LinkedIN With 'Bill Gates'
Commentary | 10/30/2009 | Bill Gates invited me to join his LinkedIN network. OK, so it wasn't really Bill Gates, but as far as my email system, spam filter, and email client were concerned, it's perfectly normal for Gates to send me a LinkedIn invitation.
Know Your Tools
Commentary | 10/28/2009 | Ever have one of those days where nothing really seems to go right? You're working on something that should be simple and it ends up throwing seemingly unexplainable errors back at you no matter what you try? Then when it does work, you're not sure what you changed that fixed it. Yeah -- me, too.
File Virtualization, The Ultimate Cloud Gateway?
Commentary | 10/28/2009 | In our last entry we talked about the use of cloud storage as a backup target, but another ideal use case for cloud storage is to use it as an archive area. Almost every IT organization has old data that they want or must keep, but are struggling with where to keep it. Its ability to identify, automatically move and transparently recall data could make file virtualization the ultimate cloud gateway.
Patch Your Firefox
Commentary | 10/27/2009 | Mozilla just released 16 patches for vulnerabilities in Firefox. Eleven of the flaws are critical, and affect a number of components in the browser.
SAP, Nokia Partner On Mobile Security
With the joint venture's technology, prescription drugs, software, and other goods could be tagged with smart barcodes to protect them from counterfeiting.
AVG Sends Speedy Small Business Security Signal
Commentary | 10/27/2009 | New Internet security and anti-virus products for small businesses from AVG are being touted by the company as both secure and speedy, with an array of promised features and administrative tools that address some of the tech-challenges smaller firms face.
UK Jobs Website Hacked
Commentary | 10/26/2009 | The news site Guardian is warning members of its UK jobs site that the site has been breached, and that personal data may been snagged.
Christian Site's Poll Backfires
Commentary | 10/26/2009 | The Alpha Course, a Christian Website, has created an instant Internet poll asking if God exists. So far, 96 percent of respondents clicked on "NO."
Cloud Based Backup, Ready For Business?
Commentary | 10/26/2009 | Cloud based backup services have been successful in the consumer space. Companies like Mozy, Carbonite and others are protecting thousands of laptops and home desktops, but can cloud based backups services move beyond protecting consumer or prosumer data and into the data center? Are cloud based backups ready for business?
Using Evil WiFi To Educate Users, IT Admins
Commentary | 10/26/2009 | For my keynote at Operation WebLock, I was asked to include a demo or two that would leave attendees rethinking some of their current practices. It didn't take a long to come up with a few different possibilities, but I settled on one of my favorite attacks: wireless network- impersonation and connection hijacking.
Smartphones Call For Security-Smarter Users
Commentary | 10/26/2009 | Smartphones, and all the other smartstuff filling our pockets, bags, lives, make for mobile convenience and access -- including access by crooks. Time to get your smartphone-using staff to dial up their security practices.
The ABCs Of DAM
Commentary | 10/26/2009 | Database activity monitoring (DAM) has been the biggest advancement in database security in the past decade. Identity management controls access, and encryption protects data on media, but monitoring verifies usage.
Application Security Is National Security
Commentary | 10/23/2009 | Hacks targeting U.S. government computers are coming from China. We knew that. The Chinese hackers are relying on zero-day software vulnerabilities to exploit critical systems. So, tell me again: why aren't we doing more to require applications be built secure from the start?
Trusting Trust
Commentary | 10/23/2009 | An old and respected paper about compilers teaches us a lot about network security architecture.
Reducing Storage Complexity In Server Virtualization
Commentary | 10/23/2009 | The storage component of a virtualized server infrastructure has been labeled as complex and expensive. In our prior entries about selecting a storage foundation we discussed what systems and protocols are available that might help simplify and reduce costs for storage in a virtualized environment. Beyond physi
My Hat Is Blue
Commentary | 10/22/2009 | For the past two days I have been back in Seattle. It was almost two years ago I left the city, and was not sure when I'd get a chance to return. Microsoft's BlueHat security conference was a great reason to come back to my favorite rainy city.
What is BlueHat?
Understanding Hard Drive Performance
Commentary | 10/21/2009 | In the last performance entries we discussed understanding storage bandwidth and understanding storage controllers. Next up is to understand the performance characteristics of the hard drive itself and how the mechanical hard drive can be the performance bottleneck.
Firefox Web Browser Weaponization Redux
Commentary | 10/21/2009 | I've written about the Samurai Web Testing Framework (WTF) LiveCD project and some of the Firefox Add-Ons that can be used to transform Firefox into a highly capable Web application penetration testing tool. Now the Add-Ons included in Samurai and a few others have been bundled together into the Samurai WTF Firefox Collection--essentially, a one-stop shop for Web browser weaponization.
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