Today, I read a press release from Sourcefire touting its “big data” approach to security and the fact that its Immunet anti-malware-for-PCs product is now monitoring 2 million endpoints. I reached out to find out what’s under Immunet’s covers and, no surprise, found Hadoop. Read more »
With 550,000 activations per day, and 200 million activations to-date, Android is fast shaping up to be the world’s biggest OS, but that gro… Read more at paidContent »
According to one expert, hacktivism gets a bad rap when it comes to web security, but those sites generate a lot of attack data to feed security systems. However, the proposed SOPA antipiracy legislation could end up playing right into hackers’ hands. Read more »
IT services company Unisys recently released its biannual Unisys Security Index. The latest study found that many have already been victims of cybercrime, but this infographic shows that companies charged with protecting consumer data might be the biggest losers when it gets exposed. Read more »
The latest kerfuffle about alleged vulnerabilities in Amazon Web Services’ Amazon Machine Images is little more than a tempest in a teapot, according to security experts. Their takeaway is basically that stupid users with bad computing practices get what they deserve. Read more »
Connectivity changes everything. That’s the credo driving just about every corner of our day-to-day lives. As human beings, we are now connected to one another through not just our social networks but also our cars, the books we read, the albums we download and even our own health and wellness habits (to name just a few areas). With that in mind, GigaOM Pro has singled out certain areas in the technology industry where we see this shift to constant connectivity taking place most drastically. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Facebook on Thursday morning unveiled new features aimed at making people feel more secure on the ever-growing social networking site, including “Trusted Friends” and “App Passwords.” These are just the latest in a series of major privacy changes Facebook has announced in recent months. Read more »
Employees love using their own devices to do corporate work, but the practice, known as consumerization, is rife with security risks. Speaking today at Mobilize, Cisco’s Tom Gillis said consumerization is causing a fundamental rearchitecture of how networks look that requires a reimagining of security solutions. Read more »
With OS X Lion’s incredible success and high adoption rate, Apple customers and repair technicians such as myself are facing higher than usual rates of embarrassment thanks to Lion’s ability to restore your windows exactly as they were when an app was closed. Read more »
Dome9, a stealth company that aims to create the equivalent of a firewall for public and private clouds, launched the company and its product Monday. The company, which was founded last year, is just one of several cloud security companies coming out of stealth mode. Read more »
Macs are fairly dependable, but there will still be occasions when you have to take them in for service at an Apple Authorized Service Provider. This can take some doing, so here are three tips about things you might not think about when moving your Mac. Read more »
McAfee said Android took the top spot in mobile malware attacks in the second quarter, growing 76 percent from last quarter, moving past Symbian OS and J2ME. Android had 44 attacks last quarter, compared to 14 for J2ME and 4 each for Symbian and Blackberry. Read more »
Kickstarter-backed iPhone, iPod and iPad accessories really seem to have a knack for doing well post-funding, and the PadPivot I reviewed early this month is a perfect example. The PadPivot will be available at Best Buy and Future Shop retail locations beginning in September. Read more »
Amazon Web Services has rolled out a new region, called GovCloud, designed specifically for federal government workloads. The region is designed to meet the myriad regulations that government agencies must meet when deploying new infrastructure, which have proven a hindrance in terms government cloud adoption. Read more »
If you’re looking for something a little more rugged than a standard sleeve, check out the Bamboo Blackbox Case on Kickstarter. It comes in iPad 2, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro flavors, and should protect your device from even serious jerks, jolts and dolts. Read more »
Last week’s outages at Microsoft and Amazon Web Services reiterated a very important lesson in cloud computing: Even the best-laid plans won’t stand up to an act of god or faulty electrical infrastructure. That’s why the burgeoning field of cloud insurance looks even better than ever. Read more »
GreenSQL, an Israeli-based startup that offers software that secures databases has raised a second round of funding led by Rhodium and Atlantic Capital Partners. The funding will allow the company to expand to the U.S. and build products for NoSQL tools used today. Read more »
Google+ users can under some circumstances access IM conversations of other Google users. The bug seems to be related to the way Google Talk is integrated within Google+. Google has said that it is addressing the issue, which only affects users of shared machines. Read more »
Major Internet sites like Facebook, Twitter, Apple.com, Best Buy and Buy.com saw an outage this afternoon, as Akamai faced DNS-related issues. For about an hour Monday, those issues slowed down some Akamai sites, while keeping users from accessing others altogether. Read more »
Security used to be fairly straightforward — put boundaries around your infrastructure-holding business data. Today, with the rapid adoption of cloud and mobile computing and the overall consumerization of IT, traditional boundaries have become fluid, which means companies must protect the data itself. Read more »
