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Posts tagged Security Software

Antivirus software offering less protection

Oct22
2010 Written by admin

Antivirus SoftwareThe most recent tests of consumer of antivirus software released on Tuesday show the products are declining in performance as the number of malicious software programs increases, a trend that does not bode well for consumers.

NSS Labs tested 11 consumer security suites and found that the products are less effective than a year ago as far as blocking the download and execution of malicious software programs. The company also tested if those programs detected and blocked malicious Web sites.

In its tests, the company used new malicious Web sites within minutes of discovery in addition to brand-new malware, which it contends is indicative of the conditions that users would find while browsing the Internet.

The download and execution blocking rate for the top performing antivirus software of Trend Micro’s Titanium Maximum Security fell from 96.4 percent to 90.1 percent from the third quarter of 2009 to the same period this year.

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Enterprise security market will grow by 13.8 per cent in 2010

Jul16
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

The global enterprise security market will grow by 13.8 per cent in 2010 as budgets return and companies update systems, according to Canalys.

The analyst firm said that strong year-on-year growth of 15.2 per cent in the first quarter underlined returning industry confidence, and that the value of the security market will reach $15bn (£9.8bn) by the end of the year.

Europe will account for 33.6 per cent of this growth, at around $5bn (£3.5bn), while North America will remain top with 46.4 per cent market share, equating to $6.96bn (£4.53bn) in sales.

Canalys expects infrastructure security appliances to be behind of most of the growth in 2010, generating over 48.7 per cent of total security end-user value.

“Investments have returned to security appliances as many businesses invest in much overdue hardware upgrades,” said Canalys analyst Alex Smith.

As a result of this “wave of optimism”, growth in the enterprise security market will continue into 2011, reaching end-user sales of $16.3bn (£10.5bn), a rise of 9.2 per cent.

“Growth will be driven by data protection, SSL VPN remote security and IT management devices as customers demand more integration and mobility,” said Canalys analyst Nikki Babatola.

“Acquisitions are expected to continue as a result of the demand for end-to-end solutions that are fully integrated and managed by one console. Symantec, McAfee and Check Point kicked off this acquisition trend in the first half of the year.”

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User still falling for Basic security patching

Jul15
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

A report into the state of internet security has found patching is still woefully poor among computer users.

Of the top ten exploited vulnerabilities in M86 Security’s analysis of the first half of 2010 only one had been patched this year, while one fix was issued in 2006 and the majority were at least two years old. Half of the flaws were in Microsoft products, namely Internet Explorer, Access Snapshot and in video streaming controls.

“The attackers go for low hanging fruit,” Bradley Anstis, vice president of Technology told V3.co.uk.

The level of client vulnerabilities and the differing access needs of users makes it difficult for IT departments to run a coherent patching strategy and makes locking down users an imperfect solution. Ideally almost no users should have admin access available but this was seldom realistic he said.

“Ideally is a great word: Ideally people shouldn’t be logging on as admin, ideally should be closing things down as soon as possible but there’s other issues.”

Hackers are also getting increasingly smart about hampering attempts to block their code the report finds. It details a new attack using JavaScript to attack in conjunction with Adobe’s ActionScript software, which sets up a communications channel via Flash so that only half of the attack code is exposed.

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Dutch scientist developes self-destructing data system

Jun25
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

A Dutch scientist has developed a system of deleting private details from databases automatically with pre-set time bombs that ensure redundant personal data is not left festering on company hard drives.

Dr Harold van Heerde of the Centre for Telematics and Information Technology at the University of Twente says his database software allows information to degrade as it becomes less relevant to the company or organisation holding the data.

The system, the scientist claims, means there would be far less danger of legacy details being leaked in a security breach.

“A lot of data becomes increasingly less valuable for a service provider over time, but they tend to keep it and often don’t take sufficient precautions to protect it, so there is no balance between the value of the data and privacy risk,” van Heerde told PC Pro.

“The idea with this is that data is deleted according to a timetable so that consumers can better trust the companies that retain personal information.”

