Philip Hunter

Feature: VOIP the latest security concern: DoS attack the greatest threat

The wall that has divided voice and data is at last being torn down within both enterprise and public carrier networks, yielding massive savings in overall communication costs. Converged networks reduce the total management overhead and also allow enterprises and carriers to develop new applications that exploit the tighter voice/data integration. The technical hurdles appear to have been overcome - until security rears its ugly head.

Video Piracy: Combating video piracy

The film and TV industries have been desperate to avoid a rerun of the Napster fiasco that all but decimated the audio recording world, and are anxious to avoid the same mistakes. The battle is being waged on three fronts - legal, technical and financial, with the audio experience highlighting the importance of striking the correct balance between the three.

Defence in depth: Defence in depth - protecting the queen

IT networks may seem highly distributed, yet their great weakness is that in reality they depend on relatively few critical resources. For individual enterprise networks this means that critical services and information are both vulnerable to co-ordinated attacks on just a few core components such as application servers and databases. The concept of defence in depth has emerged as a model to insulate these key resources with protective layers whose interaction ensures that the total level of protection is considerably greater than the sum of its parts.

linux security: Linux security: separating myth from reality

Linux security has been a hot issue ever since the operating system was born as the open source successor to Unix, but the debate has intensified with its growing commercial popularity.

Analysis: Security Issues with Offshore Outsourcing

Abstract Offshore coding is booming throughout North America and Europe, with Gartner group predicting that by 2004 80% of US companies will consider outsourcing critical services to foreign-based developers. But as this offshore outsourcing trend accelerates, concerns that enterprises are exposing themselves to undue risk of cyber-terrorism and industrial property theft are increasing.

Feature: Canal Plus Versus NDS Case

The unprecedented

Proactive Security: Proactive security latest: vendors wire the cage but has the budgie flown...

1 billion lawsuit between two of the worlds largest digital TV companies looks like one of the most intriguing industrial espionage stories of all time. It also happens to be highly relevant for IT security, highlighting the need for a flexible approach that can be modified in the light of changing technology and business conditions.

Microsoft: Microsoft tackles viruses and spyware at last, but will it be trusted on security?

Proactive security sounds at first sight like just another marketing gimmick to persuade customers to sign for up for yet another false dawn. After all proactivity is surely just good practice, protecting in advance against threats that are known about, like bolting your back door just in case the burglar comes. To some proactive security is indeed just a rallying call, urging IT managers to protect against known threats, and avoid easily identifiable vulnerabilities. All too often for example desktops are not properly monitored allowing users to unwittingly expose internal networks to threats such as spyware. Similarly remote execution can be made the exception rather than the default, making it harder for hackers to co-opt internal servers for their nefarious ends.

Asian Tsunami: Tsunami spares global IT but shakes up disaster recovery plans

Microsofts debut of anti-spyware software in January 2005 along with a clearly signalled intention to launch comprehensive anti-virus software later in the year, could herald a turning point in PC security. The recent acquisition of anti-virus vendor, Sybari, gives Microsoft even more mileage in this direction. Yet amid the predictable responses, like accusations of too little too late, there is the lingering question of whether Microsoft can be trusted to deliver security when arguably it was vulnerabilities in its software that created the need for it in the first place.

IP Protocol V 6: IP V 6

Despite the Asian Tsunamis massive toll of human life and devastation of local businesses in the region, the impact on the global economy and on major IT centres or networks has been relatively slight. Anyone listening merely to the financial news since 26 December would have been quite unaware that one of the worst natural disasters of recent times had just taken place, to judge from the soaring stock markets. Similarly news about IT has focused on its role in helping local businesses, delivering aid, or making donations, more than on disruption to computer services.