Author: admini

Security Spending Shifts

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Merrill, however, paints a relatively rosy security picture, with execs predicting growth of 4.8 percent in their security spending this year. American CIOs, on the other hand, seem more willing to open their wallets than European execs, envisaging a 5 percent spending hike, compared to just 4.1 percent on the other side of the Atlantic.

But even with healthy security spending levels, there is a shift underway in what users are buying, according to Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst at IT-Harvest. “Probably the biggest shift has been toward compliance technologies for things like reporting, storing, and archiving,” explains Stiennon, with users still feeling the strain of legislation such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Yesterday, analyst firm Infonetics also reported that many users are looking deeper into network access and content security solutions, which is delaying some core security purchasing until later in 2006.

Users and analysts have identified uncertainty in the U.S. economic climate as a key factor in the overall spending slowdown. “The end of 2005 was slow, then it picked up in the spring, but now it has slowed down again,” explains Dan Tanner, a member of the Storage Networking User Group of New England (SNUGNE) and founder of consulting firm ProgresSmart.

http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=96276&WT.svl=news1_4

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Protecting the Wired from the Wireless

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“If you look at the problems people want to solve, where the most pain is, it revolves around locating and remediating rogue APs and peer connections on the network,” says Brian de Haaff, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing at Network Chemistry.

The company is also planning to release quarterly information called the Network Chemistry Wireless Threat Index, based on information gathered by its products and the Wireless Vulnerabilities & Exploits (WVE) database it launched last year to catalog potential attacks on WLANs. He says it will be the industry’s first ongoing index of enterprise WLAN threats.

http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3608381

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Vista hides from hackers

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Several open-source security systems use it already, including OpenBSD, and the PaX and Exec Shield patches for Linux.

Certain attacks attempt to call Windows system functions, such as the “socket()” function in “wsock32.dll,” to open a network socket.

Randomization seems to have served open-source systems fairly well, said Russ Cooper, senior scientist at Cybertrust, a security vendor in Herndon, Va. “I suspect this will be the first thing looked for–something which tells you which of the locations has been chosen, or anything that provides you with a pointer,” Cooper said. Attackers could also create malicious software that tries to poke at all 256 memory locations.

http://ct.zdnet.com/clicks?t=2480243-800b8f382c23b3407752a20ab3416b11-bf&s=5&fs=0

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Mobile Device Security IV: Today’s Top Three Vulnerabilities

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Access to Public Web/E-mail: Vulnerability #1
Over 90 percent of business executives who responded to Bluefire’s survey are using their device for email, either for a web-based account or for a corporate server-based account. An attack can be anything from a hacker at Starbucks who is accessing the data on someone else’s device, to someone using Bluetooth to steal personal information from another person’s handheld. “Trojans” can be defined by something posing as something other than itself. For example, a “Trojan” can be an application that can open a port that should not be opened, allowing outsiders access to the device. Firewalls set rules for the device that designate which ports are allowing traffic into the device. A firewall can keep certain attacks out by blocking the ports that would allow those viruses in. Using Bluetooth requires the devices to be within 30 feet of each other while IR control requires the devices to point at each other from closer than 30 feet.

Some mobile security software controls can be used to keep wireless connections turned off. While most device owners are not using IPSec VPNs for personal communications, they should at least insist on secure web-based connections using SSL encrypted communications. Integrity Manager is an application that monitors the settings on each device and will quarantine the device if the settings change. Anti-virus with automatic updates also keeps your smartphone protected by providing an up to date list of all known viruses from which the software can scrub emails and attachments, just like on your notebook or desktop.

Access to Corporate Email, Networks, Databases: Vulnerability #2
Smartphones and wireless devices are often used to gain access to the enterprise server for e-mail, shared files, and shared databases. Yet as with other wireless networking options, this also leaves the device open to attacks, viruses, or “Trojans”, and ultimately makes the network vulnerable as an unsecured device connecting to a secure server makes that connection unsecured.

Mobile Security Solution: Vulnerability #3
Mobile security features for protecting lost or stolen devices. Bluefire has seen an increasing number of government and enterprise customers requesting that Bluetooth and IR be temporarily or permanently blocked from use. If a device is lost or stolen, the private information becomes open and accessible.

http://www.blackberrytoday.com/articles/2006/6/2006-6-1-Mobile-Device-Security.html

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Enterprises Should Ditch Skype: Gartner

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“In contrast, Microsoft immediately restricted access to its MSN Messenger instant messaging (IM) service in 2005 when it discovered a vulnerability in its IM client. Only users with an updated and nonvulnerable [sic] client were allowed to access the service, which meant Microsoft essentially performed the vulnerability management process on behalf of businesses. Skype provides no such protection,” Orans added.

Although Gartner has previously recommended that enterprises stay away from Skype, Orans repeated the advice in his note. “The most secure option is to block Skype traffic completely,” he said. “However, if after weighing the risks, a business decides to allow Skype use, it should actively manage version control of Skype client — and its distribution to authorized users — using configuration management tools.”

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=HCZC5RR34UIFSQSNDBCSKH0CJUMEKJVN?articleID=188700351

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