Enterprise

With the growth of social networking, online media consumption and cloud computing, every day millions of people log in to a variety of different sites using a username and password or PIN combination. However, over the last few months there have been a number of high-profile hacking attacks that have pointed to the inherent weakness of the fixed password authentication systems that control access to these services.

Some industry experts have claimed that there are still business applications that should not run on virtualised servers.

Whenever information security is mentioned within most organisations there is a collective groan; the board don’t want to engage, staff don’t want to be encumbered and the IT department sometimes lack the guidance to implement anything effective.

Cloud computing is acknowledged as a new delivery model for IT services based on the Internet (represented in diagrams as a cloud… hence the cloud part). It typically involves the provision of scalable, often virtualized storage, server and communications resources provisioned as a service over the Internet.

While exploits targeting holes in computer software are on daily order, we are presently seeing a rise in social engineering techniques.

Compared to traditional IT environments, software is no longer purchased and locally installed on a PC or server. Instead, customers that take the SaaS Route simply buy a license for a software service hosted on the server of the SaaS-vendor, a period determined by whether they elect for a monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription.

LaCie has announced two new models of portable HDDs, Starck and Petit range.

Web 2.0 is thriving, and so too are applications that take advantage of this technology.  Interactive sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and even company websites are becoming ever more popular, and yet, many IT departments are unprepared for today’s emerging threats. As more companies take to the web to conduct business, the opportunity for attack is increased and organisations need to re-adjust security practices for the Web 2.0 world.

Data loss is a major concern for businesses of all sizes. High profile data breaches continue to grab headlines and organisations are feeling the heat of the intense media spotlight for losing confidential information about their company, employees, and clients.

It's Time to Embrace (and Prepare for) the Shift to the Cloud: A viewpoint looking at the emergence of the cloud.  With a focus on security, it discusses how the burden of maintaining a secure application is transferred from the software user to the services provider with a SaaS model..