Sean Michael Kerner

At the 2018 RSA Conference that ran from April 16-20, there was an underlying theme of discussion that IT cyber-security professionals can get the upper hand on hackers. The idea that defenders can make a difference was well represented in the conference motto: Now Matters. The basic premise is that doing things now can make […]

SAN FRANCISCO—There is a specter of nation-state cyber-attacks against the United States, but with the right preparations, there is little to fear, according to former National Security Agency Director General Keith Alexander and Nadav Zafrir, former commander of Israel’s 8200 Intelligence Unit (Israel’s equivalent of the NSA). Alexander and Zafrir took part in a session […]

8 Security Products That Made News at RSA Conference 2018 The annual RSA Conference in San Francisco filled the North, South and West buildings of the Moscone Center from April 16-20. While keynotes and sessions are a large part of the conference, so too are product announcements. And with such a large event, there was […]

SAN FRANCISCO—There has been a prevailing notion in the cyber-security industry that attackers have the advantage. According to Tom Corn, senior vice president and general manager of security products at VMware, that doesn’t have to be the case. Corn detailed his view in a session at the RSA Conference here this week and provided more […]

SAN FRANCISCO—The importance of doing cyber-security due diligence prior to acquiring a company is something that security vendor Avast learned the hard way. In September 2017 the CCleaner tool that is widely used by consumers was found to have been injected with malware by hackers. The malware discovery came months after Avast acquired Pirifom, the […]

SAN FRANCISCO—How do you do security incident investigations at the world’s largest security conference? While there are many vendor solutions to conduct security investigations, the conference itself operates a Security Operations Center (SOC) that can track potential security incidents and helps to protect the conference network from cyber-attacks. In a video interview with eWEEK, Jessica […]

SAN FRANCISCO—Apple quietly patched a vulnerability in iOS 11 in 2017 that was discovered by Symantec but was not publicly discussed until April 18. At the 2018 RSA Conference here, Adi Sharabani, senior vice president of Modern OS Security at Symantec, detailed the vulnerability, dubbed trustjacking, which potentially could have enabled an attacker to take […]

SAN FRANCISCO—Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen warned Nation-state adversaries not to launch cyber-attacks against the U.S, during her keynote address on April 17 at the RSA Conference here. Nielsen’s asserted several times during her keynote that cyber-security isn’t just a concern for individual and enterprises, it’s a national imperative. She stressed that in […]

SAN FRANCISCO—There is a constant drumbeat of negative news in the cyber-security industry, but there is room for some positive messages as well, according to RSA Security President Rohit Ghai. Ghai kicked off the 2018 RSA Conference here on April 16 with a keynote address in which he detailed cyber-security silver linings. “Cyber-security is getting […]

After months of development effort, Kubernetes is now fully supported in the stable release of the Docker Enterprise Edition. Docker Inc. officially announced Docker EE 2.0 on April 17, adding features that have been in development in the Docker Community Edition (CE) as well as enhanced enterprise grade capabilities. Docker first announced its intention to […]

While breaches continue to be a risk for organizations of all sizes, there is reason for optimism, according to Accenture’s 2018 State of Cyber Resilience report released on April 16. Accenture Security surveyed 4,600 executives from large organizations around the world to gauge that state of cyber-security attacks and readiness and found that the volume […]

2.6 Billion Data Records Compromised in 2017, Gemalto Reports Gemalto released on April 11 its latest Breach Level Index report, revealing that at least 2.6 billion data records were breached or compromised in 2017. The actual number of compromised records, however, could well be higher as Gemalto reported that in 55.9 percent of the data […]