Cybersecurity Trends Articles

10 Commercial Open Source Security Vendors

October 22, 2007

Can companies make money by selling a product customers can get for free? Absolutely, yes. According to IDC, organizations spent $1.8 billion on stand-alone open source software in 2006, and IDC projects that total revenues in this market will reach $5.8 billion by 2011. Eager to get in on that action, a number of software…
Spoofing Googlebot

July 17, 2007

It crawls the Web without malice seeking out every possible bit of content. It’s name is Googlebot, and sometimes it gets to see things on the Web that the rest of don’t. Unless of course you pretend to be Googlebot. Superficially spoofing Googlebot, Google’s Web crawler, is not a difficult thing to do and was…
Linux vs. Windows: Which is Most Secure?

March 16, 2007

Editor’s Note: A lot has changed since this article was written so we decided to take another look at the topic. Check out the new article, Is Linux Really More Secure than Windows?, to see what the findings are … you might be surprised (or not). I’m more secure on Linux than I am on…
Mac vs. Linux: Which is More Secure?

February 28, 2007

In last month’s column, I said “I’m more secure on a Mac than I was on Windows XP.” Some of you asked how Linux fares in that comparison. To that, I’ll say I’m marginally more secure on Linux than on a Mac, but I prefer a Mac anyway. I can almost see my inbox filling…
Open or Closed Source Code Irrelevant to Security

August 1, 2005

I spend quite a bit of time talking in front of groups of people, and oneof the things I’m often asked is whether I use open source software (OSS)because I think it’s more secure than proprietary, or ”closed source”,software. I’ll bet this same topic has come up once or twice (this week)in your office, too.…
Report: Online Pedophilia up 300 Percent

March 31, 2005

Security vendor Panda Software Thursday announced a 300 percent increase in calls reporting online child pornography over the last three years. Protogeles, a European non-governmental organization (NGO) formed to track and remove child pornography from the Internet, said it has received a total of 28,900 complaints and identified roughly 1,900 pedophile communities around the world…
More Regulation For The Software Industry?

February 17, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO — UPDATED:Richard Clarke, the former White House cyber security czar, urged the technology industry to adopt regulations or even benchmarks to improve security in their products — or face getting walloped with new regulations from Congress. Clarke’s comments came today during a panel discussion here at the RSA Security Conference called “To Regulate…
Sobig’s Birthday — Tracking Most Damaging Virus Ever

January 9, 2004

A year to the day after the virulent Sobig virus hit the wild, spawning a family ofmalicious attacks that would span the next nine months, anti-virus experts are on dailywatch for the next vicious attack. Sobig-A, the first in a run of six variants, hit the wild a year ago today, Jan. 9. Themalicious family…
Weakness Found in Wi-Fi Security Protocol

November 6, 2003

A wireless security expert has detected a glaring weakness in the interface design of a highly touted Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) protocol deployed in numerous Wireless LAN products. According to a research paper posted on Wi-Fi Networking News, the weakness could allow intruders to crack poorly chosen passphrases via offline dictionary attacks. The weakness detailed…
Hatch: P2Ps Are Child Porno Central

October 16, 2003

In a twisted turn of unintended consequences, the enormous success of the Internet as a distribution vehicle for pornography has created competitive pressures among smut purveyors to provide more depictions than ever of children engaging in violent and deviate sexual conduct. John G. Malcolm, deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division of the Justice…