Workers are increasingly telecommuting instead of working in a traditional centralized office environment. On the plus side, a recent survey shows that telecommuting increases worker productivity by allowing for more flexible working hours, and it saves companies money on reimbursing transportation costs and on office materials. On the down side, telecommuting can produce major security and privacy risks for companies. (read full article)
As many of you already know, the anti-Midas touch of the financial crisis is spreading to the technology sector. Security seemed to be counter-cyclical during the last bust. Myself and several other security analyst/bloggers believe that this time, however, is different, and our field will experience the same cutbacks that we will see across the broader tech industry, albeit less severely. (read full article)
Cloud computing has become a reality, yet the hype surrounding cloud has started to exceed the laws of physics and economics. The robust cloud (of all software on demand that will replace the enterprise data center) will crash into some of the same barriers and diseconomies that are facing enterprise IT today. (read full article)
In the long migration to VoIP, network operators and service providers have discovered the need to efficiently and securely (not to mention inexpensively) exchange traffic in a native IP format without having it dive in and out of the PSTN. This is where VoIP Peering comes in, a general term describing service solutions that can connect carriers or, in another form, enterprise and consumer customers. (read full article)
Researchers in Europe are getting close to commercializing a dramatically different and more secure way of transporting sensitive data sent over networks. Among the first customers will be big phone companies, which are expected to offer the new type of encryption service to banks, corporations and governments. (read full article)
Wireless communication within a corporation can be a security nightmare for CIOs, but it’s considered the technology of the future in giant manufacturing or industrial plants. For many aging plants, the only thing that has really changed in decades is the internal communication system. It’s now being relied upon to improve output, maintain the systems and optimize processes. (read full article)
Software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings can provide small and midsize businesses with access to software remotely as a Web-based service. SaaS data protection provides online backup and recovery and can meet broader information-management requirements, such as archiving, compliance, search and disaster recovery. (read full article)
Fear not IT and info security personnel: Most of your remote workers, mobile users and road warriors toting around laptops and BlackBerrys have the business’s best interests in mind when it comes to network security. That’s according to results from an August 2008 survey of 300 remote employees who work on company-issued laptops. (read full article)
Savvy administrators recognize that because end-users are privy to an organization’s sensitive data, they represent a significant risk factor. Security pros, however, continue to struggle with mitigating this threat. While no single solution exists, there are steps organizations can take to ensure that corporate policies are effectively enforced and insider threats are minimized. (read full article)
Malware, spam, and phishing pose ongoing threats to small and midsize businesses, requiring constant vigilance to ensure secure computing environments for employees, partners, and customers. By understanding the latest trends in these types of threats, businesses will be better prepared to respond to the problem in the most effective and efficient manner. (read full article)
Sometimes no news is worse than bad news. When a company's data is stolen by hackers, affected customers typically receive a disturbing note from the breached firm, warning that they could soon become victims of identity theft. (read full article)
Given the high profile of the Olympic Games, it's no surprise that organizers of IT at the Beijing Olympics have made information security one of their highest priorities. (read full article)
Microsoft Corp. today issued "kill bit" updates for ActiveX controls from HP and a Washington state developer, the third time it's disabled third-party add-ons in the last four months. (read full article)
I hear from some vendors that their small business customers claim to still be scared of “The Cloud” or SaaS (Software as a Service) products. Of course, those vendors tend to sell onsite storage and server tools, competing with SaaS and The Cloud. But I don't believe those statements about small business owners running in fear from The Cloud like it was a Stephen King novel. You know, an update to The Mist. (read full article)
Despite receiving tens of thousands of online fraud complaints from consumers every year, U.S. states bring only a small number of Internet-related cases to court, according to research released on Tuesday. (read full article)
I'm often asked how it is that internet use continues to grow so fast despite ever faster growing vulnerabilities -- security breaches, stolen data, identity theft, online fraud and more. The short answer is that online security is "good enough" -- adequate for the risk represented by the value of the transactions. Consider credit cards. There is certainly theft and fraud, but various security measures, added over time to address new threats, kept losses at an acceptable level. Computer and online security seem to be following a similar path. The operating systems and browsers get new security features, patches and updates, often in response to some recently discovered or exploited vulnerability. (read full article)
More than 75 percent of bank websites have at least one design flaw that could lead to the theft of customer information, according to a recent University of Michigan study. (read full article)
The latest survey from security vendor McAfee has found that small to medium-size businesses in North America and Europe wrongly conclude their revenue is too low to draw the attention of cybercriminals. (read full article)
A corrupted Outlook database trashes your e-mail archive and contact list. An accidentally deleted folder wipes out critical business documents. (read full article)
Free firewalls, anti-virus scanners and other utilities can offer security and savings. (read full article)
Internationally acclaimed security scientists Markus Jakobsson and Zulfikar Ramzan were recently guests for a live Network World chat. (read full article)
As security administrators and end users adopt new measures to resolve security threats, the bad guys - as usual - are creating new and innovative ways to attack. (read full article)
Some data security attacks are done by those who just want the challenge of breaking into a system. (read full article)
Small businesses—all businesses, and consumers too, for that matter—face a miasma of threats every day. (read full article)
Protecting company data and customer information from criminals bent on stealing it is an ever-changing challenge for any business owner. (read full article)
There are nearly as many ways to back up your business data as there are ways to lose the data and require that backup. (read full article)
The Chinese Year of the Rat begins next week. (read full article)
Survey suggests travelers need to do more to lock down their laptops. Most travelers carry little of value on their laptops, but those who do carry valuable information store an average of $525,000 worth of sensitive data, according to a recent survey. (read full article)
What would happen if a mobile device loaded with your company's sensitive data were lost? Encryption products could save the day. (read full article)
Factor in tech-system vulnerabilities in your business planning to ensure smooth operations at every stage (and ward off competition.) (read full article)
Most computer-security professionals don't believe in security. To those who know better, a computer network can never be "secure"- only "more secure." In other words: no data is absolutely safe. (read full article)
Haven't encrypted your laptop fleet yet? There's no excuse for that choice anymore. Check out today's smart strategies for improving laptop security—before the next machine disappears. (read full article)
If you give a company your name and address, how many copies of this data do you think will exist in databases around the world a mere 12 months later? (read full article)
When the "Anna Kournikova" virus was spreading wildly in 2001, it infected millions of computers and clogged e-mail servers by offering a racy picture of the teen tennis star to unsuspecting e-mailers. Or, in some cases, not so unsuspecting. "A big proportion of the infections we saw were coming from people who had actually gone out searching for the virus because they wanted to see Anna Kournikova," says David Perry, global director of education for Trend Micro. "We didn't see this happening two times. We saw it thousands of times." (read full article)
Fabiana Gower considered some unconventional methods to prevent data losses when portable storage devices began appearing in her company's IT environment about three years ago. "I stopped just short of Super Glue," said Gower, vice president of information systems at Martin, Fletcher, an Irving, Texas-based medical staffing firm.) (read full article)