Sean Michael Kerner

The new year is starting off with a bang for Oracle, at least in terms of security updates. In sharp contrast to Microsoft, which today released just four security bulletins, Oracle fixed a staggering 144 new vulnerabilities spread across its software portfolio as part of its quarterly Critical Patch Update (CPU). At the top of […]

Microsoft is out today with its first Patch Tuesday security update for 2014, issuing four security bulletins that address six different Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) issues in Windows, Office and Dynamics AX. All four of the bulletins are rated as having “high” importance, which is one level below “critical.” The MS14-001 bulletin details three […]

Nginx, the lead commercial sponsor behind the open-source Nginx Web server, is updating its Nginx Plus server with a new release. The Nginx Plus 2.0 platform now includes improved support for Java applications as well as enhanced application health monitoring and high-availability features. Nginx users have long been able to have a high-availability Web server, […]

The Red Hat-sponsored Fedora Linux community recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, capping off a decade of releases and evolution. In 2014, Fedora could be in store for its biggest evolution since the project’s creation, with fewer releases and even a new naming strategy. Typically, the Fedora project has had two releases in any given year: […]

U.S. retailer Target wasn’t the only target of credit card thieves this past holiday season. Upscale retailer Neiman Marcus confirmed on Jan. 10 that it too was the victim of a data breach that saw customer credit card information stolen. Neiman Marcus has not disclosed how many customer credit cards were stolen or how the […]

Microsoft released its advance notification Jan. 9 for the scheduled Jan. 14, 2014, Patch Tuesday update, and it’s surprising for a few reasons. The advance notification indicates that Microsoft is only planning on releasing four security advisories, which is a relatively low number. For comparison, the final patch Tuesday update from Microsoft for 2013, released […]

The Target data breach, which the U.S. retail giant first reported Dec. 9, is now significantly larger than first disclosed. In a public statement issued Jan. 10, Target revealed that the personal information of 70 million customers was stolen in the breach that occurred between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15. Target had initially reported that […]

When gaming vendor Valve’s co-founder Gabe Newell told the Linuxcon USA conference audience last September that Linux is the future of gaming, he also hinted that his company’s future consoles would be Linux-powered. At the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week, Newell made good on his prediction with the formal unveiling of the first […]

In an unexpected announcement, Linux leader Red Hat is now partnering with the CentOS community Linux project. CentOS is a clone of Red Hat’s crown jewel, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platform, and in some circles has been seen as a rival, providing a free alternative to Red Hat’s subscription pricing for RHEL. RHEL […]

Security incident-response vendor Co3 Systems this week announced that security luminary Bruce Schneier is joining the firm as its new chief technology officer. Schneier had previously been working as the CTO of British Telecom (BT). Schneier is well-known and respected in security circles for his insight and knowledge of cryptography. In 2013, Schneier was among […]

In February 2011, Intel completed its $7.68 billion acquisition of security vendor McAfee. It’s a deal that brought the extensive technology assets as well as the trusted McAfee brand to Intel. Now nearly three years after the deal closed, Intel has decided that though the technology is strong, the McAfee brand itself should go away. […]

When you don’t control all content that flows onto a site, there is always the potential risk that malicious malware could be sneaking in. That’s what happened to Internet giant Yahoo over the weekend as malicious ads were able to infect unsuspecting users. Frankly, I’m not surprised. Ad platforms have been the subject of much […]