Amazon Web Services announced a trio of features designed to lure in enterprise users, including dedicated 1- or 10-Gigabit links to its cloud data centers. AWS is doing everything it can to make its services as flexible, reliable and secure as possible for enterprise users. Read more »
The open-source, data-processing tool Hadoop is already popular for a variety of use cases that can benefit from clusters of machines churning through unstructured data — such as search engines and social-media analysis — and now it’s turning its attention to security data. Read more »
As mobile devices become more prevalent at work, the need for security continues to rise. WatchDox provides document control, tracking and security features through a web app, apps for iPad and iPhone (we covered it late last year) and now for BlackBerry. Read more »
Yesterday, Google announced a new feature that alerts web surfers when their PCs might be infected with malware, but it’s hardly the only company using big data to fight cybercrime. We’ve covered a handful of them of over the past couple years. Read more »
Web security startup CloudFlare has raised $20 million in a series B funding round. The San Francisco-based company, which has seen impressive growth since its September 2010 launch, makes a cloud-based software program that purportedly helps protect websites while also making them faster. Read more »
Apple is already working on a fix for a security flaw reported by the German Federal Office for Information Security Wednesday. The Mac maker said in a statement that it is “developing a fix that will be available to customers in an upcoming software update.” Read more »
With its new SplitSecure technology, Structure 2011 LaunchPad finalist BeyondCore is trying to prove that companies processing sensitive data don’t have to be afraid of cloud computing. The company has actually been around since 2003, but SplitSecure represents its first foray into the cloud. Read more »
As mobile devices become more popular, it’s putting more importance on the need for security. That’s why Symantec recently analyzed Apple’s iOS and Google Android, comparing the two operating systems to each other and to desktop platforms in terms of vulnerability to security threats. Read more »
Facebook has come under fire for implementing an anti-spam system that mistakenly shut off a number of legitimate third-party applications. For all the impressive growth Facebook has displayed, it looks like the company still has a ways to go when it comes to managing public perception. Read more »
The old days of securing information with virtual barbed-wire fences are over. Today, security aspects have to be incorporated into software applications from the ground floor to ensure safety. And whether an application is hosted in the cloud or on a native server is almost moot. Read more »
Simon Crosby is leaving his post as data center and virtualization CTO at Citrix Systems to launch a new company called Bromium that will utilize virtualization technology to tackle cloud computing security. The company raised $9.2 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Read more »
The flexibility and autonomy of web working can boost productivity and morale, but letting company information out of the secure perimeter of corporate headquarters also opens organizations up to a whole host of security concerns, according to a recent article from MIT’s Technology Review. Read more »
If you’re just getting started out as a freelancer, the sheer volume of advice out there about what software to pick up can be intimidating. Luckily, there’s a new Mac software bundle that actually acts as a really good one-stop shopping solution for new freelancers. Read more »
When you establish a secure passcode on your iPad, the expectation is that it locks out potential snoops. But if someone has access to both your Mac and your iPad, that isn’t the case. Here’s how to go an extra step further with iPad security. Read more »
Google announced this week plans to shut down its Translate API “due to the substantial economic burden caused by extensive abuse.” The news raises a question: When dealing with the costly threats of hackers and spam abuse, when should a web company cut its losses? Read more »
Apple posted a short support article late Tuesday called “How to avoid or remove Mac Defender malware,” which provides instructions on dealing with an existing malware infection, and also promises an update in the near future that will automatically seek it out and remove it. Read more »
MacDefender is the latest, and arguably the most significant Mac malware threat we’ve seen in a long time. Apple support reportedly isn’t offering help over the phone to affected customers, but doing so could set a costly precedent, and there’s arguably a better solution available long-term. Read more »
Groupon is investigating the case of a Seattle man who was able to log into another user’s account using Facebook Connect. The issue could be an isolated incident or could suggest some larger sloppiness on the part of fast-growing Groupon. Read more »
Chances are, there’s a lot of personal information and data stored on your iPhone or iPad. The last thing you want is someone finding your data and using it maliciously. You can encrypt your backup, but what about if someone gets hold of your actual device? Read more »
LastPass, a password management app, could have been hacked, with user data — including email addresses, salted passwords and the server salt — potentially compromised, according to a post on the company’s blog. As a precaution, the company is forcing its users to change their master passwords. Read more »
