Stories by Thor Olavsrud

Malware Strikes With Valid Digital Certificate

One of the foundational elements of ecommerce is the web of trust enabled by digital certificates. When you go to a web site, you can feel confident that it's legitimate because it has a certificate from a recognized certificate authority that validates it. But the certificates themselves can be vulnerable. Case in point: Security firm Malwarebytes recently discovered some malware in the wild with a valid, signed digital certificate.

EMC Offers Online File Sharing With On-Premise Storage Product

EMC is building on its acquisition of the Syncplicity file-sharing and collaboration service by combining it with its Isilon scale-out NAS to provide the enterprise what the storage giant claims provides the convenience of a cloud-based file-sharing service with the administrative and governance capabilities of an on-premise solution.

Are BYOD Employees Decommissioning Mobile Devices Properly?

Sales of mobile devices are expected to surge this holiday season. Whether your firm has embraced bring-your-own-device (BYOD) or elected to look the other way that means many of your employees can be expected to upgrade their tablets and smartphones. But what about their old devices? Will they be decommissioned properly?

5 Ways to Stay Safe Online on Black Friday, Cyber Monday

Thanksgiving is just around the corner in the U.S., and so are Black Friday and Cyber Monday, two of the busiest shopping days of the year. It's also a peak period for malware, phishing and spam. Since employees are increasingly using their own devices to access corporate resources (or simply using a work PC to sneak in a little shopping on Cyber Monday), it's a good idea to share some best practices with your users to help protect them and your network from threats.

How to Secure Big Data in Hadoop

The promise of big data is enormous, but it can also become an albatross around your neck if you don't make security of both your data and your infrastructure a key part of your big data project from the beginning. Here are some steps you can take to avoid big data pitfalls.

How IT Leaders Can Best Plan for Disaster

Hurricane Sandy left devastation in its wake, first pounding the Caribbean and then pummeling the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions of the U.S. People and businesses are now struggling to get back on their feet. As a CIO or IT leader, you need to ask yourself: Will your organization be prepared for the next disaster?

Microsoft Brings Big Data to Windows

Microsoft, with the help of partner Hortonworks, brings Hadoop to Windows and stakes its claim as a vendor of big data technologies with new cloud-based and on-premises offerings.

How to defend against malnets

Since 2011, security firm Blue Coat Systems has been tracking malnets: extensive distributed network infrastructures embedded in the Internet and designed to deliver mass-market attacks on a continuous basis. These malnet infrastructures are like the proverbial Lernaean Hydra--chop off one head, like a botnet it has produced, and two more spring up to take its place.

Is Windows 8 the answer to consumerisation of IT woes?

For many CIOs, bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and the consumerization of IT is the nightmare that keeps them up at night. Not only does consumerisation of IT create data-protection headaches, managing mobile devices is also a great deal more challenging than managing desktops and laptops. That may be just the in Microsoft requires to win back the enterprise on the mobile front with Windows 8, scheduled for release next month.

Can Big Data help universities tackle security, BYOD?

Universities have some of the most complex IT infrastructures around, and BYOD is a reality they can't escape. Chief Security Officers at universities are increasingly turning to Big Data analytics technologies to mine the data in their logs and improve their security footing.

How to improve your application security practices

The number of serious vulnerabilities in applications declined in 2011, but they are still common. Improving your application security posture requires determining whether you're a target of opportunity or a target of choice and understanding your development lifecycle.

How businesses can get consumers to share their data

US consumers are know that their personal data is valuable to companies, and they're not afraid to share as long as they receive something in the exchange and the information isn't too personal, according to a new study by PwC.

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