JP Morgan, Home Depot,Target, Kaiser Health,Adobe All Big Data Breaches
My day job is a partner of GFI Software, Each day I speak to IT admins form very small to very large companies in North America, My focus is on Patch Management, Network Vulnerability Scanning,Windows Event Log Management, Securing network endpoints, W3C log management, as well as web security and email security.
Once upon a time, attacks on computers and networks were relatively simple. Our primary worry was viruses and their variants – worms, Trojans, rootkits. Their authors set out with malicious intent, to create software that can cause harm by shutting down a system or an entire network, destroying data and/or programs, or collect information and send it back to the attackers.
Jenny Duncan on March 19, 2014
When you started out in IT, did you really want to spend all
your life applying patches to PCs and checking if the antivirus product installed is up to date and working properly? Let’s be honest, these tasks get a little repetitive and monotonous, but if you drop the ball with either of these jobs, your IT department (and you) could end up in hot water. Taking shortcuts on patching and antivirus should never be an option.
It is not the first time that online pornography has stirred controversy in the UK. The recent government’s decision to automatically opt-in home users to online
adult websites was quite controversial with many people saying that it is not up to the government to decide what websites people can visit at home. It’s funny how, within only a matter of few weeks, official figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show that there have been thousands of blocked attempts to access pornographic websites. The official version is that users typically end up on these websites accidentally, they come up as pop-ups from other websites and that automatically refreshing websites will generate more hits per user – a feeble attempt to wipe egg off their face.
It’s difficult to pass judgement on this issue. My view is that when someone is in their office, bored or tired after a long day, and having ‘exhausted’ their energy on Facebook, they might think that a quick peek at a ‘naughty’ website will not harm anyone? It’s also fair to say that most users probably already know that a web filtering solution is in place, and that their internet activity is monitored, so most of these are more likely than not deliberate attempts to access blocked online material. A user might come across an adult website while researching other topics, but the sheer number of attempts detailed in the statistics simply does not add up to this conclusion. When a specific website is visited, then it indicates intent to do so; however that’s up to the reader to judge
The “do it yourself” craze is big, and there’s a good 
reason for that. You can learn a lot, save money, and ensure that things get done your way. But there’s a down side, as well. The success (or not) of DIY depends on both the nature of the project itself and on the person(s) doing it. While DIY might be a great choice for minor home improvement projects such as putting up wallpaper or laying tile, it can turn into a disaster – or even turn deadly – when amateurs decide to tackle electrical work or knock down structural walls. And painting a mural on your wall might turn out great for a do-it-yourselfer with some artistic talent, whereas it might not end up so well for someone who has never had an aptitude for art.
The Syrian Electronic Army, a hacking collective
which seems to be pro-Syrian government, has been on a Twitter hacking roll lately. They’ve managed to compromise the accounts of many major news outlets, notably the Twitter account of the Associated Press, the Guardian, E! The compromised accounts were then used to spread pro-Syrian government messages and even fake news – news which led to a temporary dip in the Dow Jones and huge $136 billion in value. The latest victim of this hacking spree has been the satirical news website “The Onion”. After taking these attacks with a pinch of salt and posting several satirical articles, The Onion has posted an article detailing how this was done.
While faxing may be viewed as legacy technology, it’s far from that. Faxing has moved on along with the rest of the world to become a fast, efficient method of communication. In many countries, it is still the only method of electronic communication that is legally binding and it is the only way of sending compliant documents…
Google sounded the death knell of Postini when it
started releasing similar features natively within Google Apps. Now Google has announced the end of Postini. This has presented a very real problem for 26 million Postini users – who can either pay more in the long run and use Google Apps, or move to another service to get what they need and avoiding paying for what they don’t.
While cloud-based email protection has brought many advantages to business, migrating from one provider to another can pose challenges. The Google product forums about the difference in services offered by Google may well be cause for concern for current customers.
Some of my younger friends may not have ever
encountered an old-fashioned fax machine, but I remember them well. There was a time when it seemed nothing short of a miracle to feed a document into it and have someone hundreds of miles away instantly receive it – or at least, a reasonable facsimile of it. It was almost as if the Star Trek transporter had come to life.
Yes, we were easily impressed in the olden days. Now many of us don’t even have traditional telephone lines, much less fax machines hooked up to them. The world has moved on, and the Internet is the method of choice for all types of communications. The post office is dying, landlines are disappearing and the once ever-present fax machine is found in fewer and fewer homes and offices.
