Cisco has 14k BYOD iPads, says Android malware is not a big threat – BYOD, android malware, cisco, i

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In 2012, Cisco added 11,000 smartphones and tablets companywide and has nearing an equal ratio of mobile devices to staff. “At the end of 2012, there were nearly 60,000 smartphones and tablets in use in the organisation—including just under 14,000 iPads—and all of them were Bring Your Own (BYO).” Cisco execs have been giving regular updates about its BYOD program in recent times, no doubt because it sells UTM appliances, identity management and other services against the trend.

SAP/Sybase blogger Eric Lai, who has been tracking large iPad deployments, noted from a conference in early May last year that Cisco had 21,000 iPhones, 8,144 iPads and 2,000 Cius tablets (it killed the device later that month). Outside a 5,000 device BYOD program, SAP offers staff a range of 10 smart devices and under that program manages 20,000 iPads, 20,000 iPhones, 4,000 Samsung Android devices, and a smaller number of BlackBerry and Windows Phone devices.

Link: http://www.cso.com.au/article/452398/cisco_has_14k_byod_ipads_says_android_malware_big_threat/

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Governance Must Drive All Security Initiatives… Even Cloud

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It is up to the CIO or CSO’s due diligence to understand all the implications on how the deployment will affect the holistic enterprise.

“When cloud computing is treated as a governance initiative, with broad stakeholder engagement and well-planned risk management activities, it can bring tremendous value to an enterprise,” said Emil D’Angelo, CISA, CISM, international president of ISACA and founding member of the Cloud Security Alliance.

When due diligence is done, a CIO will have a clear idea of an initiative’s risk versus return and whether a cloud security deployment meets the individual requirements of the company.

For example, seeing who has accessed a certain application gives you historical perspective, but, what if it is a retired account or tries using a decommissioned password? … Or if a partner accesses certain parts of your database to which they are entitled, but quadruples their order in the dead of night to be shipped to Phnom Penh? … There are literally thousands of scenarios by which leveraging the cooperative functionality of IDM, AM, SIEM and Log Management creates not only the holistic visibility to drive governance policies, but offers significant barriers to keep the IT enterprise safer.

The challenge facing most security teams, therefore, is to provide line-of-business users with the access they need while ensuring that the access is appropriate and does not expose the enterprise to unnecessary business risk. But first you must ensure visibility–and when you know where all your data is and all the multiple ways that it is available, then you can best manage the policies, roles, and security functions that best connects your requirements.

Link: http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/2527026

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Cross-site scripting attacks up 160%

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Hackers will rapidly go after these high value targets with attacks that are highly automated and, if they are not yielding useful payloads, the attackers are equipped to quickly try a different type of attack. This is why it is important to have an understanding of the kind of traffic that is accessing your hosted infrastructure, so that you can make sure that malicious traffic is diverted and that there is less risk to sensitive data,” he added.

Throughout the whole year, FireHost has blocked over 64 million malicious cyberattacks of all types, with Cross-Site Scripting being the most prolific Superfecta attack type overall, clocking in at 5.4 million blocked attacks.

As in Q3 2012, Europe is still the second most likely origin point for malicious traffic blocked by FireHost after North America, being the source of 13 percent of attacks.

The risks to businesses from the Superfecta varies and depends upon the kind of data that could be stolen in the event of a successful attack, according to Todd Gleason, Director of Technology at FireHost, “Itʼs fairly obvious that, if you are retailer or service provider dealing with private customer data or payment card details, your business will present an attractive target for hackers.

Link: http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=14320

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Report: DDoS attacks harder to detect and defeat

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DDoS first reared its ugly head in the late 1990s and early 2000s as simple, financially-motivated, brute force attacks in which hackers would attempt to overwhelm network and data center operators with external communication requests, causing system overloads and crashes. Over the years, DDoS attacks have grown in sophistication and efficiency, moving from heavy-handed hardware overloads to application-layer attacks that could look like legitimate network traffic, making it much more difficult to detect and defeat the threat.

“What we’ve seen with the most recent attacks is that it isn’t about how big the attack is – because they weren’t the biggest attacks – it’s about how smart they are,” Moynahan said.

Adding to the challenge is the proliferation of “bring-your-own-device” (BYOD) business models in which companies encourage their employees to use their own smart phones, tablets, and other devices for work, giving hackers more entry points into networks.

To meet the new threats head on, Arbor is going beyond the conventional and increasingly outmoded method of using firewalls and other basic network protection methods that can eventually require too much bandwidth and infrastructure, compromising network availability. To provide its clients with end-to-end traffic visibility to monitor the DDoS threat landscape and minimize risk, Arbor employs a number of solutions, including a new cloud-based active threat level analysis system called ATLAS — a collaborative project in which Arbor clients share anonymous traffic data totaling almost 40 terabytes per second to spot malware and botnet threats across the Internet.

Link: http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/techflash/2013/01/report-ddos-attacks-harder-to-detect.html?ana=RSS&s=article_search&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bizj_boston+%28Boston+Business+Journal%29&page=all

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Cisco to buy Czech vendor Cognitive Security for real-time analytics | ITworld

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Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in Cisco’s third fiscal quarter, were not disclosed. Cognitive is privately held and based in Prague, Czech Republic, where it collaborates with researchers at Czech Technical University in a joint security research program.

In keeping with Cisco’s traditional architectural approach to networks, Cognitive’s capabilities will be built into what the company calls an “intelligent network.”

Cisco has said security is a major overarching element it wants to ensure across all five areas in which it is focused.

Link: http://www.itworld.com/networking/339094/cisco-buy-czech-vendor-cognitive-security-real-time-analytics

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Solera Networks Becomes Industry’s First Security Intelligence and Analytics Solution with Common Cr

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“Government entities holding a wealth of information crucial to the nation’s safety and security have become keenly aware of the critical need for best-of-breed and massively scalable Security Intelligence and Analytics capabilities to prepare for the inevitability of attacks and security breaches,” said Yiannis Vassiliades, VP of Product Management at Solera Networks.

Solera DeepSee delivers security intelligence and advanced threat protection through full network visibility, big data security analytics and comprehensive threat intelligence-essential components required by government agencies facing today’s volatile and constantly evolving threat landscape. … In addition to providing visibility of advanced threats and malware that fly under the radar of traditional security technologies, DeepSee allows organizations to respond to security incidents in real-time-further enabling them to replay and review attacks in full fidelity to answer critical post-breach questions, mitigate risk and further protect the organization from attack.

Link: http://bw.newsblaze.com/story/2013012906123900001.bw/topstory.html

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