Van Heerde said his prototype could be programmed to delete in a systematic manner to comply with data retention laws or privacy policies.

“Everything starts with the policy and you could say that after one month this value must be removed or after six months all the data must be removed,” he said. “It can be ongoing, so a company can keep what they think is relevant for longer, but remove, say, personally identifiable data much sooner.”

Van Heerde said his work had proved the feasibility of the concept but that software companies would need to take on the baton to turn the concept into a commercial product.

“Hopefully, one day service providers that collect data can use this as a marketing tool, with a logo or badge showing that they responsibly delete data as it goes out of date,” he said.

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Cryptography expert Paul Kocher says Quantum computing is no threat secure to web and wireless network traffic.

Jun19
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Leading cryptography expert Paul Kocher says the new breed of quantum computers will not be able to crack encryption currently used to secure web and wireless network traffic.

The statement follows concerns among some security experts that the high processing power of quantum compute technologies could be used to crack the encryption used by most organisations.

Kocher, chief executive at Cryptography Research Inc, said: “Quantum computing is interesting because it changes fundamentally the way we do computations.”

But, he added, “there are other things besides quantum computing that keep me awake at night. Implementation errors in algorithmic cryptography and buffer overflows cause me to lose vastly more sleep than quantum computing.”

The most secure algorithm in use today is the 256-bit advanced encryption standard, also known as AES. And Kocher says this is safe from quantum computing.

“If anybody making purchasing decisions is troubled about quantum computing, they’re worrying about completely the wrong cryptographic problems,” he said.

Currently quantum compute systems are at a similar stage in development to early transistor-based classical computer systems. The hope is that their increased computational efficiency will allow problems not within the reach of classical computers to be solved.

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The Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organisation has adopted two new sets of guidelines for benchmarking software.

Jun16
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Consumers frustrated by antivirus software slowing down their PCs could get a clearer picture of which are the worst culprits following calls for industry-wide benchmarks.

The Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organisation (AMTSO), which is tasked with improving methodologies for testing security programs, has adopted two new sets of guidelines for benchmarking software.

The AMTSO claims the guidelines – one for whole products and one concentrating on performance – should improve transparency and could reduce the bickering between AV companies over whose products are more effective.

Members of the group, which includes most major AV vendors, have agreed to adopt the new standards, and say they will also be be used by independent testing companies such as Virus Bulletin, AV-Comparatives and West Coast Labs.

According to AMTSO, accurate speed testing should be an integral part of benchmarking security software, but existing methods vary too much to have any relevance.

“The Performance Testing Guidelines examines the myriad – and often subtle – complexities in conducting speed tests,” said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of F-Secure.

“It is very tempting to take a simplistic approach to measuring speed and footprint of an antivirus program. However, there is as much art as there is science in understanding the various elements which can skew the results for the unwary tester.”

There is also concern among security experts that without an industry standard benchmark, independent testing companies can too easily get results wrong.

“It is as easy to over-emphasise irrelevant metrics by implementing poorly-conceived benchmarking methodologies, as it is to bias a detection test,” the organisation says.

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SAP programmers to get Codeprofiler software

Jun14
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

German software house SAP has licensed code-checking software from Virtual Forge to help companies test and secure code written in the high level Abap programming language, part of SAP’s NetWeaver suite.

Codeprofiler uses data- and control-flow analysis at up to 5,000 lines of source code per second to deliver quick reliable results, the company said.

Gunter Bitz, who is responsible for quality assurance at SAP, said SAP was using Codeprofiler internally alongside SAP’s own Checkman tool.

“With Codeprofiler, SAP customers can systematically verify the entire Abap source code of their self-developed code on security and compliance weaknesses,” he said. “For security tests, complete coverage is important, as an intruder can infiltrate a system through one single weak point.

Virtual Force CEO Andreas Wiegenstein said Codeprofiler systematically examined authorisation checks, access to sensitive tables or usage of critical functions in the standard SAP software to reduce the risk of running insecure code.

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Twitter launching its own web link shortener to boost security soon.

