State of Internet Security Report: could do better
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Blog, Security, Internet on
Websense has just released its ‘State of Internet Security Q1- Q2‘ report which could, truth be told, have been summed up in two simple words rather than 13 complex pages of graphs and charts.
Those two words being: well, duh!
It’s not that I do not like looking at statistics and graphs as much as the next overly anal security geek, but when the thrust of a report is that the majority of information stealing rascals are using trusted sources to host their malicious wares, and adds that Web 2.0 is of increasing interest to cyber-criminals, well I kind of think that my 10 year old son could have come to the same conclusion after hitting the tech news sites for a couple of hours of research.
I know, I know - you can only report on what is there when it comes to these kind of security trend analysis reports. In fact, I have ranted about them before, complaining that they will have little real world currency until all of them say much the same thing. After all, you cannot take an analysis of the same playing field seriously if everyone comes up with something completely different.
Do we really need to know that 60 percent of the top 100 most popular Web sites during this period were either host to malicious content of some kind or had a masked redirect to sites with the same? Probably, is the answer. At least there is a figure on it that makes you stop and say “oh bugger, are things really that bad” which has to be a good thing.
But adding padding such as more than 45 percent of that top 100 supported user generated content, or more than 75 percent of emails contained malicious or spammy links, and 29 percent of malicious web attacks had some kind of data stealing code element really is not necessary thanks very much.
“Today attackers are overwhelmingly forgoing creating their own malicious sites and targeting legitimate Web sites that have a built in base of visitors,” said Dan Hubbard, chief technology officer, Websense. “There is an element of trust in the Web 2.0 world that the Web sites we frequent every day are safe, but attackers are taking advantage of the ‘good reputations’ of Web sites to launch attacks.”
That was better, no need for the 13 page report after all…
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
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Prisoners banned from playing 18 rated video games
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Blog on
According to a news report from the BBC prisoners in England and Wales, but not Scotland because of the devolvement of parliamentary power within the United Kingdom, will soon find that they are no longer allowed to play 18 rated computer games.
The Prison Reform Trust has suggested that prisoners are spending more and more time in their cells due to overcrowding, and that computer games are of use to prison officers in order to help keep control under such conditions.
Is it just me, or does the fact that prisoners are playing computer games at all come as something of a shock? Perhaps not as much of a shock as discovering that in 2007 the UK government bought a total of 18 PlayStations and 15 Xbox consoles for young offender institutions at a cost in excess of
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
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Steve Jobs is not dead
By Davey Winder in Editorial
There, I have said it. Steve Jobs is not dead. The Fake Steve Jobs is dead or at least the character has been buried, the man behind The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog is doing just fine, by the way.
Now you might wonder why I care about either of them, and while I have no wish to see either shake off their respective mortal coils the truth is I don’t.
So why mention it at all? Good question, and one that I have been asking myself a lot over the last few days as the blogosphere has verily exploded with rumour and speculation surrounding the health of Steve Jobs. In fact, I am going to take the unusual step of not linking to any of the sources as there are just so many you might as well go Google for yourself. If you must.
It is all rooted in two things: the fact that Jobs was diagnosed in 2004 with pancreatic cancer which he survived, and the fact that Apple is such a hot potato right now. Not just because of the iPhone 3G launch, but because it has gone so spectacularly pear shaped in so many ways.
Combine these two things with the fact that apparently Jobs looked a little thin and peaky recently, and all of a sudden the money men are interested.
After all, what would Apple do, or more to the point how would Apple perform, if Jobs was no longer at the helm?
Morbid, yes. Understandable, maybe. Preventable, not on your nelly. The blogosphere is going to run and run with this one, until either Jobs comes out and says ‘I have cancer’ or produces some kind of doctors certificate or otherwise refutes the allegations.
While Apple continues to tell everyone to keep their collective noses out of the personal affairs of the CEO, however, the speculation will only continue. And that, my friends, is going to be bad for Apple I believe.
Too many folk, even in financial institutions and on shareholders lists, believe in the no smoke without fire routine. After all, Jobs did not reveal his earlier cancer scare for nine months and investors may be worried this is history repeating itself.
It shouldn’t make any difference, of course. But Apple is Steve Jobs, and Steve Jobs is Apple. There is no getting away from that. Just as Daniel Lyons might find life harder, in terms of great public acclaim, without the Fake Steve Jobs so Apple might find the going tough without the real one.
I sincerely hope that there is nothing wrong with Steve Jobs beyond a cold or the after effects of a bad pizza, but I also sincerely hope that Apple gets off its high privacy horse and lets the public know one way or another before it starts feeling sick itself…
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
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What is the population of the Internet?
By Davey Winder in Editorial
It’s an interesting question, and while it might sometimes seem like everyone and their dog has Internet access, according to a new report from IDC the actual figure is about 1.4 billion people around the world. The Digital Marketplace Model and Forecast suggests that something in the order of a quarter of the total population of the planet will use the Internet on a regular basis this year. Within four years IDC expects to see another half a billion people added to that number, bringing 30 percent of the global population online by 2012.
The report reckons that China has already overtaken the United States to take the title of the current largest Internet populating country, something it managed during 2007. In fact, the report says, China has seen its online population grow to an astonishing 275 million users this year and it is predicted to reach 375 million by 2012.
The report also says that the United States will lead the world when it comes to the total amount of online advertising spending, while Central and Eastern Europe together with the Middle East and Africa will experience the fastest growth as far as Internet advertising spending is concerned. More than USD $5 billion will be spent worldwide in 2008, IDC says, in each of the top four categories of online adverts: adult content and gambling, information, electronics, and computing. What’s more, these will continue to be the leading advertising categories through to 2011.
