Dennis Fisher

Symantec Corp. on Thursday announced that is acquiring @stake Inc., perhaps the most well-known security consulting firm in the industry, for an undisclosed sum. The purchase marks the end of an era for @stake, and in a sense, for the security industry at large. Among the first digital security consulting firms to pop up, @stake […]

Stephen Richards, who is responsible for pulling McAfee Inc. out of a whirlwind of financial and legal troubles, said last week he will resign as the companys chief financial officer at years end. Richards also has been the companys chief operating officer during his tenure and has played a large role in helping to reshape […]

In the escalating clash between online scammers and security vendors, the attackers have once again developed new tactics that give them the upper hand in bypassing filters and infiltrating corporate networks, experts say. The new techniques, which experts began seeing sporadically earlier this year and in large waves in recent weeks, involve the use of […]

The arrival of four new variants of the MyDoom worm within the last 24 hours has anti-virus experts worried that the virus creator may be preparing to release a major onslaught. On Thursday afternoon, MyDoom.U, V, W and X all appeared within a couple of hours of one another. None of the variants is particularly […]

More than two years after company officials claimed Microsoft Corp. would emphasize security over features in all products, the whopping update to the companys Windows XP operating system is being hit for introducing new vulnerabilities. IT administrators and security experts who have had a chance to install, work with and investigate the changes Windows XP […]

Security researchers Mark and David Litchfield have spent much of the last few years poring over lines of code looking for vulnerabilities in enterprise applications, specifically Oracle Corp.s databases. Now, the brothers, and co-founders of Next Generation Security Software Ltd., are working on a solution to help defend Oracles database products. NGSS is developing a […]

Employees in most companies want basically two things from their IT infrastructure: They want it to work, and they want it to interfere as little as possible with the way they do their jobs. These twin desires have driven software makers all-out effort to make their applications simple to use and efficient. But the focus […]

Security researchers have identified a new version of the Download.Ject attack that is now being used on the Internet and can compromise fully patched Windows XP machines. The new version of the attack just appeared Thursday afternoon, and while details are still sketchy, experts say its main purpose is to install a back door on […]

Security intelligence company iDefense Inc. makes its money by acting as a kind of wholesaler of information on security vulnerabilities, threats and exploit code. The Reston, Va., company has stirred controversy in the security community with its practice of buying this information from researchers around the world and reselling it to customers. Senior Editor Dennis […]

After courting each other for months, both publicly and privately, McAfee Inc. and Foundstone Inc. on Monday finally decided to combine their operations. McAfee has agreed to pay $86 million in cash for Foundstone, which sells vulnerability management software and consulting services. Rumors of the two companies interest in one another have been swirling in […]

As worms and viruses continue to ravage the Internet, a security vendor and an infrastructure provider are employing new strategies to try to prevent initial infections and limit the damage of compromised networked machines. McAfee Inc. and Alcatel USA Inc. are each introducing offerings this week that use policy-based frameworks and network monitoring to regulate […]

Computer Associates International Inc. on Monday acquired PestPatrol Inc., one of the original anti-spyware vendors, for an undisclosed sum. The purchase is an interesting one for CA, whose focus in the security market has been mainly in the security management area. But CA officials said many of their large enterprise customers had become more and […]