Jun13
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Twitter has announced it is another step closer to launching its own web link shortener to boost security, which could push out popular services such as bit.ly and tinyurl.

IT security researchers have repeatedly highlighted the potential threat of link shorteners since they became popular for use on the 140-character-limit microblogging site.

With bit.ly, tinyurl and other similar services enabling users to compress web addresses in such a way that hides the true destination, some researchers have warned of a spike in malicious links.

The Twitter link-shortening service, first announced in April, is currently being tested and will be rolled out to all users in the next few months, according to a blog post by Sean Garrett, vice-president of communications at Twitter.

“We want to display links in a way that removes the obscurity of shortened links and lets you know where a link will take you,” he wrote.

Once rolled out, the service will automatically shorten and scan links posted to Twitter or third-party applications.

The service will also enable Twitter to track all links shared through the site to contribute to the metrics behind Twitter’s Promoted Tweets platform, said Garrett.

The data will also help Twitter improve its ability to determine if a Tweet is relevant and interesting to users, he said.

The data may even help Twitter to provide additional services and revenue streams. “An example would be analytics within our eventual commercial accounts service,” said Garrett.

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NETGEAR Banks on TeamF1′s High-Performance Secure Gateway Software

May03
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

TeamF1, Inc. the leader in embedded networking and security software, today announced that its software powers the next-generation ProSafe Quad WAN Gigabit VPN Firewall gateway from NETGEAR (NTGR 22.71, -0.89, -3.77%), a global provider of branded networking solutions.

This high performance security device branded SRX5308 is packed with numerous business-class features including a hardware-accelerated data flow pumping up to 1Gbps LAN-to-WAN for the blazing fast networking throughput demanded by today’s SMBs. SRX5308 offers four Gigabit LAN ports for maximum internal data transfer speeds and four Gigabit WAN ports for reliable connectivity to the Internet through session based load balancing and failover protection across 4 separate ISPs simultaneously. TeamF1′s software enables multidimensional network security features on the SRX5308, including denial-of-service protection, stateful packet inspection (SPI) and URL keyword filtering, coupled with a high-performance concurrent IPsec and SSL VPN for branch offices and road warriors alike.

“NETGEAR’s SRX5308 is a perfect fit for today’s business networks demanding Gigabit speeds, rock-solid reliability and tight network security,” said Jason Leung, NETGEAR, Senior Product Line Manager for SMB Security. “Our continued collaboration with TeamF1 enables us to address these demands faster and with lower risk, with TeamF1′s market-ready solutions backed by their high quality support.”

“We are happy to drive NETGEAR’s latest innovation with our software,” said Mukesh Lulla, president, TeamF1. “NETGEAR’s choice of our software for yet another member of their flagship ProSafe product family further strengthens our focus on offering innovative networking and security solutions to the SMB market.”

TeamF1′s SecureF1rst line of customized standard solutions is production-ready and offered with an array of options to provide OEMs/ODMs the ultimate in product flexibility. They offer ironclad, advanced connectivity and security, with intuitive device management and customizable options allowing OEMs to offer easily differentiated products.

About TeamF1

TeamF1, Inc. a privately held corporation headquartered in Fremont, California, is a leader in high performance embedded networking and security software. TeamF1′s products enable secure networking of telecom/datacom and industrial equipment.

About NETGEAR, Inc.

NETGEAR (NTGR 22.71, -0.89, -3.77%) designs innovative, branded technology solutions that address the specific networking, storage, and security needs of Small- to Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs) and home users. The company offers an end-to-end networking product portfolio to enable users to share Internet access, peripherals, files, multimedia content, and applications among multiple computers and other Internet-enabled devices. Products are built on a variety of proven technologies such as wireless, Ethernet and powerline, with a focus on reliability and ease-of-use. NETGEAR products are sold in over 26,000 retail locations around the globe, and via approximately 39,000 value-added resellers. The company’s headquarters are in San Jose, Calif., with additional offices in 25 countries. NETGEAR is an ENERGY STAR(R) partner.

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