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Windows is 'collapsing,' Gartner analysts warn
Windows is 'collapsing,' Gartner analysts warn ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
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Tippingpoint Introduces The First Scalable, True 10 Gigabit
Tippingpoint Introduces The First Scalable, True 10 Gigabit ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
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The New E-spionage Threat
The New E-spionage Threat ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
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Symantec acquires PGP, GuardianEdge for encryption, key management
Symantec Corp. is entering the encryption market, acquiring encryption giant PGP Corp., and GuardianEdge Technologies Inc., in a $370 million deal that will integrate the two vendors' platforms into Symantec's centralized management platform Symantec paid $70 million for San Mateo, Calif-based GuardianEdge and $300 million for Menlo Park, Calif.-based PGP. The agreements are subject to regulatory approvals and are expected to close during the June quarter. Symantec president and CEO Enrique Salem said both companies' product lines could be integrated across Symantec's product portfolio lines, including its Software as a Service, backup and recovery and security offerings. Symantec currently has an OEM relationship with Guardian Edge and PGP. GuardianEdge Hard Disk Encryption and Removable Storage, backbone Symantec's Endpoint Encryption Product as well as the Altiris Total Management Suite. PGP's encryption technology, meanwhile, resides in the Symantec Data Loss Prevention offerings, which are based on the former Vontu solution. Symantec acquired Vontu in November 2007. This is Symantec's first acquisition in the encryption market. One of its principal rivals, McAfee Inc., acquired SafeBoot Corp. in November 2007. SafeBoot was an encryption and user authentication vendor; SafeBoot is now the McAfee Endpoint Encryption product Salem said he's seen increased interest and inquiries from customers about investments in DLP, but said customers want encryption capabilities as a first line of defense. He singled out PGP's encryption key management as a driving factor in his company's pursuit of its longtime partner. "Encryption is important, but what is more important is that you have policy-driven approach to the management of encryption keys," Salem said. "PGP allows us to offer key management across the breadth of our portfolio." Symantec's $300 million acquisition of PGP, can enable it to offer its customers a full range of full disk encryption (PGP) and removable media encryption (GuardianEdge); Salem added that since are both OEM partners, he expects any integration issues to be minimal. "At this point, we see an opportunity to go way beyond removable media and hard disk encryption, and have a policy-based key management infrastructure across the range of products we offer," he said. Earlier this year, PGP acquired ChosenSecurity. The move brought PGP into the identity management space as well; ChosenSecurity's offerings bring security and trust of individuals taking part in SSL transactions, as well as the authentication of mobile applications and the creation of digital signatures. Salem added that Symantec would be able to move trust and encryption onto endpoints, leaving server authentication and trust to leaders such as VeriSign Inc. "This helps us move further into identity [management] and trust of individual users," Salem said. "Expect us to do more around trust." Symantec has had a close relationship with GuardianEdge, licensing its technology for its endpoint protection suite. The relationship was so close that Nick Selby, a former industry analyst, said he predicted in 2009 that the two vendors would come together. Selby, currently managing director of Trident Risk Management, a security consultancy, said the acquisition gives Symantec a boost over Sophos Plc. and brings it closer to its rival McAfee. Both vendors added encryption capabilities by making their own acquisitions. (McAfee acquired Safeboot Inc. in 2007, and Sophos acquired Utimaco Safeware AG in 2008.) Selby said Symantec shouldn't have many integration issues. While there is some overlap, the two vendors mostly complement each other, helping Symantec integrate encryption across data loss prevention, email and file and server protection. Integrating PGP's key management platform into the Symantec Protection Center will help centralize encryption management, he said. "PGP will give Symantec the ability to provide more integrated and widely deployed key management and better policy controls over key management," Selby said. "GuardianEdge is very good at removable media and mobile device encryption and they're better at rolling encryption out and updatability." Selby said, Symantec will have to demonstrate that it can continue to improve in integrating its acquisitions, as it did with its acquisition of DLP vendor Vontu in 2007. Integrating encryption and key management into an heterogeneous, enterprise-wide portolio is a non-trivial task. If done successfully it can be a huge growth opportunity for Symantec, he said. ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
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Sophos sells majority stake to private equity group
