Security
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Your World. . . Hacked 02/10/2007 10:51:23
As your business becomes more collaborative and global, the risks to your company’s trade secrets rise proportionally. Fortunately, there are new strategies to protect the data that allows you to competeThe call to Bob Bailey, an IT executive with a major US government contractor, came on an otherwise ordinary day in October 2003. "Why are you attacking us?" demanded the caller, an IT leader with a Silicon Valley manufacturer. He wanted to know why Bailey's company had launched a denial-of-service attack against his network - +
Facing the Heat 06/08/2007 13:26:55
Chances are that a good portion of an organization’s environmental footprint, however small it may be, comes from ITAs a matter of personal belief, any CIO is free to count themselves among the tiny and diminishing band of troglodytes that would continue to deny the reality of human-induced climate change until the polar ice caps disappeared and the landscape was reduced to dust. - +
The Declaration of Interdependence 03/09/2007 15:02:56
The world has changed. You can’t deny employees the freedom to use consumer applications at work. Here’s how to live with and profit from themDigital cameras didn't creep up on the Drees company as much as they pounced. Five years ago a lot of employees at the $US1.1 billion real estate company weren't even using computers. Today, those same employees are responsible for one of the company's more innovative uses of technology
A Danish security vendor is offering a free tool designed to inform users when their applications need patching.
Secunia released the beta version of Personal Software Inspector for download, a client program that periodically checks to see if new updates have been issued for some 4,200 applications.
After installation, the tool inventories a computer's software and versions. It classifies programs as "insecure," "end-of-life" or "up-to-date." The tool then runs when the computer is started.
When a patch is issued for a program on a user's computer, the tool displays a pop-up window in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, said Thomas Kristensen, Secunia's chief technology officer. Another panel provides a download link for the patch.
Personal Software Inspector is intended to get users to apply patches soon after release, as hackers increasingly are trying to exploit vulnerabilities in a wider range of applications. Users may also be uninformed about a new patch, Secunia said.
Some software programs, such as Apple's QuickTime and the Firefox browser, will check on startup to see if patches are available and download and install those patches. But Kristensen said not all programs do this, and sometimes those mechanisms don't work properly.
"I'll argue we are more reliable than other update mechanisms," Kristensen said.
Other products, such as VersionTracker, will notify users when a new software version is available. But Kristensen said Secunia's software and service is focused on security, rather than merely alerting users when any new software version is released.
Secunia monitors the Web sites of a large number of software vendors for security advisories. Those advisories are put into a database, and the Personal Software Inspector polls the database periodically to check for changes, Kristensen said.
Secunia is licensing Personal Software Inspector to other vendors for use in security software suites. Two deals have been made so far, but Kristensen said he could not yet reveal the companies.
Computerworld Member Login
Beyond Virtualisation - The Roadmap to 2012
CIO Breakfast Briefing
8:30am - 10:30am
Brisbane | 22 July | Sofitel Brisbane
Sydney | 23 July | Four Seasons Hotel
Canberra | 24 July | The Hyatt
Attend and discover:
- What happens after virtualisation
- The benefits automation drives
- When automated infrastructures will emerge
- What the roadmap to 2012 looks like
- How to deliver an automated architecture
- How to maximise your investment in virtualisation
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Computerworld Live Podcast #96: Security at the Edge 11/06/2008 09:22:22
CW Live speaks with Amol Mitra, HP ProCurve Director of Marketing for Asia Pacific and Japan. Today's topic: how enterprises are starting to shift away from simply controlling security via server logins, firewalls and moving to more adaptive security frameworks. - +
Data Management Edition #10: Multi-Petascale Systems 02/05/2008 09:12:33
This week we look at sustainability and the development of multicore technologies to build multi-petascale systems. - +
IT Security Edition #11: How to poison the Storm botnet 01/05/2008 08:51:55
This week CW Live presents a case study on how to poison the notorious Storm botnet . Plus we take a look at Cisco's plans for Ironport. - +
IT Security Edition #10: Cyber-battles fought and won 24/04/2008 11:09:47
Vendors bow to end user pressure to improve product security, and we take a look at the latest concepts shaping the cyber-battlefield of the future. - +
Data Management Edition #9: Data centre makeover 24/04/2008 07:43:06
This week CW Live looks at the death of the old style data centre which is undergoing its first makeover in more than 30 years.
Ballarat Grammar Improves Student Access to Computer Based Learning with HP ProCurve 2008-07-04 16:49:00+10
Media release: 40 Per Cent of Australian Businesses Do Not Validate Their Data 2008-07-04 10:29:00+10
Kaseya helps turbo charge BlueFire’s service delivery model 2008-07-03 17:23:00+10
Computershare Selects Symantec for Data Loss Prevention Globally 2008-07-03 14:52:00+10
DST International moves to new Shanghai office 2008-07-03 13:21:00+10
Application Modernization: Preserving Your Organization’s DNA
Modernization has once again attained buzz-word status. But like any other term with billions of dollars swimming around it, modernization has taken on some unexpected connotations. Read on to discover how to embrace modernization in your organization successfully.








