Dennis Fisher

System administrators and CIOs have little concept of the top threat to security, according to a survey released last week by eWeek and security vendor Camelot IT Ltd. Despite personal experience and empirical evidence to the contrary, 57 percent of respondents who listed themselves as very concerned about network and privacy security issues said that […]

Two security incidents last week have polarized the parties debating the thorny issue of reporting vulnerabilities and exploits, but help may be on the way in the form of an industry group with established protocols. An ad hoc association of security and general-purpose software vendors headed by Russ Cooper, moderator of the NTBugtraq mailing list […]

Distributed denial-of-service attacks—which by some estimates total more than 4,000 a week—are likely to get much worse as the perpetrators hone their skills and new weaknesses in popular platforms are discovered and exploited. As vendors such as Asta Networks Inc. and Mazu Networks Inc. prepare to launch their anti-DDoS solutions in the coming weeks, attackers […]

In what amounts to a 180-degree reversal, the mobile computing industry is starting to take security seriously. Certicom Corp. and F-Secure Corp. are each preparing to launch file encryption products for the ever-growing number of PDAs (personal digital assistants) on the market, devices that at present have few security features. Standard security on the Palm […]

Customer demand for single-sign-on security for B2B sites is pushing vendors to deliver applications months ahead of specification approval—even at the risk of creating weak products now and a weaker spec later. The product push comes even as many in the security and e-commerce industry look to SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) to provide the […]

After more than three years of development, Internet Security Systems Inc. this week will deliver an ambitious security platform and product road map that it said will deliver the first truly integrated security solution for all aspects of a companys network. Known as the Real- Secure Protection System, the architecture and solution set is designed […]

As two leaders in PKI scramble to refocus their businesses in the hopes of a steadier revenue stream, corporate users are again wondering if and when the promise of killer public-key infrastructure applications is ever going to be realized. Baltimore Technologies Inc. and Entrust Technologies plc. are planning to move much more heavily into the […]

In the aftermath of the distributed denial-of-service attacks against several high-profile sites last year, dozens of vendors rushed into the vacuum that was the anti-DDoS software market and proclaimed they were working on products that will protect customers against these attacks. Now, more than a year later, some of these vendors are finally preparing to […]

When the ILoveYou virus swept through corporate networks around the world last May, it took everyone by surprise—especially anti-virus software developers. As the one-year anniversary of the Love Bugs attack passed last week, McAfee Corp., Trend Micro Inc. and other anti-virus vendors were working on new technologies and strategies that they hope will reduce the […]

The Advanced Encryption Standard is still more than two months away from government approval, but some vendors and cryptographers are already pouring over the spec, calling attention to its promise as well as its pitfalls. While some tout AES as a breakthrough that will make encryption-dependent software and hardware faster and more practical for enterprise […]

It seems Microsoft Corp. cant shake its problems with security. Having formally announced earlier this month that it had rededicated itself to building security into its products, Microsoft last week was dealt an embarrassing blow when a vulnerability was discovered in its first stand-alone security product. Although the Redmond, Wash., company quickly issued a patch […]

As e-businesses work to move more enterprise applications and services to the Web, a major hurdle to be cleared remains the painfully slow transmission rate of secure data. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) traffic is as much as 50 times slower than typical HTTP traffic, which has led many site administrators to make the Faustian choice […]