Less than a week after Symantec's acquisitions of encryption vendors PGP Corp. and GuardianEdge Technologies Inc., the rash of consolidation in the computer security market continued Monday when Sophos agreed to sell a majority interest to global private equity group, Apax Partners Terms were not released, but the company is valued at $830 million, according to a news release. Minority shareholders TA Associates will also sell its full interest in Sophos to Apax. Sophos, which specializes in endpoint security and antimalware protection, said it had revenue in excess of $260 million as of March 31, the end of its fiscal year. Apax Partners, meanwhile, focuses on five business sectors, including technology and telecommunications companies. Sophos, based in the U.K., was one of the largest remaining standalone security vendors, trailing Symantec Corp. and McAfee Inc. for leadership in the endpoint security space, and McAfee in the sale of data protection suites, according to the Sophos release. "As the market continues its migration from point solution to tailored, unified security suites, Sophos' strategy to offer the world's most resilient, cost effective solutions without any additional complexity remains key," said Sophos CEO Steve Munford, in a prepared statement. " Apax's financial backing, combined with Sophos's deep understanding of security and data protection is great news for our customers, prospects and partners." "We identified the security software space as an attractive investment area for us given its rapid growth driven by ever increasing malware threats and high barriers to entry," said Salim Nathoo, a partner in the Tech & Telecom team at Apax Partners. "Sophos is a very strong platform and is gaining market share. Apax's strong track record and industry specific knowledge in the technology sector makes Sophos a perfect fit." Sophos founders Dr. Jan Hruska and Dr. Peter Lammer will keep a minority share of the company. TA Associates, which sold its full interest in Sophos to Apex, remains in the security space. The investment firm paid more than $200 million in 2009 for a stake AVG Technologies Inc. Mergers and acquisitions are done for many reasons. Sophos customers should look more closely at how the company communicates its strategy and focuses its resources, said Jonathan Penn, a vice president at Forrester Research Inc. Selling a majority stake to a private equity firm could be a sign that the firm is gaining the financial resources it needs to expand the company, he said. "They could be using this as a foothold to develop a broader security play," Penn said. "This could be good news for [Sophos customers] because there's some backing and financial resources to expand the portfolio and in the end that's going to make for a more stable and deeper partner." Penn said Sophos was one of the first to expand beyond threat management at the endpoint to more proactive data protection. "They definitely have some praise on the ease of implementation, simplicity of management," he said. Like many security vendors in this space, Sophos has had a difficult time competing against Symantec and McAfee, Penn said. The highly competitive market for endpoint security includes Microsoft, Trend Micro, Kaspersky Lab, and F-Secure, among others. Sophos has been "moderately successful," Penn said. The challenge for Sophos has been to really stand out. The vendor has grown in market share by being the alternative to the top-tier vendors. "That's a difficult position to grow at the pace the rest of the market is growing," Penn said. "My perception is that Sophos hasn't been as aggressive in the large enterprise space and focusing more on mid-tier businesses." ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
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SCADA security news
U.S. probes cyber attack on water system (Reuters) - Federal investigators are looking into a report that hackers managed to remotely shut down a utility's water pump in central Illinois last week, in what could be the first known foreign cyber attack on a U.S. industrial system. The November 8 incident was described in a one-page report from the Illinois Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center, according to Joe Weiss, a prominent expert on protecting infrastructure from cyber attacks. The attackers obtained access to the network of a water utility in a rural community west of the state capital Springfield with credentials stolen from a company that makes software used to control industrial systems, according to the account obtained by Weiss. It did not explain the motive of the attackers. He said that the same group may have attacked other industrial targets or be planning strikes using credentials stolen from the same software maker. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are examining the matter, said DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard. "At this time there is no credible corroborated data that indicates a risk to critical infrastructure entities or a threat to public safety," he said, declining to elaborate further. An FBI spokesman in Illinois did not return phone calls seeking comment. SCADA SECURITY Cyber security experts said that the reported attack highlights the risk that attackers can break into what is known as Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. They are highly specialized computer systems that control critical infrastructure -- from water treatment facilities, chemicals plants and nuclear reactors to gas pipelines, dams and switches on train lines. The issue of securing SCADA systems from cyber attacks made international headlines last year after the mysterious Stuxnet virus attacked a centrifuge at a uranium enrichment facility in Iran. Many experts say that was a major setback for Iran's