Sean Michael Kerner

Security research should not be a thankless task; it should be a task that is celebrated, rewarded and, more importantly, acted on with all the necessary expediency that a given piece of research might deserve. A number of events occurred this week that show how different groups value and act on security research at very […]

One of the biggest data breaches of all time occurred not by a malicious external actor, but by IT contractor Edward Snowden, who was able to take privileged information from the National Security Agency (NSA). The fact that Snowden had access is not a unique problem for the NSA, according to a new study sponsored […]

The Tor onion router project is used by countless numbers of users around the world in a bid to protect their privacy and provide a degree of anonymity. According to new revelations published today by the Guardian newspaper from data pilfered by whistleblower Edward Snowden, Tor users have been specifically targeted by the National Security […]

The Dread Pirate Roberts isn’t just the fictional name of a movie character from the classic 1987 film The Princess Bride; it’s also the alias for an alleged criminal mastermind who has now been arrested for operating the illegal goods Silk Road Website. While the Silk Road site was hidden in the bowels of the […]

In the security market, penetration testing is a time-honored practice that typically requires a lot of time to organize, schedule and manage. Security vendor Trustwave is now aiming to change the delivery model for penetration testing with a managed security testing service that is provisioned from the cloud, but still includes the use of human […]

Two weeks ago, Microsoft first warned its users that it was investigating public reports about a zero-day vulnerability in its Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser. It’s a vulnerability that still has not been patched in a full update and is now actively being exploited by attackers. In response to an inquiry from eWEEK about the […]

The open-source Apache CloudStack project is out with its 4.2 release, providing its users with improvements on all levels of the cloud computing platform. The CloudStack 4.2 release is the third for the open-source project since it became part of the Apache Software Foundation in November of 2012 with its 4.0 release. CloudStack 4.1 debuted […]

Red Hat is updating its Linux platform today with the releases of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.10 (RHEL) operating system and the Satellite 5.6 server management solution. The RHEL 5.10 release debuts after several months of beta testing that began in July. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, first released in 2007, is no longer […]

Unbeknownst to many people in the world, late last week one of the largest attacks in the history of the Internet was taking place—a massive nine-hour barrage that leveled an unrelenting 100 Gigabits of traffic at its peak. The attack took place on Sept. 24, and to date the victim of the attack is remaining […]

When it comes to modern enterprise IT security, the best defense isn’t necessarily about having a good offense. A panel of experts at the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC2) Security Congress’ 2013 event debated the issue of cyber-offensive strategies on Sept. 27. The panel concluded that offensive strategies aren’t likely the right approach […]

GNOME 3.10 Gets an Overhaul: Top 10 New Features by Sean Michael Kerner System Status Gets a New Look The top right side of the GNOME 3.10 desktop is getting an improved integrated menu to provide users with updated system status information and access. Scrolling Gives Way to Paginated Application View Instead of scrolling through […]

Whenever anyone asks me if the cloud is secure, I typically have a very simple answer: The cloud is no more and no less secure than the controls that enterprises, users and cloud providers put in place. Until this week, I did not consider the Microsoft Azure cloud to be particularly secure. That’s not because […]