Stories by Ellen Messmer

Can the old guard in business continuity and disaster-recovery services thrive in an era when the companies are looking at new ways to process business data? SunGard Data Systems, with decades of experience in availability services, is feeling the pinch as some business clientele move data to the cloud. But SunGard says it's pushing forward with innovations that are making it a public cloud provider as well with the kind of application availability it says will be hard to match elsewhere.

Fighting denial-of-service attacks has become a matter of survival for some businesses that find their websites getting smashed and network flooded by attackers. Online gaming company SG Interactive says it's under constant attack and the only way to keep going is to set up an anti-DDoS defense.

McAfee, part of Intel, today announced a profound shift in how it distributes and prices its consumer security products by introducing LiveSafe, a service that combines anti-malware plus a score of other capabilities, such as anti-theft protection and a so-called "safety deposit box" in the cloud that can only be accessed by means of the user's face or voice biometric.

McAfee is taking advantage of its new owners by rolling out a high-throughput intrusion-prevention system (IPS) family built on Intel technology.

Cloud computing and a "bring your own device" (BYOD) strategy aren't technology approaches typically associated with running an airport's information-technology operations. But London Gatwick, the U.K.'s second largest airport, is pushing heavily into both.

Cisco, which wants to expand its clout into the industrial networks used by power-generation utilities to support the electric grid, today announced an expansion of its "smart grid" portfolio with ruggedized and low-latency switches and other equipment intended for use in electric-power distribution systems.

Facebook Thursday said it’s making available globally a feature called "Trusted Contacts" that lets users select three to five friends who can help users recover account access such as if they forget their password.

The popular Snapchat photo-messaging app used mainly by Android and iOS mobile device owners to share images that then self-destruct after 10 seconds is the sort of security idea that businesses say can help them secure online transactions with business partners.

A close look at vulnerabilities in about 15,000 websites found 86 per cent had at least one serious hole that hackers could exploit, and “content spoofing” was the most prevalent vulnerability, identified in over half of the sites, according to WhiteHat Security’s annual study published today.

Open source has become a staple for software development in the enterprise, but keeping track of it and maintaining security for it remains an elusive goal, according to a survey of more than 3,500 data architects and developers published today by Sonatype, which provides component lifecycle management products and also operates the Central Repository for downloading open-source software.

Trend Micro today announced a slate of cloud-based security services that it says protect servers for Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers.

Phishing attacks on enterprises can be calamitous in terms of compromised networks or damaged brand names, and the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), which aggregates and analyzes phishing trends data worldwide, offers some of the best insight from industry into what's occurring globally in terms of this cybercrime. The following list of frequently asked questions about phishing is derived from the APWG's April report that covers the period July-December 2012 worldwide.

McAfee Thursday announced it’s providing a one-time password function as part of its Cloud Single Sign On service for more securely provisioning and de-provisioning hundreds of cloud-based services for enterprise use.

To protect the federal civilian agencies against cyberthreats, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is preparing to deploy a more powerful version of its EINSTEIN intrusion-detection system that’s supposed to detect attacks and malware, especially associated with e-mail. But since this version of EINSTEIN is acknowledged by DHS to be able to read electronic content, it’s raising privacy concerns.

College business students need to gain a grasp of technical issues related to cloud computing, big data, security and other network issues they're likely to come across in their careers, so HP is now offering its first technical associate certification for them to cover these topics while in college.