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Encryption Promises Unbreakable Codes

Posted on November 16, 2003December 30, 2021 by admini

This month, a small startup called MagiQ Technologies Inc. began selling what appears to be the first commercially available system that uses individual photons to transfer the numeric keys that are widely used to encode and read secret documents.

Photons, discrete particles of energy, are so sensitive that if anyone tries to spy on their travel from one point to another, their behavior will change, tipping off the sender and recipient and invalidating the stolen code.

“There are really no ways (of) cracking this code,” said Lov Grover, a quantum computing researcher at Bell Laboratories who is not involved with MagiQ.

Called Navajo – a nod to the American Indian code specialists of World War II – MagiQ’s system consists of 19-inch black boxes that generate and read the signals over a fiber-optic line.

MagiQ (pronounced “magic,” with the “Q” for “quantum”) expects that with a cost of $50,000 to $100,000, Navajo will appeal to banks, insurers, government agencies, pharmaceutical companies and other organizations that transmit sensitive information.

More info: [url=http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/7277751.htm]http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/7277751.htm[/url]

Address proper facilities in your disaster recovery plan

Posted on November 16, 2003December 30, 2021 by admini

To secure the appropriate space, you’ll need to work closely with the people who are responsible for facilities management in your organization. As long as the locations are well outside the line-of-sight horizon, you can shore up these facilities with extra power and air conditioning, allowing them to find new life as backup data centers.

Or look for new facilities that your company has acquired as a result of mergers or takeovers to house the data centers for DR operations. In many cases, you can find floor space already configured to run data operations, since the acquired company most likely has data centers for its operations that won’t be necessary after the merger is complete.

You can also obtain dedicated space in a colocation facility, along with space to house vital employees during an emergency. The downside is that your company may share this reserve space with multiple companies, operating under the idea that only one of the companies will fail over at any give time.

If the first two options aren’t viable, consider working with another company to share data center space so that both organizations have a location for failover.

No matter how you secure space to house your DR failover, it’s a necessary step in your business continuity planning process.

More info: [url=http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/Address_proper_facilities_in_your_disaster_recovery_plan.html?tag=tu.scblog.6673]http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/Address_proper_facilities_in_your_disaster_recovery_plan.html?tag=tu.scblog.6673[/url]

Wireless hacking bust in Michigan

Posted on November 13, 2003December 30, 2021 by admini

The intruders deployed unspecified hacking software at some of the stores, in once case crashing the point of sale terminals at a Lowe’s in Long Beach, California, according to the affidavit.

At some point, Lowe’s network administrators and security personnel detected and began monitoring the intrusions, and called in the FBI.

Last Friday evening a Bureau surveillance team staked out the Southfield Lowe’s parking lot, and spotted a white Grand Prix with suspicious antennas and two young men sitting inside.

Loveless says he’s noticed that at least some Lowe’s stores don’t take the basic precaution of turning on wi-fi’s standard encryption — called WEP — to declare their network off limits.

More info: [url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/69/33959.html]http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/69/33959.html[/url]

Risky business to top 2004 IT spending

Posted on November 11, 2003December 30, 2021 by admini

North American IT budgets are expected to increase to $729.2 billion next year, up 1.7 percent from the level anticipated for this year, according to a survey of more than Get Up to Speed on…

Forrester itself says budgets could grow as much as 4 percent, as IT spending catches up with the economy. “More firms are saying they expect their budgets to increase over last year.

More than half the companies surveyed listed risk management initiatives as their top priority for next year.

Companies are also interested in upgrading their PCs next year, with 27 percent of those surveyed saying they expect to spend more–an improvement from 24 percent anticipated for this year.

And the percentage of IT buyers who expect to spend less in 2004 declined to 24 percent, compared with 27 percent for this year.

Software licensing and development, meanwhile, will be a more challenging environment. The percentage of those anticipating a 2004 spending increase in those areas fell to 30 percent, compared with 35 percent for this year.

Although most companies are anticipating upgrades or a major applications deployment next year, any rollouts will likely span a long period of time, resulting in a decline in anticipated applications budgets next year, Pohlmann said.

More info: [url=http://news.com.com/2100-7355-5105143.html?tag=guts_lh_7355]http://news.com.com/2100-7355-5105143.html?tag=guts_lh_7355[/url]

Expert: Various flavors of firewalls are evolving

Posted on November 11, 2003December 30, 2021 by admini

Firewall are seem as an essential part of an overall security strategy. The only other technology or security strategy that was seen to have greater promise was disaster recovery.

“Firewalls are rapidly evolving in their roles, and the boundary between firewalls and other infrastructure elements is becoming blurry,” said Fred Cohen, an information security luminary and an analyst with the Burton Group. For example, special firewalls are needed to screen XML transmissions, which can sail through most firewalls.

No one would argue that a modern company with a network doesn’t need a firewall at the gateway, but there are some differences of opinion over whether personal firewalls are needed.

Cohen does recommend personal firewalls for users who access a network remotely with laptops.

The specialization of firewalls means there will be tradeoffs, Cohen said. There is the tension between the idea of a distributed approach and the idea of a centralized one. “The lack of a clear picture [integrating] intrusion detection, special-purpose filtering devices and other services into infrastructure makes many enterprises hesitant to adopt integrated firewall solutions until the market clarifies,” Cohen said.

More info: [url=http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid14_gci936078,00.html]http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid14_gci936078,00.html[/url]

‘Cyber terrorism’: Don’t believe the hype says Gartner

Posted on November 11, 2003December 30, 2021 by admini

The comments came during a media round-table session at the Gartner Symposium and IT Expo, which began today in Sydney, Australia.

The director, Rich Mogull, told journalists that despite the incidence of high profile digital attacks, cyber terrorism is a phenomenon that has never occurred.

Even though there were examples of attacks that have physical consequences – they could not be described as terrorist acts, Mogull explained.

Mogull maintains the argument is largely academic – it doesn’t matter who’s attacking an organisation, it should be doing the best it can to protect itself in the first place, whether attacks are coming from criminals or “cyber terrorists”.

Let’s look at protecting ourselves by closing the vulnerabilities we know exist, and protecting ourselves from the attacks that we know exist,” he said.

More info: [url=http://www.silicon.com/management/government/0,39024677,39116842,00.htm?foo=’Cyber%20terrorism’:%20Don’t%20believe%20the%20hype%20says%20Gartner%2011–11]http://www.silicon.com/management/government/0,39024677,39116842,00.htm?foo=’Cyber%20terrorism’:%20Don’t%20believe%20the%20hype%20says%20Gartner%2011–11[/url]