Now, even your security can be handled by cloud computing software–but consider these factors before you get on board. As a smart entrepreneur, the biggest problem to contend with regard to cybercriminals is that they’re smart entrepreneurs, too. They’re highly motivated and technically proficient workers. What they’re after isn’t fame or notoriety. It’s about money….
Read MoreWhile enterprises typically have robust perimeter security such as firewalls and network Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), malware occasionally slips through to compromise the endpoints. Recent episodes involving the Zeus, Aurora/HYDRAQ, and Mariposa botnets have all thrived on compromised endpoints. A potential compromise at a medical clinic in Calgary/Canada that required…
Read MoreWhen news of the “Google hack” (also referred to as Aurora, Google Attacks, and Hydraq) break-in of gmail accounts first occurred, some observers thought the news could hurt cloud computing. As the story has evolved, it turns out that the attack was a straightforward endpoint exploit. I don’t want to diminish the significance of the…
Read MoreAs new applications are developed based on the cloud model, developers are turning to Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) to simplify application development and deployment. After all, babysitting the operating systems, data stores, messaging queues and application containers running below the application is complicated and costly. The promise of PaaS is the delivery of an application infrastructure, where…
Read MoreOSSEC is an Open Source Host-based Intrusion Detection System project that has been around since 2003. It was acquired by Third Brigade in 2008, and then Third Brigade was acquired by Trend Micro in 2009. Trend Micro recently completed a global survey of the OSSEC installed base that yielded some interesting results. OSSEC performs log…
Read MoreThe Cloud Security Alliance (known affectionately as CSA) today published the second version of its “Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud Computing” which you can download from the CSA website. As full disclosure, I am co-chair of the Solution Provider group within the CSA along with my esteemed colleague Tim Matthews from PGP…
Read More2009 has been a notable year for malware and malicious online activity for a number of reasons and several of them relate to what is known as botnets. A zombie, or a bot, is a PC infected by malware that brings it under the remote control of a criminal. Criminals run networks that can range…
Read MoreRecently I have been asked by many CISO’s, CSO’s and IT administrators–who have become very tired of the constant system patch battle and constant security software updates–whether new operating systems like Google Chrome could loosen Microsoft’s stronghold on the desktop OS and just maybe whether we could be safer 5 years from now. Actually this…
Read MoreThe public cloud holds tremendous possibilities for goodness in lowering computing costs and increasing flexibility, but the dark side of the world is always ready to take advantage of cloud delivery models like Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). Arbor Networks recently spotted a Google AppEngine Platform-as-a-Service application being used for Command and Control (CnC) for a botnet (here…
Read MoreRecently, there have been some high profile failures of cloud computing, including the Sidekick outage, the DDos attack on Amazon’s EC2 and disruption to Google’s hosted email. Following these debacles, some people have expressed scepticism about the cloud computing model. For example, a response to a CNET article was: “Putting all your beans in a…
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