Mobile Version Subscribe Contact Us About Us Advertising Editorial SC UK SC Aus/NZ

RSS | Login | Register

Legal & Professional Services

Background investigator settles with FTC over ID theft

Greg Masters March 05, 2009

An organization that sells consumer information, including names, Social Security numbers, credit card numbers and credit histories, has settled Federal Trade Commission charges that it failed to properly screen potential customers, leading to the sale of at least 318 reports to ID thieves.

Analyst firm expects security budgets to rise in 2009

Angela Moscaritolo January 06, 2009

Despite the ongoing financial crisis, IT security spending is expected to grow this year, according to two reports from Forrester.

IT-GRC: Agiliance

Peter Stephenson December 03, 2008

And so we reach the end of this year's batch of innovators. But, as we look at this subcategory, we find that it wraps the whole shebang into a neat package, defining what needs to be done to secure the enterprise (and prove it) and why.

Policy management: LanDesk (Avocent)

Peter Stephenson December 03, 2008

All of us old-timers remember LanDesk from its days as part of Intel. It always was a solid suite of products. Now that it is part of Avocent, its promise as a hybrid of network and security policy management is being realized. The notion of managing the desktop and evolving that into security policy management makes a lot of sense.

Content management: Finjan

Peter Stephenson December 03, 2008

The views of the visionary I spoke with from this veteran anti-malware company took the conversation in directions I had not expected. He started out by asking, "Why, if I have done everything I can to secure my enterprise, is my data still being compromised?"

Data leakage/extrusion prevention: Trend Micro

Peter Stephenson December 03, 2008

I don't recall the first time I heard the term "extrusion prevention system." It was, I think, an effort on the part of some marketer to tie the notion of preventing data from unauthorized exit (extrusion) from the enterprise to the notion of unauthorized entry (intrusion). Very clever.

Encryption: PGP

Peter Stephenson December 03, 2008

No matter how much things change, they stay the same. As I have pointed out, there have been massive changes in security drivers over the past 12 months. The changes have generated a new set of challenges, but, even though our encryption innovator has done a first-rate job of addressing them over the past year, the new issues are generating a sort of déjà vu picture of the encryption market.

Email security: Tumbleweed Communications (Axway)

Peter Stephenson December 03, 2008

The big question I had for Tumbleweed was, "What is email security?" Over the past two years, as we have passed products through SC Labs, I have noticed that the vendor public relations folks who we talk to seem to have a hard time differentiating between the many aspects of threats associated with email.

Wireless Security: AirMagnet

Peter Stephenson December 03, 2008

Wireless, is it? Everything is going wireless - well almost everything. That, in itself, poses a challenge for a wireless security company, such as this innovator. It also offers big opportunities and AirMagnet has identified and addressed them.

IPS: Top Layer Security

Peter Stephenson December 03, 2008

If you thought the UTM market was crowded, take a look at the intrusion prevention systems (IPS) market. We bluntly asked our innovator in this product space why they thought that they were innovators in such a commoditized market. The answer was immediate and unambiguous: "When a product category becomes mainstream, there are big opportunities, but you must innovate to take advantage of them."

UTM: Global DataGuard

Peter Stephenson December 03, 2008

Sometimes a different approach is needed. The notion of the UTM was developed from the need to consolidate point solutions. There are a lot of problems, of course. They cost more to buy and manage, they use more power and they need a sophisticated staff to manage them.

Forensic tools: Mandiant

Peter Stephenson December 03, 2008

Sometimes you run across a company that just deserves to be selected as an innovator. You look them over and wonder why you didn't pick up on them before. Mandiant is one of those companies. There is a reason, of course. Mandiant started as a services company providing forensics, litigation support and incident response. So if you were in the product purchasing mood, you would not have run across these folks.

SIEM: ArcSight

Peter Stephenson December 03, 2008

ArcSight gets a lot of play among security experts in the security event management (SEM)/security information manager (SIM) game.

Threat analysis: NitroSecurity

Peter Stephenson December 03, 2008

How do you differentiate a product that keeps getting mixed up with a commoditized market, but really doesn't belong there? What differentiators do you look for that can keep you from being included in a herd where you don't belong?

