Search

The article focuses on the complacent attitude of several computer companies concerning their anti-virus offerings in the U.S. It highlights several information technology (IT) firms which have no significant improvement on its existing anti-malware technologies. As an example, the author cites that Symantec Corp.'s System Response Center has not changed its versions from 7.5 to 10.0 of the Norton AntiVirus Solution. He believes that the potential problems in the anti-virus platforms including firewall misconfigurations, missing patches and weak passwords would be solved through a strategic partnership.

This article presents information related to Connectra upgrade, connectra 2.0, with which Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. leverages its vast experience securing networks, applications and client endpoints to provide the most comprehensive security feature. Pricing for the software-based Connectra 2.0 platform, which is available now, starts at $8,000 for a 50-concurrentuser license and escalates to $60,000 for 1,000 users. Although a software-based SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) VPN is an attractive alternative for small installations that want to leverage existing server equipment, larger deployments will undoubtedly find more bang for the buck with Check Point's Connectra 2.0 appliances. Connectra provides defenses against network-level attacks such as Teardrop or Ping of Death and provides a stateful firewall to control user access to resources. However, Connectra's true strength comes with the integration of Check Point's Application Intelligence and Web Intelligence. Connectra will defend HTTP data streams against directory traversal, cross-site scripting and SQL injection attacks and monitor for transmissions that don't conform to the HTTP specifications. INSET: SSL-Explorer offers VPN basics.

A proposed voluntary plan for handling vulnerability disclosures is drawing fire from security researchers and other critics, even as new research shows that such a plan is sorely needed to help protect networks as of August 2003. The guideline is the work of the Organization for Internet Safety, a group of security companies and software developers, and define a process for notifying vendors of flaws, disclosing them to the public and dealing with exploit code. The document has been warmly received by many in the security community. However, independent researchers who do the lion's share of the vulnerability research say that guidelines are less thrilled with the plan. Meanwhile, new research shows that for vulnerabilities identified as critical, the number of vulnerable systems drops by 50 percent every 30 days.

The article presents information on a survey sponsored by Cisco Systems Inc. on the untrusted network connectivity of corporate users through laptops. The surveyor company InsightExpress LLC interviewed 1,000 remote workers in ten countries and found that most of them continue to use poor security policies despite having been warned of Web and wireless threats. 68% of the U.S. workers interviewed said they had been warned about risky laptop behavior, 30% said they still use their company-issued computers for personal tasks, 24% percent users said they still open unknown messages, and 19% said they allow someone else to use their work computer.

The article provides information regarding IPsphere Forum, a telecommunication industry group, which aims to improve the ability of online contents in different network providers in the U.S. The group is consist of equipment suppliers, service providers, application vendors and software companies. They are working on a technical software that would allow the end users to have an easy access to their network providers. The group also aimed for public networks to have a dynamic performance and security on Web applications.

The article comments on some issues on computer industry in the U.S. Bill Gates, head of the Microsoft Corp., on delivering his keynote on the topic trust ecosystem in the recent 2006 RSA Conference held in San Jose, California, in some ways had recast simply the comments made by once-archival Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems Inc. With this, many cannot help but think Gates was sounding of a dreadful kind a lot like McNealy. Gates stressed about security technologies that enable isolation. Meanwhile, Microsoft has developed its own scanning analysis tools: PREfix and PREfast, AppVerifier, and others after leading the charge to revamp Microsoft's coding practices wherein automated scanning tools do no make code secure.

The article focuses on the computer security platforms and products being offered by companies such as Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. These giant companies are opt to be considered as overall computer security providers. Microsoft offers a total computer security platform including the access control, tokens and scanning software designed to make a computer system hack-free and virus-free. On the other hand, Cisco offers a total security platform based on a dominant network model that can search, isolate and thwart the passage of bad code before it rampages the computer system.

The article focuses on developing integrated security systems. The author in this article views that the invention of the lock and key is of great relevance to the computer industry. According to him, locks and keys are great examples of simplicity and effectiveness. One can choose to use a more elaborate type of lock that's more resistant to attack and one can also use combination locks if he wants to reduce that risk. Apart from these factors, a trained professional can also implement a surprisingly granular scheme of privileges using multiple masterkey levels. He views that Google co-founder Larry Page is overlooking the lessons that locks can teach. He criticizes Page's comments in his heavily hyped but rather disappointing keynote at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, in January 2006. IT departments are reinventing established models of physical security, as they discover that digital protections such as firewalls and VPNs are ineffective against an intruder.

The article focuses on Cisco Systems Inc.'s Network Admission Control (NAC) technology. With Cisco moving slowly to introduce NAC features across its product line and the price of upgrading to NAC-compliant Cisco hardware steep, the ranks of NAC technology vendors are also set to swell, as a slew of mall companies and startups bring NAC products to market. Lockdown Networks Inc. is seeing huge demand for its Lockdown Enforcer, a switch-based NAC product that the company debuted last week. The hardware plugs directly into a company's switching infrastructure and scans systems that attempt to log on to the network for vulnerabilities, firewall configuration and compliance with user and group-based security policies. While Cisco's name is most closely associated with NAC, the company's NAC solution, which requires expensive upgrades to routers and switches and a separate desktop client, is far too costly and hard to implement for most companies. Cisco's NAC already does, or will, support nearly every router and switch platform the company sells, including products it no longer sells. INSET: NACapalooza..

The article focuses on the announcement of the release of QRadar 5.0 by Q1 Labs Inc. The QRadar is deployed as an all-in-one appliance that collects and archives data feeds from different products and provides a management interface for the product. The company has increased the number of security events that QRadar recognizes and introduced Judicial System Logic which can tease specific threats out of correlated security events, vulnerability data and traffic flows. However, QRadar has limitations such that it only supports feeds from a few products out of the box, such as the open-source Nessus vulnerability scanner and products from nCircle Network Security Inc.

This article reports that TippingPoint Technologies Inc.'s UnityOne-1200 intrusion prevention system advances the state of the art in IPS technology. The TippingPoint UnityOne-1200 appliance is a top-notch network security device that sits in line with network traffic, dropping attack traffic and clearing the way for legitimate users.

Following the lead of many of its competitors, Computer Associates International (CA) Inc. has announced plans to debut a series of hardened security appliances jointly with longtime channel partners. This is first foray of CA into the appliance market, and it comes on the heels of similar moves by several other security vendors, including Network Associates Inc. and Symantec Corp. The first set of new boxes will feature eTrust Antivirus software of CA and will be followed later in 2003 by a series of appliances based on the company's eTrust Intrusion Detection. CA has been focused on software and as a result is a bit late to the security-appliance party. Cisco Systems Inc., NAI and Symantec are also moving into the hardware market.