Stories by Ellen Messmer

12 hot security start-ups you need to know

The willingness to invest in new security start-ups is continuing at such a breakneck pace that start-ups still in stealth mode are getting snapped up by more established players before they even publicly introduce their security products and services.

Twitter: Attack emails drop from 110 million per day to a few thousand

There used to be a whopping 110 million attack messages per day spoofing the Twitter domain name as cyber-criminals blasted out fake Twitter e-mail at intended victims to try and fool them into opening dangerous malware-infested links and other scams. But by adopting a messaging authentication protocol called Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC), Twitter has seen that number drop to a few thousand.

Can anti-virus technology morph into breach detection systems?

Anti-virus software is still often considered a "checkbox" item for enterprise deployments, especially on Microsoft Windows, but over the decades, anti-virus software changed to do far more than just signature-based virus blocking. Today, the question is whether the type of anti-malware product that evolved from virus checking can transform again to be a part of a "breach detection system," or BDS

Skype-based malware shows how 'peculiar' malicious code can be

Malware often does strange things, but this one -- which looked like Skype installed on a corporate domain controller -- was most "peculiar," says Jim Butterworth, a security expert at ManTech International, whose security subsidiary HBGary recently found the custom-designed remote-access Trojan on a customer's network.

NSA's civil liberties impact to be measured by federal watchdog

A government watchdog group tasked with overseeing whether actions the President's executive office takes to combat terrorism don't throw civil liberties overboard in the process is taking aim at the National Security Agency's "PRISM" data-collection surveillance program.

Android-based malware: the good, the bad and the ugly

When it comes to mobile devices, it's well known that malware writers like to target Android. But a threat report published by security firm F-Secure puts in perspective why Android malware attacks often flop and why Android itself is no pushover.

Chinese government still sponsoring cyber-espionage, says FireEye COO

A year ago, Mandiant, since acquired by FireEye, issued a long report called "APT1" that accused China's People's Liberation Army of launching cyber-espionage attacks against 141 companies in 20 industries through a group known as "PLA Unit 61398" operating mainly from Shanghai.

Cisco: $US300,000 prize for Internet of Things security apps

Cisco has kicked off a contest with $US300,000 in prize money that challenges security experts around the world to put together ways to secure what's now called the Internet of Things, the wide range of non-traditional computing devices used on the electric grid, in healthcare and many other industries.

RSA security attack demo deep-fries Apple Mac components

How bad can cyberattacks get? How about burning the internal components of a machine, whether PC or Mac, to a crisp so there's no thought of it being recoverable? That's what security vendor CrowdStrike showed could be done to an Apple Mac OS X today at the RSA Conference.

Are Apple iOS, OS X flaws really backdoors for spies?

Two recently-discovered flaws in Apple iOS and Mac OS X have security experts openly asking whether the software vulnerabilities represent backdoors inserted for purposes of cyber-espionage. There's no clear answer so far, but it just shows that anxiety about state-sponsored surveillance is running high.

Oracle introduces Mobile Security Suite for Android and iOS

After acquiring mobile application management company Bitzer Mobile late last year, Oracle today announced that it has taken Bitzer's basic "container" technology for Apple ioS and Google Android and linked it to identity management.

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