nuclear weapon's program and attribute the attack to the United States and Israel. In 2007, researchers at the U.S. government's Idaho National Laboratories identified a vulnerability in the electric grid, demonstrating how much damage a cyber attack could inflict on a large diesel generator. (To see video that was leaked to CNN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJyWngDco3g) Lani Kass, who retired in September as senior policy adviser to the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States should take the possibility of a cyber attack seriously. "The going in hypothesis is always that it's just an incident or coincidence. And if every incident is seen in isolation, it's hard -- if not impossible -- to discern a pattern or connect the dots," Kass told Reuters. "Failure to connect the dots led us to be surprised on 9/11," she said, describing the September 11, 2001 hijacking attacks as a prime example in which authorities dismissed indicators of an impending disaster and were caught unaware. Representative Jim Langevin, a Democrat from Rhode Island, said that the report of the attack highlighted the need to pass legislation to improve cyber security of the U.S. critical infrastructure. "The stakes are too high for us to fail, and our citizens will be the ones to suffer the consequences of our inaction," he said in a statement. ILLINOIS ATTACK Several media reports identified the location of the attack as Springfield. City officials said that was inaccurate. Don Craven, a lawyer and a trustee for the Curran-Gardner Township Public Water District, said late Friday that the small water utility was aware that "something happened" but that he did not have much information on the matter. "We are aware there may have been a successful or unsuccessful attempt to hack into the system," Craven said by telephone from his Springfield, Illinois, office. "It came through a software system that's used to remotely access the pumps," he said. "A pump is burned out." The district serves some 2,200 customers in a rural district West of Springfield. He said there was no interruption in service as the utility operates multiple pumps and wells. Its water comes from an aquifer underneath the Sangamon River. Craven said he did not know what software at the utility was involved but said he was confident that no customer records were compromised. He said he was mystified as to the reason hackers might have targeted the tiny district. The general manager of the utility has not returned messages. OTHER ATTACKS? Quoting from the one-page report, Weiss said it was not yet clear whether other networks had been hacked as a result of the breach at the U.S. software maker. He said the manufacturer of that software keeps login credentials to the networks of its customers so that its staff can help them support those systems. "An information technology services and computer repair company checked the computer logs of the system and determined the computer had been hacked into from a computer located in Russia," Weiss quoting from the report in a telephone interview with Reuters. Workers at the targeted utility in central Illinois on November 8 noticed problems with SCADA systems which manages the water supply system, and discovered that a water pump had been damaged, said Weiss, managing partner of Applied Control Solutions in Cupertino, California. (Reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston; Additional reporting by Jim Wolf, Andrew Stern, Diane Bartz and Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Bernard Orr and Jonathan Thatcher)
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Saudi spend on IT set to rise
Saudi Arabia has been named the biggest IT market in the Gulf region by Business Monitor International (BMI) and accounts for almost half of the total Middle East IT spend. Investment in education is also benefiting the IT market, with the recently opened King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) home to one of the world's fastest supercomputers. "Saudi Arabia is quickly establishing itself as a key international IT hub," said Helal Saeed Almarri, CEO, Dubai World Trade Centre. "Saudi is easily the largest market in the Gulf and its rapidly evolving economy demands world class IT solutions." The World Trade Centre is set to host the Gitex Technology Week next month, at which thousands of Saudi executives are expected to attend, Almarri said. "With the Middle East ICT sector remaining buoyant at a time when more established markets are experiencing a slowdown, global companies are focusing heavily on strengthening their presence in the Gulf region's strongest IT market," Gitex said in a statement on Wednesday. The trade show will run from October 18-22. ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
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RSA Unveils New SIEM Technology With Situational Awareness Capabilities
RSA Unveils New SIEM Technology With Situational Awareness CapabilitiesImprovements are designed to provide customers with the ability to better identify and combat today’s advanced threatsAug 03, 2011 | 03:29 PM | 1 Comments Black Hat, LAS VEGAS – August 3, 2011 – RSA, The Security Division of EMC (NYSE: EMC), today announced a revolutionary approach to situational awareness for information security with the launch of RSA NetWitness Panorama™ technology and enhancements to its RSA enVision' Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platform. These improvements are designed to provide customers with the ability to better identify and combat today’s advanced threats.
