Brian Prince

The Gumblar botnet is back with a new trick up its sleeve. The goal, however, remains the same-to steal FTP credentials and other data. Gumblar first made the news in May, when attackers compromised legitimate sites and sent visitors on to a malicious site that infected their PCs with malware. Now, attackers are using the […]

While much of the talk at Oracle OpenWorld focused on applications, Oracle’s database business had its share of the spotlight as well. During his keynote Oct. 14, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison extolled the virtues of Oracle Exadata Database Machine Version 2. Pitched by Oracle as the “foundation for building dynamic storage grids” and the fastest […]

It’s Cyber Security Awareness Month, and the folks at Google are taking it seriously. Having already built automated scanners to detect malware on Websites in its search index, Google has now added a feature designed to provide more detail to Webmasters whose sites are compromised. To do this, Google has enhanced Webmaster Tools to offer […]

Barracuda Networks has acquired security software-as-a-service vendor Purewire in a bid to build out its cloud-based platform. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Purewire was launched in 2008, and has sought to make a mark offering Web security in the cloud. Bringing that technology into the fold will expand Barracuda’s existing SAAS […]

IBMraised a few eyebrows last week when it announced plans for DB2 pureScale, a feature IBM officials said would challenge Oracle’s Exadata technology. But sitting at the Oracle OpenWorld conference, Oracle executive Robert Shimp told eWEEK that IBMmay be getting ahead of itself. “(That was) a very bold statement on their part,” said Shimp, group […]

Standardize, simplify and automate-those three words are at the heart of a strategy laid out Oct. 13 at Oracle OpenWorld by Michael Dell. Dell, CEO of the company that bears his last name, said he wants to battle inefficiency and reduce IT spending with what he called the “efficient enterprise.” Dell has spoken about the […]

Database Security Shortcomings Raise Red Flags by Brian Prince Data Breaches Galore Roughly the same percentage of people in the 2009 survey declared a data breach was either “inevitable” or “somewhat likely” as they did a year ago. However, the report also found that 9 percent had experienced a data breach over the past year—a […]

Adobe Systems has swatted a zero-day bug affecting Adobe Reader and Acrobat that was being exploited in targeted attacks. The vulnerability, described by Adobe as critical, is one of several Adobe fixed today in the Oct. 13 security update. According to Adobe, the vulnerability is a heap overflow issue. A successful exploit can corrupt memory […]

Microsoft issued a massive Patch Tuesday update Oct. 13 to address 34 vulnerabilities across its products. The vulnerabilities are covered by 13 security bulletins, and span Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, Silverlight, Forefront, Developer Tools and SQL Server. Eight of the bulletins were given a critical rating, Microsoft’s highest severity classification. To read about how […]

Hewlett-Packard is deepening its relationship with Oracle with the release of new HP BladeSystem Matrix provisioning templates and reference configurations for Oracle solutions. The company made the announcement Oct. 12 at Oracle OpenWorld 2009 in San Francisco, touting technology the company believes will ease the deployment of infrastructure services for Oracle applications. According to HP, […]

Oracle’s annual budget for research and development is $3 billion-a large sum of money that has made its way to customers in the form of product innovation, enhancements and integration. It is that third area, integration, that was the subject of much of the joint keynote speeches by Oracle co-presidents Charles Phillips and Safra Catz […]

Computer hacker Gary McKinnon may finally be heading to the United Statesto stand trial on charges of breaking into U.S.military and NASA computers. McKinnon, who has fought extradition for seven years, was denied permission today by a court in the UK to take his battle against extradition to the British Supreme Court. In denying his […]