Dennis Fisher

RSA Security Inc. on Thursday announced that it will be extending its ClearTrust Web single sign-on product to the mainframe environment later this year. The new extension is designed to allow users to access data stored on legacy systems without having to re-authenticate. The move into the mainframe world is a departure for RSA, a […]

Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday issued patches for three flaws in various versions of Windows, two of which give attackers the ability to run whatever code they wish on vulnerable machines. The most serious of the vulnerabilities affects all currently supported versions of Windows, from Windows 98 up through Windows Server 2003. The problem lies in […]

A voice that has been shouting loudly for honesty and openness in the security industry is about to be silenced. Vmyths.com, a Web site that for eight years has railed against vendor hype, misinformation and hoaxes, has run out of money and, without a large cash infusion, will go dormant within the next few days. […]

A well-known Brazilian crew won this past weekends Web site defacement contest, amassing more than twice as many points as the second-place team. Crackers from the Perfect.br team racked up 152 points in winning the contest, which put them 90 points ahead of the runners-up, the Hackbsd Crew. For their efforts, the Brazilians won a […]

The decades-old rivalry between Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. is heating up again. This time, the companies are jockeying for position in a market that rapidly is becoming one of the key battlegrounds for winning and keeping customers: identity management. Novell, one of the established players in identity management, this week plans to unveil two […]

Internet Security Systems Inc. last week unveiled its first Catastrophic Risk Index, a compilation of the 31 most serious current vulnerabilities and attacks. The index is designed to give administrators a constantly updated quick-reference list of the issues that should be their top priorities in protecting networks. Not surprisingly, all but two of the vulnerabilities […]

Rather than spending Sunday defacing Web pages—which, lets admit it, has become a bit passé—some crackers decided instead to disrupt a planned defacement contest by knocking offline the Web site where competitors were supposed to record their crimes. The group directed a denial-of-service (DoS) attack against the Zone-H.org site about an hour after the defacement […]

Crackers and low-level online vandals are planning some post-Independence Day fireworks this weekend with a so-called Web site defacement challenge. The goal is for participants to deface as many sites as possible within the six-hour time limit. Some government organizations have issued warnings to their constituent agencies, cautioning them about the contest and urging them […]

Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday plans to announce its new Identity Integration Server 2003, a stand-alone identity management server meant for large enterprise deployments. The new offering is Microsofts first real jump into the ID management market and comes at a time when a gaggle of vendors are all fighting for sales and name recognition in […]

As part of its transformation from anti-virus vendor to overall security provider, Network Associates Inc. last week introduced the latest version of its McAfee Desktop Firewall, which brings some intrusion prevention capabilities to the desktop. The key features in the new release are an application monitoring capability and a mode that enables administrators to prevent […]