Quoted in a PC World article, IDC Chief Research Officer John Gantz predicts that “the Internet will have added its second billion users over a span of about eight years.”
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
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The biggest Internet security hole you never heard of…
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Blog, Security, Internet on
Over six months ago a penetration tester for a security outfit almost literally stumbled upon a fundamental security issue with the Internet, or to be more precise with the Domain Name System (DNS) that we all rely upon for the damn thing to work properly, that researcher Dan Kaminsky describes it as being such a big problem because the system is doing what it is meant to, what it was designed to, and so the vulnerability will simply be repeated by every vendor involved in the DNS business.
So serious was this design flaw, that Kaminsky says it could give any attacker who exploits it the power to replace any web site with a malicious one, and nobody would be any the wiser.
Which is why he did the decent thing and did not go mouthing off on some ’security blog’ about it before it had been fixed. Instead he went straight to the big boys in the business, Microsoft, Cisco, Juniper etc and asked for them to work together to fix the problem.
I can only say that I am pleased to report they did just that. And this week a number of hardware vendors have simultaneously released patches to seal the DNS security deal. Microsoft, for example, included the fix in its scheduled Patch Tuesday updates.
It is expected that all major ISPs will have applied the necessary ointment to the DNS within 30 days. Which is probably why neither Kaminsky nor the vendors have gone into technical specifics.
If you are truly curious, then the most information currently available can be found at CERT who issued a National Technical Cyber Security Alert on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Dan the man of the moment Kaminsky has made a browser based DNS exploit checking tool available on his website for any who wants to see if they are still vulnerable or not.
Rated: 100% (2 votes)
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Is Web 2.0 good for business?
By Davey Winder in Editorial
IDC would appear to think so, with new analysis that appeared in the Financial Times suggesting that as many as 36 percent of enterprise web sites are already turning to this technological strategy of using blogs, wikis and social networking to interface with customers and businesses alike. What’s more, the report also says that another 27 percent are looking to embrace Web 2.0 by this time next year.
So are you using Facebook, LinkedIn or a blog yet? In a business capacity that is? I am often accused of over hyping the business benefit of social networking, however within my own experience realm of the small business I have to say it works. My consultancy recently picked up a contract through a LinkedIn contact, which would simply not have been made any other way, which is potentially worth at least
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
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The office is on fire, forget the secretary and save the email
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Data Protection, Blog, email on
Kroll Ontrack obviously know a thing or two about data disasters, it is a company that spends its entire time working with the consequences of them. So who better than to do a data recovery survey with a twist: if you only had time to save one file which would it be?
Asking a cross-section of business types just what they consider to be the most vital of business data proved to be an interesting exercise. I am guessing that there was some kind of ‘assuming you had no backups’ suggestion implied in all this.
I asked my secretary, also known as ‘the wife’ or if she is in earshot ‘the lovely Yvonne’, what would she save for the good of the business. Rather sensibly, I guess, she said the accounts. “After all” she explained “HMRC are not going to accept ’sorry, they got mislaid by the courier’ as a valid excuse, are they.” She may well have a point.
Personally, I would choose exactly the same as an astonishing 81 percent of those surveyed and save my email. That’s my email message database, not my contacts file or appointments calendar, they can go hang - it is my message base that is vital to my business.
“Our statistics reveal that e-mails are the most important files for business executives,” said Phil Bridge, Managing Director, Kroll Ontrack UK. “Regardless of the size of IT budgets, organisations simply cannot afford to ignore implementing systems to help avoid severe data loss. Employee education, careful planning and rigorous backup testing of e-mail storage is the only way critical information is protected.”
The reasoning, Kroll argues, is simple: “the logistics required to restore a large e-mail system is complex, and due to its critical nature, downtime needs to be minimised.” Indeed, for this very reason many companies are now capping the storage capacity of user mailboxes and inadvertently increasing the risk of users losing their e-mails.
Kroll Ontrack put together some top tips to e-mail bliss for executives.
Prepare - a disaster recovery plan will outline company policy and procedures for when it all goes wrong. If you don’t know what your firm’s disaster strategy is - ask!
Don’t store e-mails locally - many executives store their oversized mailboxes locally, where it is not backed up. The safest archival method is to move items to a central drive that is regularly backed up.
Seek advice - in the event that you accidentally delete the wrong message, your IT department should have a process to quickly retrieve the message from its backups. If this is a more serious issue, then tampering with the computer may limit what data can be retrieved.
Rated: 100% (2 votes)
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Bill Gates leaves Microsoft software behind as well…
By Davey Winder in Editorial
It would seem that Bill Gates has not only left his Microsoft office and car parking space behind him, but the same might apply to his use of Microsoft software. After all, you might reasonably expect the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to turn to Microsoft Project Server and Microsoft Project to help manage the construction of its new Seattle-based HQ.
However, it appears that a small British outfit called BIW Technologies, employing just 40 people, can do the job better.
It has just announced that it has been chosen by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to provide its Software-as-a-Service construction project control system during the building of that new HQ.
Planning and consultations for the 500 Fifth Avenue North project commenced in 2005, and the initial phase which involves the construction of the US$50m Seattle Center 5th Ave N Parking Garage is scheduled for completion in mid-July 2008.
BIW technologies says that while another online system was used to deliver the 1,020-space Garage project, the Foundations needed “to manage a range of complex business processes” and so opted to “use the BIW system instead to support design and construction of the key first phases of the campus buildings.”
BIW chief executive Colin Smith says that “This project, won in the face of competition from other global firms, demonstrates that the BIW platform can be readily adapted to support large and complex schemes working to US standards and processes.”
Perhaps what he should have said was ‘will you be using Firefox on a Linux platform next Bill?”
Rated: 86.67% (3 votes)
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