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Almost 65 percent of respondents to the survey indicated they have an endpoint security solution in place.

Allan Carey, program manager of security and business continuity services at IDC, said survey participants’ definitions of endpoint security ranged from secure devices to firewalls and security policies. “One of the most surprising findings was the amount of confusion over what endpoint security means,” Carey told internetnews.com. “Depending on their perspective, IT or business, endpoint security took on different flavors of how to control the issue.”

“IDC defines endpoint security as centrally managed client security and likened it to a 21st century digitized watchdog protecting users from “a cesspool squirming with destructive technological deviants.”

But security vendor Check Point, which owns personal firewall application vendor Zone Labs, has a related but somewhat different definition. Rich Weiss, Check Point director of endpoint product marketing, explained that the term “endpoint security” means centrally managed personal firewall-based security and that it was popularized by Zone Labs in 2001.

“More recently, the term has become so popular that others are putting their own spin on it, and some organizations such as IDC include anti-virus in the definition,” Weiss told internetnews.com. “However, we believe that personal firewall-based security and anti-virus are still distinct markets. The original definition of endpoint security created by Zone Labs is still valid.”

Network risks have changed since 2001, though, and Check Point has expanded its definition.

“To meet the definition of a complete endpoint security solution today, a product must have a mature, proven network access control capability,” Weiss said. “Considering that the penetration of antivirus in enterprises is virtually 100 percent, IDC’s numbers make sense if you mix them with pure endpoint security adoption rates,” Weiss explained.

“We agree that anti-virus is effective at addressing threats that have been in the wild for a while. Organizations voiced their concern for point products trying to solve the problem, when a more comprehensive solution is required consisting of processes, policies and end-user awareness, in addition to technology,” IDC’s Carey said.

http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3519791

“A couple of years ago Linux was without doubt more secure than Windows, but things have changed a lot,” said Titterington. “My hunch would be that Linux still has the edge but it’s difficult to tell with all this misleading information being pumped out. Just doing a head count of vulnerabilities is useless, for example, if you’re not grading the seriousness of the vulnerabilities.”

He added that Microsoft had made real progress on security in the past two years, but that the increasing number of Linux enthusiasts coming into the market would help the open source alternative in the long run.

John Engates, chief technology officer at managed hosting company Rackspace, which offers both Linux and Windows hosted servers, said: “If you think about where you get Linux talent it’s in the younger generation. Linux has a slight advantage in that computer science students are learning it, but Microsoft has made life easier for non-techies, particularly with its improved patches.” Engates added that his company manages 13,000 servers, roughly half of which are open source and half Microsoft. He claims to see little difference between the security on either platform.

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2139790/surveys-useless-security

The Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) specification is the combination of two related, competing, technologies: Yahoo’s Domain Keys and Cisco’s Identified Internet Mail (IIM).

While the two technologies are similar in concept in that they both use signature-based public key technology to authenticate e-mails, they had some hurdles to overcome before they could be merged.

Talks to get the specification approved as an Internet standard stalled last year in a working group following concerns over Microsoft’s licensing of the technology and the patents found in the technology.

Both Yahoo and Cisco had intellectual property rights attached to their individual technologies, though officials were unavailable at press time to say whether they remain in the combined technology.

It’s also uncertain what type of license will be attached to the technology, though Crocker said Yahoo has been working to make sure the license is compatible with the open source community.

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3519066