Brian Prince

Cyber-security has quickly become a focus for the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama. But just how do Americans feel about the cyber-threat landscape? MeriTalk, an online community for discussions of politics and IT, has a few answers. In conjunction with the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, MeriTalk released a survey of […]

The number of reported data breaches in the United States jumped nearly 50 percent in 2008, according to by the Identity Theft Resource Center. All totaled, there were 656 breaches reported last year, up from 446 in 2007. While the 656 may not sound like a lot, they led to nearly 35.7 million records being […]

FileMaker is hoping a new interface and several enhancements designed to improve ease of use will build a following for Version 10 of its flagship database software. The company announced the release of FileMaker Pro 10 the week of Jan. 5 in time for the Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco. The enhancements start […]

One of the well-reported security trends of 2008 was the defeat of CAPTCHA systems for a number of Web-based e-mail services, including Yahoo and Gmail. With spammers increasingly finding their way around these safeguards, making the hurdles spammers have to jump just a little higher is an important security concern. By circumventing CAPTCHA tests, which […]

Phishers are hooking more and more Twitter users in campaigns to steal their account data, according to security researchers. The initial phishing attack reported over the weekend has expanded, with spammers now using compromised accounts to initiate a new campaign that capitalizes on the popularity of the Apple iPhone. According to Sophos, the latest barrage […]

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama was among 33 Twitter users who had their accounts hacked. According to social messaging company Twitter, the hack-which also claimed the account of CNN anchor Rick Sanchez-is separate from the phishing attacks that have been circulating on Twitter since the weekend of Jan. 3. “These accounts were compromised by an individual […]

CA officials announced today the company is making its third security acquisition in as many months with the purchase of the Orchestria Corporation. The deal combines CA’s identity and access management portfolio with Orchestria’s DLP (data loss prevention) technology with the goal of helping organizations control access to data and set policies on its use […]

Microsoft advised organizations yet again to deploy the patch for a flaw affecting the Windows Server service that was fixed in October. The latest attacks are coming courtesy of a new variant of the Conficker worm, identified by Microsoft as Win32/Conficker.B. According to the company, the variant is hitting machines that have not applied the […]

Data masking is emerging as an important-if underutilized-element of ensuring data protection. With its use expected to grow, it may be time for database and application vendors to consider a more aggressive push into the area. Forrester analyst Noel Yuhanna believes data masking will eventually become a standard feature found in database management systems and […]

In a market still dominated by security vendors Symantec and McAfee, Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab made solid gains in 2008 through its consumer business. With 2009 around the corner, Kaspersky is looking to take elements of its consumer products to enterprise desktops. In an interview with eWEEK, Steve Orenberg, president of Kaspersky’s Americas operation, said the […]