSCSI San software that will convert locally attached disc to networked storage. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Microsoft update to patch critical Windows flaw

Microsoft plans to patch a critical flaw in Windows and plug holes in MSN Messenger, Visual Studio, and Windows services for Unix. Continue Reading

By

• SearchSecurity.com Staff

Government warns of dangerous QuickBooks Online flaw

Attackers could exploit two flaws in the popular Intuit QuickBooks Online Edition to cause buffer overflows and download or upload files in arbitrary locations, US-CERT warned. Continue Reading

By

• Bill Brenner

Cybercriminals employ toolkits in rising numbers to steal data

The market is increasing for crimeware toolkits that help cybercriminals avoid detection and exploit flaws, according to new research from security vendor, Finjan. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Westervelt, TechTarget

Understanding VoWLAN

Like VoIP, VoWLAN contributes to cost efficiency. Because calls can be routed over the data network internally or over the Internet externally, mobile telephony costs can be eliminated or decreased significantly. In the long term, VoWLAN deployment is a significant step toward interoperability and seamless mobile connectivity between private WLANs and public wireless and cellular networks. Continue Reading

Data security breach at Pfizer affects thousands

A Pfizer employee removed files exposing 34,000 people to potential identity fraud, according to the company. It was the third data breach at the company in three months. Continue Reading

By

• SearchSecurity.com Staff

NAC switches, appliances help track users, malware

Some vendors are offering switches and appliances to monitor traffic for malware and unauthorized access, as the NAC market including Cisco NAC and Microsoft NAP sorts itself out. Continue Reading

By

• Neil Roiter, TechTarget

Firefox security issues persist despite update

Despite Mozilla's recent Firefox security update, researchers say there's another way attackers could exploit the browser for malicious purposes. Continue Reading

By

• Bill Brenner

Now the dust has settled on pornography filtering...

Andrew Collins looks at the controversial topic of Internet porn filtering in Australia, now that the federal government has enacted its hotly debated plans. Continue Reading

By

• Andrew Collins

User performs data storage U-turn

U-Store-It, a national self-storage company, decentralized its data centers, migrated data from SAN to DAS and de-clustered Exchange to simplify storage management. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Network access control vendors: Attraction vs. retention

Network access control (NAC) vendors were evaluated based on attractiveness and customer retention in a recent survey by Current Analysis. Continue Reading

By

• Andrew R. Hickey

Rootkit found in older Sony USB device

F-Secure says it discovered rootkit technology in Sony's Micro Vault USM-F fingerprint reader software. The find comes two years after controversy over Sony's DRM technology. Continue Reading

By

• Bill Brenner

SaaS apps being deployed by business units, not IT

When it comes to deploying applications via SaaS, IT is still behind the curve. What's preventing IT from getting control over the programs business units want? Continue Reading

By

• Shamus McGillicuddy, Enterprise Management Associates

Unified communications slow to change U.S. work culture

Unified communications implementation is still high, but many enterprises have yet to allow users all its advantages. Continue Reading

By

• Kate Dostart, Associate Editor

Data archives overview

When a file is lost due to user error, or data is corrupted because of system problems, the affected data can be restored from a backup. An archive is different from a backup because the data may not be used for months, even years, but must be accessed quickly when needed. There is simply no time to search through burgeoning volumes of tape or optical media to locate important files. Traditional backup platforms are poorly suited for archival data storage, and users are relying on disk storage systems for a mix of performance and reliability. Files can be archived to any disk storage system, but content-addressed storage (CAS) technology has appeared to support archiving efforts. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

SANS: Attackers may be attempting Trend Micro exploits

The SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC) warns that attackers may be attempting to exploit flaws in Trend Micro products to hijack computer systems. Continue Reading

By

• Bill Brenner

Nokia Intellisync boosts device management

Nokia Intellisync has released updates to its Mobile Suite to enhance remote device support, loss and theft protection, and management capabilities. Continue Reading

By

• Andrew R. Hickey, News Editor

Experts: IDS is here to stay

IDS technology has survived predictions that it would be replaced by IPS. One expert says it will remain a separate product while IPS is folded into firewalls. Continue Reading

By

• Bill Brenner

Trend Micro fixes flaws in ServerProtect, PC-cillin

Attackers could tamper with servers and run malicious code by exploiting flaws in Trend Micro's ServerProtect, Anti-Spyware and PC-cillin products. But fixes are available. Continue Reading

By

• Bill Brenner

Microsoft adds CA vets to anti-malware team

Microsoft has hired Jakub Kaminski, one of CA's more talented and well-regarded antivirus researchers, and three of his colleagues from CA's Australian lab. Continue Reading

By

• Dennis Fisher

Attackers target two Microsoft security flaws

Symantec warned customers about attacks targeting two Microsoft security flaws -- an unpatched DirectX Media vulnerability and the XML Core Services flaw patched in MS07-042. Continue Reading

By

• Bill Brenner

Backup reporting expands to add capacity planning

Aptare adds capacity planning for primary data storage to its product line, joining Symantec in recent attempts to broaden the appeal of reporting software. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Nigel Phair, author of 'Cybercrime: The Reality of the Threat', on Australia's response

In the first instalment of a three part interview, TechTarget Australia's Patrick Gray interviews Australian Federal Police Agent Nigel Phair about his new book: Cybercrime: The Reality of the Threat. Until recently, Phair was the Team Leader of Investigations at the Australian High Tech Crime Centre (AHTCC) in Canberra. Continue Reading

By

• Patrick Gray

Sourcefire acquires open source ClamAV

Sourcefire, maker of the popular Snort open source IDS tool, has acquired ClamAV, an open source email gateway scanning tool. Continue Reading

By

• Bill Brenner

VMware acquires HIPS provider Determina

VMware, the leader in virtualization software, has acquired Determina, a provider of host IPS technology. Continue Reading

By

• Dennis Fisher

College campuses prepare for Microsoft Vista challenges

With new Vista machines coming to campus, the IT shops of academia have no choice but to embrace the latest Windows OS and its security implications. Continue Reading

By

• Bill Brenner

Wal-Mart deploys new data security system

Wal-Mart Stores has deployed a data security and encryption system to secure data going over its global network. Continue Reading

By

• Antony Savvas

Network analysis -- Enhancing security assessments

Network security assessment doesn't have to rely on expensive automated tools. In this tip, learn how to use data from freely available tools to produce a comprehensive view of network security. Continue Reading

By

• Dave Piscitello

TJX profit takes hit over data breach

TJX says it has spent $256 million responding to the massive data breach that exposed 45 million customers to identity fraud, and the bottom line has suffered as a result. Continue Reading

By

• SearchSecurity.com Staff

Firewall deployment options increase for enterprises

With a growing number firewall configuration options, companies need to spend more time and put more effort into determining how to design and deploy firewalls. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Korzeniowski

Latest Microsoft flaws affect Windows, IE, Excel

Microsoft released nine security updates Tuesday -- six of them critical -- for flaws in Internet Explorer, Excel and other programs within the Windows OS. Continue Reading

By

• Bill Brenner

How to test Snort

VARs should test Snort to ensure the open source IDS is detecting malicious activity. Continue Reading

By

• Richard Bejtlich

Novell to acquire Senforce for endpoint security

Novell is acquiring Senforce, an early network access control supplier, to integrate its endpoint security features and develop an endpoint management suite. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Westervelt, TechTarget