Sean Michael Kerner

About

Sean Michael Kerner is an Internet consultant, strategist, and writer for several leading IT business web sites.

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.3 Gets Real

Linux vendor Red Hat is advancing its virtualization efforts today with the release of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) 3.3. The RHEV 3.3 release is built on top of the open-source oVirt project, which is led by Red Hat. The new release adds support for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 platform, improves performance and […]

Docker Raises $15M to Advance Open-Source Container Virtualization

It often takes real money to move virtualization technology forward, which is why open-source virtualization vendor Docker is now raising new funds. Docker announced today that it has raised $15 million in a new Series B round of funding led by Greylock Partners, with participation from Trinity Ventures, Benchmark and Insight Ventures. Total funding to […]

Bluebox Raises $18 Million for Mobile Security

Security startup Bluebox Security has raised $18 million in a round of Series B funding to advance its vision for mobile security. Total funding for Bluebox Security now stands at $27.5 million. Bluebox rose to public notoriety in the summer of 2013 with the disclosure of what is known as the Android Master Key vulnerability—a […]

Linux 3.13 Improves Networking, Memory Performance

The Linux 3.13 kernel is now available, providing users of the open-source Linux operating system with the first major update of 2014. The Linux 3.13 kernel follows the Linux 3.12 kernel that was released in November of 2013. Among the new capabilities and features are a packet filtering technology, improved solid-state disk (SSD) storage capabilities […]

Starbucks, SSL for Twitter and Why Sensitive Data Must Be Encrypted

User information, whether it’s preferences for where you buy coffee or application passwords, can be a valuable commodity. That’s why it has long been a best practice to ensure that potentially sensitive data is not just stored or sent in the clear, without first being encrypted. A pair of incidents this past week helped highlight […]

IBM Explains Its Participation on the OpenStack Foundation Board of Directors

IBM is a founding member of the OpenStack Foundation, which is an effort to build an open-source cloud platform. As a member, IBM both contributes code into OpenStack and provides guidance to the project through its participation in the foundation’s governance. IBM’s representative on the OpenStack Foundation board of directors is Todd Moore, whose day […]

Obama Aims to Curb NSA Privacy Concerns

Ever since U.S National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden first emerged in 2013 with scathing details about the scope of intelligence-gathering capabilities, American officials have been on the defensive. Today in a policy speech, President Barack Obama outlined a number of reforms to reassure both U.S citizens and foreign governments that NSA is not violating […]

How the Target Breach Happened

The security breach at U.S. retailer Target in December has been the subject of intense scrutiny and speculation over the course of the last month. Few details were made public when Target first admitted to the security breach on Dec. 19, 2013. This month, little by little, scraps of information have emerged, including the disclosure […]

Java Primary Cause of 91 Percent of Attacks: Cisco

There are many different risks and attacks that IT professionals had to deal with in 2013, but no one technology was more abused or more culpable that Java, according to Cisco’s latest annual security report. The Cisco 2014 Annual Security Report found that Java represented 91 percent of all Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) in 2013. […]

DDoS Attacks Abusing Network Timing Protocol Flood the Web

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks can take on many different forms, as those who commit them leverage different techniques to drown Websites under a flood of traffic. The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) is warning of an increased risk from DDoS attacks that leverage the Network Time Protocol (NTP) to amplify the attack volume. […]