The increased use of internet for commercial transactions and the associated increase in security risks has made data encryption commonplace. Encryption involves using an algorithm-based cipher to make plain text data unreadable except for those with the key to the cipher, and is crucial in protecting data in transit from preying eyes.

The two broad types of encryption are symmetric and asymmetric. Symmetric algorithms have a single ...

The spread of mobile devices has increased network security risks exponentially since hackers can easily exploit the inherently weak security of mobile networks to gain access to corporate networks. Third party application providers such as SafeNet now provide hardware authentication services that go a long way in making mobile devices on networks secure.

SafeNet Authentication Manager (SAM) 8.0 provides organizations the ability to manage the full authentication ...

In the age of heightened security concerns and spammers trying to flood inboxes with all sorts of junk and malware, securing email inboxes is a major, yet underestimated challenge.

Compromised email accounts may provide preying hackers with a treasure trove of information such as mail from system administrators regarding username and passwords of new accounts, bank account statements, and much more. Hackers can also control a hijacked ...

One of the major motives of cyber criminals is to grab computer resources such as bandwidth and storage space to operate botnets. A major botnet in recent times has been the Coreflood botnet, which succeeded in harvesting at least 50 gigabytes of compressed data, searchable in a MySQL database, compromising 370,000 computers to set up bot IDs in them, and then steal millions of dollars from victim’s bank ...

SCADA or Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition are computer systems that monitor and control industrial, infrastructure, or facility-based processes using automated programming logical controllers (PLC). Such systems however remain particularly vulnerable to attacks, with malware worms such as Stuxnet having the potential to wreck havoc with the routine functioning of PLCs.

The two major threats to SCADA networks are through access by unauthorized users or systems to the control software, and ...

With security systems now able to identify most botnets and spams, mass-spam attacks have lost financial appeal to spammers. Spam statistics collected by Cisco’s Security Intelligence Operations (SIO) confirm this trend. The total number of spam declined from 300 billion in June, 2010 to 40 billion in June, 2011. A major reason for this noticeable drop is the concentrated international effort that succeeded in neutralizing or removing the world’s worst ...

The recent spate of attacks on corporate networks has had security experts looking at new and innovative ways to safeguard data and resources. WECO Systems International, a systems integration company, and Cisco Systems Inc. propose a new approach that combines Internet Protocol video surveillance and energy management systems that would not only improve security, but also promote green computing.

The duo has planned a workshop entitled “Leveraging on existing investment to implement ...

Botnets are a network of private computers infected with malware and controlled by a remote server without the owners’ knowledge. The perpetuators send out programs disguised as an enticing email attachment or link, and when users click on it, the hidden malware code installs itself in the host computer and communicates with the command server by stealth. The command server then uses these inflected “slaves” to ...

A major challenge with cloud computing, which has restrained its potential is security vulnerabilities. Data passing back and forth the network and processed at different remote locations compromise security in a big way. Data processed at different onsite location also raise compliance issues.

Network security providers have however woken up to the challenge and now provide robust cloud computing security and compliance solutions. Security On-Demand Inc is a leading provider of ...

The motives for hackers vary. While altruistic considerations run behind most attacks, hackavist groups such as LulzSec and Anonymous carry out attacks primarily to humiliate companies and government agencies.

A press release via Twitter declared LulzSec’s motive as :”This is the Internet, where we screw each other over for a jolt of satisfaction.” LulzSec has to its credit a long list of website it has ...