Penetration testing: Core Security

Peter Stephenson December 03, 2008

I just love these folks. Take the best open source pen testing tool you can think of, put it on steroids, give it a user interface that makes it simple and fast to pen test in a production environment without losing the granularity of manual testing if you need it, and you have Core Impact. Well, almost. Every year I say that I am going to find a better tool, and I actually do comb the market -- unsuccessfully.

Vulnerability analysis: Mu Dynamics

Peter Stephenson December 03, 2008

When your price starts at $50,000 and you are unique in your marketplace, you'd better have a good product. For Mu Dynamics, that is just where the story starts. When I first met the Mu folks, they were Mu Security. A new name later, they still are the innovators they were a couple of years ago. My conversation with a Mu visionary was an eye-opener.

Access magagement: AppGate Network Security

Peter Stephenson December 02, 2008

This Swedish company will, I predict, set the benchmark here in the United States for how access to applications should be controlled. AppGate has helped shape the direction of network infrastructure security in Europe for some years, and now this innovator is bringing its unique thoughts to the States.

Multifactor authentication:TriCipher

Peter Stephenson December 02, 2008

What sets these guys apart from the multifactor herd? In a word, vision. From the start, TriCipher has had the vision of evolving into a full identity management provider. That is a pretty heady ambition for a developer of multifactor authentication tools. So how does this innovator plan to make the trip from providing a piece of the puzzle to offering the whole thing, already assembled, framed and hung on the wall?

Identity management: Fischer International

Peter Stephenson December 02, 2008

Start with the recognition that identity management is just too hard to do, create a solution for that problem and then morph it into a successful service and you have the recipe for a real innovator.

Credential management: Passlogix

Peter Stephenson December 02, 2008

Here is another vendor that we see a lot of in our labs. Passlogix knows who it is and concentrates on doing what it does as well as it can be done. And what they do is credential management.

NAC: Bradford Networks

Peter Stephenson December 02, 2008

Bradford Networks is no stranger to these pages. An innovator from last year, Bradford has been reviewed a number of times over the years, always doing well. This year we asked them how well their crystal ball last year worked as 2008 unfolded.

Biometrics: Bioscrypt

Peter Stephenson December 02, 2008

Biometrics is a category that we are seeing more and more of as we look for better and more secure methods of identification and authentication. Strong authentication becomes stronger when the "something you are" element enters the picture.

Study: Few second-hand hard disks wiped clean

Angela Moscaritolo November 05, 2008

A significant proportion of hard disks analyzed in an ongoing study contained sensitive data about businesses and individuals.

Groups want IT security burden to also fall on CFOs

Dan Kaplan October 20, 2008

Getting the chief financial officer to take the lead on cyber-risk will go a long way to helping organizations achieve adequate security funding, according to a guide released Monday for corporate money men and women.

From RSA: Warrantless wiretapping: blame it on technology

Deb Radcliff April 10, 2008

A panel at RSA explores wiretapping and the legal ramifications for ISPs.

From RSA: Forensics tools, techniques aid e-discovery investigations

Jim Carr April 09, 2008

E-discovery investigations can look into the alleged wrong-doings of a terminated employee and/or provide electronic records for use in corporate litigation, a lead forensics investigator told RSA Conference attendees on Wednesday.

Survey: IT security employees in demand, but skills lack

Sue Marquette Poremba February 28, 2008

There is a wide gap between IT security skills that organizations need and the skills IT professionals bring to the job, according to a new survey by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA).

Federal judge shuts site that leaks confidential information

Jack Rogers February 20, 2008

A federal judge in San Francisco has ordered the disabling of a website that discloses confidential information, a precedent-setting ruling that may raise a legal challenge to the growing online black market in purloined data while testing First Amendment rights.

Horizon 300,000 members unencrypted data on stolen laptop

Jack Rogers January 30, 2008

Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield of New Jersey has notified more than 300,000 of its members that their personal information -- including Social Security numbers -- was contained in a laptop stolen in Newark earlier this month.

(ISC)² publishes IT security pro hiring-help guide

Dan Kaplan January 16, 2008

Do you work with a human resources or recruiting department that is clueless when it comes to hiring IT security professionals? Help is on the way, in the form of a new booklet containing hiring guidelines.