Security Monitoring

Visitors to the Association of Tennis Professionals Web site have potentially been infected with spyware after apparent lax security allowed a malicious script to be injected across its pages.

Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard on Tuesday unveiled free tools to help Web developers and site administrators defend against the rapidly growing number of SQL injection attacks that aim to hijack legitimate sites.

Mozilla's big plan on Tuesday to set a world record for downloads with the Firefox 3 browser hit a snag when its Web site would not work properly.

Australia has the highest incidence of cyber crime in the world, according to a global survey of nine countries by software security vendor, AVG.

The Web sites of three of the security industry's best-known companies include security flaws that could be used to launch scams against customers, according to a new report.

The Web site for the Phoenix Mars Mission, NASA's most recent arrival on the Red Planet, was hacked over the weekend by a Turkish crew, according to a defacement database.

A security researcher has developed malicious rootkit software for Cisco Systems' routers, a development that has placed increasing scrutiny on the routers that carry the majority of the Internet's traffic.

A group of US Marines hunker down beside a building, enemy fire coming at them from somewhere up ahead. One soldier reaches into his pack and pulls out a few robots that look like large bugs. The bots fly down the street, sending back images that show where the enemy troops are hiding, how many there are and what weapons they're using.

The troubled radio network used by the Tasmanian Police will finally be upgraded, following a $13 million contract with former operator Ericsson.

The PCI Security Standards Council, which establishes requirements for the payment-card industry, Tuesday formally launched its payment-application security program.

Security vendor PC Tools has questioned the usefulness of the threat lists used by many security companies to warn of current malware attacks.

Oracle released 41 security fixes for its flagship database and several other products Tuesday, including 15 patches for vulnerabilities that can be exploited remotely without a username or password.

Symantec's malware tally topped 1 million for the first time in the second half of 2007 as the number of new malicious code threats skyrocketed, the company said in its semiannual report on the state of security.

After enduring withering criticism late last year for the lack of adequate privacy controls in its Beacon advertising system, Facebook garnered positive reviews Wednesday for new controls that let users more strictly monitor who can access the content they create on the site.

A fresh discovery by security vendor Finjan provides yet another example of how easy it is becoming for almost anyone to find the tools needed to break into, infect or steal data from corporate Web sites.

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.

Today's CISO plays a pivotal role not only in defining technical standards and security policies, but also in assuring customers of the security of their data and validating security controls to regulators. Many are struggling with this transition because they have been given these responsibilities without any real authority or visibility within their organizations. They also need a new set of skills to successfully fulfill their responsibilities.

Vendors of data leakage prevention (DLP) systems claim that customers will avoid integration issues by using packaged tools that encompass all the different elements of the technology, but some early adopters of DLP are already running into serious problems.

Spoofers, spammers and phishers, beware. There's a new gun in town, and some of the Internet's most powerful companies -- including Yahoo, Google, PayPal and AOL -- are brandishing it in the ongoing battle against e-mail fraud.

SIM (security information management) products have become more accepted as critical components within the network security infrastructure. As such, understanding the criteria for selecting SIMs has become more important. Moreover, in a fast-evolving market segment [SIM becomes SEM (security event manager), becomes SI/EM, becomes ...], it's more important to understand the important architectural differences and implementation requirements than the industry acronyms and product names. A wave of consolidation has already begun to hit the SIM market, but the major issues and deployment criteria span brands and individual technologies.

Companies that specialize in helping businesses speed delivery of their applications and Web content are increasingly involving themselves in IT security as the continued proliferation of systems-defense technologies has become a potential roadblock to the performance and quality of the services they already provide.

Drowning in signature libraries and reactive event information that is of little value in locating attacks in progress, network security managers are fed up with signature-based intrusion-detection systems that have been the backbone of network security. Amid an ever-shrinking time gap between vulnerabilities and exploits, signature-matching IDS already has become obsolete, analysts and users say.

Highly distributed organsations run their IT systems on a managed services provider (MSP) model -- supporting numbers of offices dispersed over a geographic area. Mark Scott, president of The Utility Company, says the best model for this combines advanced network monitoring with a franchising system, such as that used by Dunkin' Donuts. His company is an MSP serving a growing population of small companies -- "five-person PR firms, 30-person law offices" -- across North America from its Ottawa, Canada, base.

What is true enterprise security and how do you get it? Bogus promises by vendors are all too common. In this interview, outspoken security analyst Nick Selby humorously tackles the truth about data leakage products, smartphone protection, hotspot threats and the word "solution." Nick Selby leads The 451 Group's Enterprise Security Practice. Selby also serves as The 451 Group's Director of Research Operations and is on the faculty of the Institute for Applied Network Security.

In the immortal words of the Young Ones "[A] social conscience is like a garden shed. If you try to eat it, it will stick in your throat!". At least that is the lesson that the EU seems to be learning [1] in its efforts to promote greater competition in the technology industry as it tries to implement the use of alternate (to Microsoft) office software and operating systems that adhere to open standards.

Microsoft SQL server hasn't had a public vulnerability announcement since 2004. The SQL Slammer worm struck in 2005, but the hole the worm exploited had been patched six months before. The holes that MS-Blaster and Code Red worm attacked had been patched, too. But back just a few years ago, no one really cared about patching really. We just didn't patch.

Microsoft's US general manager/chief security advisor for its National Security Team thinks like a true security professional: In every bit of good news, Bret Arsenault wonders what bad news could be lurking behind it.

People don't notice change when it's gradual. Sometimes, however, small, incremental changes add up in a way that isn't noticed until a change in degree becomes a change in kind.

Planning to travel? Maybe you want to think twice about bringing your laptop, your mobile phone, or even that iPod. (And if you're of Asian or Middle Eastern descent, that goes double.)

The scientific field of biology has provided many useful metaphors, such as "virus" and "infection," for the study of malware. Many researchers have used biology and evolution science to create innovative defenses against malware, in many ways simulating the functions of biological immunity systems. I find that biological sciences and especially evolution provide some great insights into the behavior of malware, malware creators and malware defenses over longer periods of time. I also see a lot of parallels between the evolution of malware and the evolution of darknets (stealthy peer-to-peer, or P2P, networks).

Enterprise connectivity is exploding, driven by globalization, convergence, virtualization and social computing. As corporate perimeters dissolve, the security focus switches towards application and data-level security solutions. The question to ask is what are the longer-term implications for network security? Will it become redundant or could it grow more powerful? Only one thing seems certain: It will be different from today.

Security is a people problem. OK, you already knew that. But recently the SANS Institute finally recognized it too, in its list of the top 20 Internet security risks of 2007. Topping the chart of new, hard-to-defend-against risks were vulnerabilities in custom Web applications and (drum roll, please) "gullible, busy, accommodating computer users, including executives, IT staff and others with privileged access."

Virtualization introduces new potentials for flexibility and change over and beyond anything the world of network security has ever seen. Unfortunately for a host of large security vendors, most of the typical devices being used to protect physical data centers require a certain level of stability (or inflexibility) in order to promise proper protection.

It begins with a shiver, a vibration almost too faint to be sensed. My attention is pulled from the meeting I'm in by the security problem I know is occurring on our live network.