Stories about: Google

There were 6 a.m. calls from Finnish certificate authorities and also some pretty harsh words from his peers in the security community, even an accidentally leaked Black Hat presentation, but after managing the response to one of the most highly publicized Internet flaws in recent memory, Dan Kaminsky said Wednesday that he'd do it all over again.

Malware threats on the Web grew at an exponential rate over the first half of 2008, security experts say.

The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) in the US has turned the tables on Google by using the company's controversial Street View technology along with Google Earth to compile and make public a detailed dossier on a "top Google executive".

CAPTCHA used to be an easy and useful way for Web administrators to authenticate users. Now it's an easy and useful way for malware authors and spammers to do their dirty work.

For those of us who make our living behind a keyboard in IT, it's hard to imagine a more time-tested vulnerability than the end-user. Armed with network access, these IT viruses wreak havoc nearly everywhere you look -- havoc borne of tech idiocy.

A less known part of the recent ARP attack against H D Moore's MetaSploit site was an attempted Denial of Service attack that coincided with the successful ARP attack.

Two years ago, GreenBorder, one of the early "sandbox" browsers, received mighty applause from Wall Street Journal tech guru Walt Mossberg. The sandbox browser -- basically, a browser running in a virtual container -- promised to keep nasty code from spilling into a computer's operating system and wreaking havoc.

Security issues often seem to smolder more than burn, but these six are certainly capable of lighting a fire under IT professionals at a moment's notice. Handle with care.

In January, Kevin Kelly wrote an essay entitled "Better Than Free" that explained which concepts held value on the Internet. This generated a lot of interest, mostly around the question of how best to make money out of these concepts. As a career security guy, I found myself wondering how on earth my field will respond -- how does security need to adapt to support business models based on these values? When we're used to locking everything down, how do we respond when people start calling for openness?

To use an Internet-connected computer is to be insecure and place your privacy in danger. Spyware, viruses, Trojans and assorted malware are everywhere on the Net, trying to hop onto your PC and cause damage. Snoopers want to get at your personal information for nefarious purposes, such as identity theft.

The Department of Defence has chimed in on the network security debate, stating organizations need to be more proactive if they expect to ward off attackers that readily exploit the high levels of trust usually reserved for employees and known systems.