Category: News

The attack began at 11:20am GMT Tuesday, shutting down the company’s main [url=http://www.sco.com]www.sco.com[/url] website, according to company spokesman Blake Stowell. SCO has raised the ire of the open-source community by claiming that the Linux operating system contains software that violates SCO’s intellectual property.

More info: [url=http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=127156&liFlavourID=1&sp=1]http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=127156&liFlavourID=1&sp=1[/url]

At InfoSecurity 2003, a conference and expo targeting enterprise security that opened Monday in New York City and wraps up Thursday, a slew of security providers rolled out a solid slate of creative new wares.

Network Intelligence released the newest version of its security event management (SEM) software, enVision 2.001. The new software, which is integrated into Network Intelligence’s own line of security appliances, sports additional device support, improved analysis of security events — it can handle as many as 50,000 sustained events per second, according to Network Intelligence — and a new method of calculating the severity of events based on Homeland Security’s severity levels.

Cryptolog launched Unicity, a software-only solution that deploys digital certificates to end users based on ‘zero knowledge’ authentication and virtual smart cards.

Unicity uses the technique to issue digital certificates — used to authenticate users for financial transactions, to access protected documents, and to encrypt and sign e-mail messages — without the need for cumbersome hardware, said Cryptolog.

OpenService used InfoSecurity to unveil Security Threat Manager 2.0, the latest edition of its real-time threat assessor and security monitor.

New to STM 2.0 are improvements to its reporting skills — it now links detected threats to the lines of business they target, giving administrators a clearer picture of what’s actually under attack — topology visualizations that provide a graphical view of threat activity and allow IT staff to ‘drill down’ into the attack.

NeoScale Systems announced the impending release of CryptoStor for Tape 1.2, a high-speed tape protection appliance that compresses, encrypts, and digitally signs data as it’s recorded on physical or virtual tape libraries.

New to 1.2 is support for IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, adding to existing support for backup apps from Veritas, Legato, Hewlett-Packard, and Computer Associates.

Based on a client/server architecture, Global Command Center lets administrators access, share, and synchronize firewall configurations across the enterprise; create and enforce firewall and VPN policies; and monitor and control firewall activity from a central location.

More info: [url=http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20031210S0005]http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20031210S0005[/url]

It’s not an easy trek, becoming a security manager. But of all the possible security executive jobs out there, none is probably as challenging as the public-sector job.

The government CSO most likely has climbed his career mountain without a Sherpa or a harness to catch him if he falls. For starters, cultural and situational issues unique to government jobs make for a particularly tough journey for the government CSO. In the US Office of Management and Budget’s 2001 Government Information Security Reform Act report to Congress, for example, six IT security weaknesses in government were identified. They included a lack of attention to IT security by senior management and nonexistent IT security performance measures. In addition, the report cited poor security education and awareness, a lack of fully funded and integrated security, a failure to ensure that contractor services are adequately secure, and a problem with detecting, reporting and sharing information on vulnerabilities.

Although those weaknesses exist outside the public sector, they are exacerbated in government agencies where procedural problems and incompetent management can inflate them. Government security officers have less control than their civilian counterparts.

While industry executives are constrained by their budgets, government employees have to buy goods and services from a government-approved list, and they are bureaucratically hampered in their hiring. In the private sector, CSOs answer solely to the executive team. Public-sector CSOs have lists of executives they report to.

More info: [url=http://www.cio.com.au/index.php?id=1487268597&fp=16&fpid=0]http://www.cio.com.au/index.php?id=1487268597&fp=16&fpid=0[/url]

On Monday, Microsoft posted a new note to its Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) community site, stating that the company is now planning to ax certain products from all Microsoft sales channels starting December 23.

MSDN Subscriber Downloads program manager Andy Boyd had posted a note on December 4 stating that Microsoft intended to remove Windows 98, SQL Server 7 and a number of versions of Office 2000 from MSDN downloads and all other Microsoft sales channels.

The December 8 note explains that Microsoft intends to ax the NT 4.0 Terminal Server and Option Pack releases only.

More info: [url=http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,1407759,00.asp]http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,1407759,00.asp[/url]

Congress on Monday approved the first national effort to stem a flood of unwanted E-mail pitches offering prescription drugs, cheap loans, and other come-ons.

The House voted without dissent to approve slight changes Senate lawmakers made to the “can spam” legislation, which would outlaw the shadiest techniques used by the Internet’s most prolific E-mailers, who send tens of millions of messages each day. The last such major legislation was a 1998 law banning Web sites from collecting personal information from children under 13.

The anti-spam bill encourages the Federal Trade Commission to create a do-not-spam list of E-mail addresses and includes penalties for spammers of up to five years in prison in rare circumstances.

More info: [url=http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=16600425]http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=16600425[/url]

The working groups have pledged to release white papers by 1 March, 2004, that outline their recommendations for securing businesses and consumers and creating more secure software.

Critics have snubbed the United States’ cybersecurity policy — the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace — as largely voluntary and lacking regulatory prescriptions.

The four organisations that sponsored the Summit were the Business Software Alliance, the Information Technology Association of America, the TechNet lobbying group and the US Chamber of Commerce.

Security experts formed five groups to focus on specific problem areas: creating awareness in home computer users and small businesses; establishing a cybersecurity early warning system; making information security part of corporate governance; advocating technical best practices for security; and pushing security improvements into the software development process.

Despite the pressure to deliver, reigning in the groups to focus on concrete ideas that could be implemented quickly was a task, Oracle’s Davidson said.

More info: [url=http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/0,39020645,39118329,00.htm]http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/0,39020645,39118329,00.htm[/url]