RSA NetWitness Panorama, a new module in the RSA NetWitness family, delivers innovation in security analytics through the fusion of hundreds of log data sources with external threat intelligence. Combined with RSA NetWitness, enterprises can now have extraordinarily broad and robust high-speed visibility into the critical information needed to help detect today’s targeted, dynamic and stealthy attack techniques. RSA NetWitness Panorama may be deployed in three ways: as an extension to RSA NetWitness installations to combine the diverse information contained in log files with the deep content of full traffic capture, alongside RSA enVision for fast security analytics across the volumes of log data collected by RSA enVision, or as a standalone log analytics module with or without other 3rd party SIEM tools.
“Customers are wrestling with the need to use a variety of data sources both to demonstrate compliance and to combat advanced threats,” said Amit Yoran, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Security Management and Compliance Business, RSA, The Security Division of EMC. “Log management and SIEM technologies are important elements of incident and threat management processes, but have been constrained by a lack of a common lexicon, scalability, and the agility to adapt to the ever-changing threat landscape. Our enhancements to RSA enVision make it a more powerful tool for compliance reporting and also for analysis of log data as part of the security process. And, by providing native, cross-environment visibility and threat-informed analytics across log data and full packet capture, RSA NetWitness Panorama technology offers security teams an unprecedented view of organizational activity across even more of their IT infrastructure.”
RSA NetWitness Panorama Module Delivers Situational Awareness
RSA NetWitness Panorama technology is designed to apply a host of NetWitness innovations to make log data an active part of security operations. Those innovations are engineered to include:
Interactive data-driven analysis of over 200 different enterprise log formats leveraging RSA enVision content definitions Award-winning, patented, drill-down analysis that works over network sessions and log data Mature threat intelligence combined with log data for better context of threats, automating a key part of the information sharing process around threats Data presented the way expert security analysts investigate advanced threats, enabling more insightful analysis Scalability and speed from the RSA NetWitness platform enabling fast, actionable log analytics High speed connector from RSA enVision to the RSA NetWitness Panorama module, enabling richer data feeds into RSA NetWitness Panorama in side-by-side deployments
The RSA NetWitness Panorama module can either consume syslog data directly or gain richer data via direct feeds from the RSA enVision SIEM platform to provide even greater context for investigations and incident response.
“Enterprises continue to struggle to achieve adequate visibility into a variety of advanced, targeted and layered threats that evade detection by traditional approaches to incident management,” said Lawrence Pingree, Research Director, Gartner. “Combating these attacks requires security teams to think differently about how they can achieve situational awareness. The ability to understand complete security context is significantly enhanced through the fusion of disparate security events in conjunction with protocol level visualization, and is an essential component to the efficiency of today’s security operations and incident response triage procedures.”
RSA enVision Enhancements Improve Speed of Investigations
Enhancements to the RSA enVision SIEM platform are designed to increase the speed and simplicity of ad-hoc queries against log data, while improving report management capabilities. Customers can now execute queries for investigation and incident response across large volumes of log data with up to 10X improvements in response time over the previous version. RSA enVision 4.1 platform is also engineered to enable RSA enVision ES centralized deployments to be run as a fully virtual machine and offers virtual collectors for RSA enVision LS distributed deployments, making it simpler for customers to implement consistent security and compliance across physical and virtual infrastructures. The performance improvements of ad-hoc queries in the RSA enVision 4.1 platform help deliver the speed and flexibility critical for log-specific investigations and forensics.
RSA NetWitness Panorama is available in Beta Q3, 2011 and will be generally available in Q4, 2011. RSA enVision 4.1 will be generally available in Q3.
