Stories by Ellen Messmer

Gartner: IT should be planning, moving to private clouds

ORLANDO -- If speedy IT services are important, businesses should be shifting from traditional computing into virtualization in order to build a private cloud that, whether operated by their IT department or with help from a private cloud provider, w...

Survey finds many disappointed in virtualization, cloud computing

Too often, organizations aren't getting as much out of virtualization and hybrid cloud computing as they first thought they would, according to a Symantec survey of 3,700 information technology managers in 35 countries that was published today.

IBM building security into cloud fabric

IBM executives said this week that the company is looking to many of its existing tools, from the Tivoli management system to Cognos business intelligence software, to secure private and IBM-hosted hybrid clouds as customers migrate to these new comp...

IBM touts collaboration tools for large software projects

ORLANDO -- IBM kicks off its annual Innovate Conference today with a slew of updated software life-cycle management tools to support software-development teams on a large scale.

Oklahoma City using SIEM to crack down on hackers - and wayward employees

Oklahoma City is using technology that not only watches for signs of any hacker activity on its municipal government network, but monitors employee online behavior to assure no one's going out of bounds.

5 ways to stay safe from fake anti-virus malware attack on Macintosh

Macintosh users are finding out the hard way what Microsoft Windows users have known for a long time: Criminals want to sell them fake anti-virus software by scaring them with lies that their computer is infected.

Siemens' 'damage control' response to SCADA bug frustrates researcher

Siemens said it intends to fix a vulnerability discovered in its industrial control system products, but the NSS Labs researcher who found the bug says the company seems to be downplaying the seriousness of the problem to save face.

Symantec to acquire Clearwell for e-discovery

Symantec today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire privately held Clearwell Systems for about $390 million, a move that will put Symantec in the e-discovery market.

VMware seeks security 'manager of managers' role for vShield

With the popularity of its virtual-machine software soaring, VMware has been focusing on optimizing security for its vSphere platform both through cooperation with third-party security vendors and encouraging a shift to its own software-based securit...

Enterprise note to Microsoft: Please make Skype easier to manage!

Skype voice and video has tended to trigger IT security angst, and now that Microsoft has bought Skype, some observers are voicing hope that the service will be improved to help it be better managed in an enterprise setting.

Cisco VoIP phones part of security weakness demo

Security firm HackLabs is expected to demonstrate at AusCERT 2011 how hackers perform VoIP attacks and identify weaknesses in Cisco and other manufacturers VoIP phones.

Malware writers gunning for Google Android

Symbian and Microsoft Windows Mobile platforms have been the proving ground for mobile malware over the past five years, but a new Juniper Networks report states that Google Android now takes "the crown" as the platform getting the most attention fro...

Can a new CISO improve Sony PlayStation Network security?

Can a chief information security officer (CISO) help prevent the kind of massive data breach that occurred in the Sony PlayStation network breach last month in which attackers grabbed personal information on an estimated 77 million customers of the P...

More powerful Sourcefire IPS line sets stage for next-gen firewalls

Sourcefire Monday announced a new line of intrusion-prevention systems (IPS) that sets the foundation for the company's anticipated foray into the application-aware next-generation firewall market later this year.

Cloud computing providers: Clueless about security?

A survey of 127 of cloud computing providers suggests many regard security as being mainly their customer's problem, and indeed, see their own proficiencies in low cost and speed of deployment services.