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admin in
Securing the Cloud, Virtualization
Dec 22nd, 2009 |
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I attended the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas in December to gain some insights about how enterprise IT professionals are viewing virtualization and cloud computing. While I dislike Las Vegas in general, I was able to visit the Pinball Hall of Fame (a must-see if you’re a pinball aficionado). From a security perspective, I had a couple of “aha” moments listening to the Gartner analysts and attendees about how they are approaching cloud computing.
Virtualization is Running Rampant: The VMware session overflowed the room, and most sessions dealing with virtualization and...
Posted by
admin in
Cloud-based Security, Privacy, Compliance and Identity, Securing the Cloud
Dec 18th, 2009 |
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OSSEC 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 analysis, file integrity checking, policy monitoring, rootkit detection, real-time alert and active response as ways to protect servers. OSSEC has a phenomenally loyal base of users – we had 21% of the OSSEC email distribution list complete the survey (a...
Posted by
admin in
Securing the Cloud
Dec 17th, 2009 |
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The 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 .
An excerpt from the CSA press release concisely describes the document’s value:
The Cloud Security Alliance is a not-for-profit organization with a mission to promote the use of best practices for providing security assurance within Cloud Computing, and...
Posted by
Rik Ferguson in
Threats from the Cloud
Dec 14th, 2009 |
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2009 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 from thousands to millions of infected machines and they use them to power most of the cybercrime we see today including spam, DDoS, scareware, phishing, and malicious or illegal website hosting. They have a finger in every cybercriminal pie.
In the first half of the year, the Conficker worm (also known as Downadup...
