March, 2010

Synopsis:

The benefits of cloud computing are widely acknowledged, from cost savings to better staff utilisation, but many people fear information security risks are attached. Alan Calder, chief executive, IT Governance, explains that those fears can easily be allayed. Cloud computing in 2010 can actually offer stronger data protection than in-house servers.

Swiss Army Knife maker Victorinox is asking the best of Britain's hackers to try and beat the biometric security built into its latest USB Flash drive-fitted penknife.

If you manage it, you stand to win £100,000.

US domain registrar Register.com has told a federal judge it can't be sued for a DNS records switch that wreaked havoc on Baidu because the ham-fisted blunder didn't amount to "gross negligence".

The German government has issued a warning about using the Firefox browser because of security issues.

Chinese access to websites covering sensitive topics such as Tibet remained blocked on Tuesday despite an announcement from Google that it had stopped censoring its Chinese-language search engine.

Kenya’s cyber highway is not safe from virtual fraudsters and other malignant cyber crooks, industry experts have warned. They say unless the problem is addressed urgently, cyber crime will continue to prevail because it pays. The moment the first submarine fibre optic cable landed, local businesses became more accessible on the World Wide Web (www), attracting the attention of international hackers.

The tragedy here is that local businesses did not move with high speed to upgrade their information security systems to ward off international hackers from accessing their networks and databases, said IT security expert Lionel Mbogho, who has operated in the US for several years.

These companies are now prone to hefty financial losses through theft or data corruption.

It  is the first time that the number of foreign intelligence gathering officers employed by MI6, also known as the Secret Intelligence Service, has been published.

The figure was disclosed yesterday in the annual report of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee.

The ISC had previously disclosed the number of domestic security service officers who work for MI5, known as “spooks” - now around 3,500 - but had never done so for spies.

MI6 has launched a new recruitment drive aimed, in part, at former City bankers, with experience of foreign countries and language skills.

According to the ISC’s report, there are now 2,252 MI6 officers and it aims to increase that to 2,527 this year.

In a bid to cut down on fraud and inappropriate content, the organization responsible for administering Russia's .ru top-level domain names is tightening its procedures.

Starting April 1, anyone who registers a .ru domain will need to provide a copy of their passport or, for businesses, legal registration papers. Right now, domains can be set up with no verification -- a practice that has allowed scammers to quickly set up .ru domains under bogus names.

The changes will help Russia align its rules with international best practices, said Olga Ermakova, informational projects manager with the Coordination Center for the .ru top-level domain, in an e-mail interview. The .ru administrators care about the "cleanness" of the domain, she added. "We don't need negative content, and such content is often [created] by unknown users."

Mozilla yesterday confirmed a critical vulnerability in the newest version of Firefox, and said it would plug the hole by the end of the month.

Although the patch won't be added to Firefox before next week's Pwn2Own browser hacking challenge, researchers won't be allowed to use the flaw, according to the contest's organizer.

"The vulnerability was determined to be critical and could result in remote code execution by an attacker," Mozilla acknowledged in a post to its security blog late Thursday. "The vulnerability has been patched by developers and we are currently undergoing quality assurance testing for the fix."

Firefox 3.6, which Mozilla launched in January, is affected, Mozilla said, adding that it would be patched in version 3.6.2, currently slated to ship on March 30.

The Pwn2Own 2010 hacker contest will be held March 24 during the CsnSecWest security conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. The event offers contestants various pieces of technology such as phones and computers to hack. If a user successfully exploits their target they get to keep the device as well as a cash prize.

For the event’s fourth year, contestants will be asked to exploit two main technology categories: Web browsers and mobile phones. There will be $100,000 in cash prizes, and successfully hacking each phone or browser is worth $10,000.