Recently in Security Category

ZigBee will be in your home sooner rather than later.

ZigBee is a set of application and security standards that build on the physical and MAC layers defined in IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Its main application is for monitoring and control environments. This contrasts with Bluetooth, which is really a cable replacement technology, and WiFi which is a broadband mobility technology.

Zigbee is characterized by
1. being very memory/processor unintensive (requiring an order of magnitude less memory to run compared to Bluetooth),
2. Continue Reading...

Cloud computing has been around for years, originally as timesharing..

But the difference this time is the wide-open Internet and the dominance of Windows-based computing.

Concerns range from protecting data privacy to inter-company collaboration.

Most of all, don't assume quick fixes or simple prescriptions.

What years of experience has taught us is that the answer will lie in a myriad of security products and capabilities.

Don't get bitten!

Quite a scary story on how easy it is to snoop in on new Passports with RFID chips.

One should ask what were governments thinking in exposing their citizenry to identity theft in this fashion?

But the cat is out the door as Passport have a 5 or 10 year life and I can't imagine a recall once a more secure solution is developed.

Anyone with such a Passport, or driver's license or whatever, should consider a shielding envelope, as came with my US-Canada Nexus card.

According to data recovery firm Kroll Ontrack, human error is the number one cause of data loss.

Some of the most memorable mishaps:
1. A customer "washed away" her data after putting her USB memory stick through a washing machine cycle.
2. A scientist was fed up with his hard drive squeaking, so he drilled a hole through the casing and poured in oil. The hard drive was completely destroyed, (but he did stop the squeaking).
3. A photographer noticed that ants were living inside his external hard drive, so he sprayed it with insect repellent. The ants died, along with his data.

It's not just about technology;)

"Business executives are extremely concerned (and rightly so) that their organization may be the next publicly disclosed data breach story in the Wall Street Journal." That's how I led off a recent article, co-authored with Jon Oltsik of the Enterprise Strategy Group, on network access control (aka secure network access).

Secure network access authenticates users wanting to access the network, performs endpoint health checks, and authorizes network and application access based on role-based policies.

Network access control tied to one vendor's switching platform has been used as part of a lock-in strategy by network vendors. In a hyperconnected world, the last thing you want is a 'closed' access control strategy. Continue Reading...

This has got to be one of the slickest and simplest security solutions for remote users, that I have seen.

Just plug in your Nortel Secure Portable Office USB key into your Windows PC, and
...... your user identity is authenticated using Aladdin Knowledge Systems eToken strong authentication and password management,
...... a secure VPN connection is established,
...... your PC is virus scanned, and
...... you are presented with a menu of authorized network applications you can access.

No pre-installed software, no URLs to remember, and your corporate policy moves from paper to the field while incurring a very low TCO.

Check it out yourself and let Nortel Global Services do the rest.

Some of the largest and medium-sized U.S. airports report close to 637,000 laptops lost each year. Wow, this figure has got to make you think.

Combine this with the IDC prediction that the number of worldwide mobile workers (many with laptops and many more with smart phones) will reach 1 billion - including nearly 75% of the U.S. workforce - by the end of 2011... Continue Reading...