About RSA
RSA, The Security Division of EMC, is the premier provider of security, risk and compliance management solutions for business acceleration. RSA helps the world’s leading organizations succeed by solving their most complex and sensitive security challenges. These challenges include managing organizational risk, safeguarding mobile access and collaboration, proving compliance, and securing physical, virtual and cloud environments. For more information, please visit www.RSA.com and www.EMC.com. read more › › Source › › ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
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nCircle Announces PCI Solutions That Provide a 360 Degree View of Compliance
Solutions address both external and internal assessment of the payment network to deliver the industry's most complete and accurate security and compliance assurance nCircle, the leading provider of agentless security risk and compliance management solutions, today announced its suite of Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance solutions. The suite enables merchants to view the compliance status of their entire payment network, from outside as well as inside their network using nCircle's certified solutions, and receive the industry's most complete and accurate security and compliance assurance that their customer payment card data is protected, regardless of where it resides on the payment network. nCircle's PCI solutions are also available through select Value-added Resellers, Managed Service Providers, Merchant Banks, payment service providers and security consultants who are part of nCircle's nAble PCI Partner Program. The nCircle Certified PCI Scan Service™ - the industry's most accurate, self-service, on-demand scanning solution certified by the PCI Security Standards Council, - may be used by merchants of all sizes and at all levels to certify that their externally-facing payment network is secure. The nCircle Certified PCI Scan Service enables merchants to achieve certified third-party validation of PCI compliance on a quarterly basis as required by the PCI Data Security Standard. nCircle was recently recertified as an Approved Scan Vendor, meeting the latest strict requirements set by the PCI Security Standards Council, offering the most comprehensive, dependable external assessment of a payment network. Although conducting quarterly external assessments of the payment network is a key element in PCI compliance, merchants must also conduct frequent internal assessment of their payment networks in order to get a complete and accurate view of their PCI compliance status and how well they are protecting customer card data. read more › › Source › › ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
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McAfee to acquire Nitro security
On October 4, 2011, McAfee announced its intention to acquire privately owned NitroSecurity, a leading provider of security information and event management (SIEM) solutions that provide complete visibility and situational awareness to protect critical information and infrastructure. NitroSecurity’s solutions use a patented database engine to identify, correlate, and remediate threats faster than any other technology on the market. The acquisition will enable McAfee to provide organizations with greater visibility into endpoint assets, network infrastructure, specific security threats and risks, and system vulnerabilities across the entire IT environment — via a single management platform. The acquisition, subject to federal review under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act and customary closing conditions, is expected to close by the end of 2011. SIEM technology provides real-time analysis of security alerts generated by network hardware, system events, and applications, and is used to log security data and generate reports for compliance purposes. NitroSecurity is a member of the McAfee Security Innovation Alliance and its SIEM technology has already passed integration testing with the McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator (McAfee ePO) management console. The addition of NitroSecurity’s SIEM solutions will further expand the capability of the McAfee ePO management console to view events, activity, and logs created by networks, databases, and applications, helping customers take immediate, decisive action to address threats and vulnerabilities. The integration of NitroSecurity’s SIEM technologies into the McAfee product family will enable enterprises to:
The acquisition of NitroSecurity gives McAfee a strong foothold into the rapidly growing SIEM market, which hit $987 million in 2010 according to Gartner, and expands McAfee’s opportunity in the risk and compliance market. “McAfee is focused on keeping customers safe with optimized security and risk management solutions,” said Stuart McClure, general manager and senior vice president of the Risk and Compliance business unit at McAfee. “McAfee has taken another significant step toward this goal with the proposed acquisition of NitroSecurity. With NitroSecurity’s technology and talent, McAfee can expand its reach into new markets, secure new platforms, and strengthen its hold as the leader in the security risk management market.” NitroSecurity’s technologies are a natural fit with the McAfee security portfolio. “NitroSecurity’s technology supports a broad range of information sources, including network security devices, firewalls, operating system and application logs, vulnerability assessment scans, identity and access management systems, and privacy systems. It will complement the extensive McAfee security portfolio and help to meet the demanding compliance and protection needs of our joint customers,” said Ken Levine, chairman and chief executive officer of NitroSecurity. read more › › Source › › ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
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