Before I Forget…

An independent study shows that, in 2006, IE users were vulnerable to online threats 78% of the time. Firefox users? Only 2%. “At risk” defined as publicly available exploits with no patch. Source: “Internet Explorer users Unsafe for 284 Days in 2006” Brian Krebs, Washington Post, 1/4/2007

A new do-it-yourself phishing tool lets enterprises automatically spear-phish their own users.  The new PhishMe software-as-a-service offering is designed to help companies assess their vulnerability to spear phishing, as well as to give their users a real-world taste of these targeted attacks.  Boutique security firm Intrepidus Group, which is made up of some black hat researchers, today rolled out the new Web-based PhishMe service for helping companies find the weakest links in their targeted phishing defense.  Spear phishing attacks target specific organizations or individuals, rather than blanketing large groups of users…..The concept of unleashing a fake phishing campaign inside your own organization isn’t new — some companies routinely hire penetration testers or social engineering experts to do the dirty work for them…..PhishMe is also a gentler way of catching employees falling for a phish.  Rather than making them feel punk’d, like some social engineering exploits do, it gives them instant feedback:  They are redirected to educational messages and information, including a PhishMe educational comic strip and links to their corporate sites for more information…..Security experts say the hands-on attack approach is more powerful than a security policy statement or traditional user training…..Setting up an attack takes just a few minutes, and PhishMe provides user behavior metrics as well as other trend information.  For security reasons, Intrepidus doesn’t collect its clients’ user passwords on its servers.  “The only thing we have is the email addresses of our clients,” says Aaron Higgby, CTO of Intrepidus.  PhishMe can be configured for any type of phishing exploit, even the more obviously phony ones that aren’t targeted at any particular organization or person.  But spear phishing campaigns are usually the most difficult phishing attacks to detect, experts say.  “They are hard to pick up because they are so close to legitimate emails out there,” Belani says.  “You need to train people to focus on the targeted phishing attacks.”  The next version of the service will have options for including benign infected-email attachments, Belani says.

Reference : http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=159436

IBM is doing something right.  Last week even the unstoppable Google stumbled, failing to meet the lofty expectations of its cheerleaders.  Microsoft too delivered mildly sub-par numbers in its fourth quarter as it felt the effect of a faltering economy.  But IBM sailed calmly on, producing its third successive strong quarter.  It is tempting to simply put this down to the resilience of Big Blue’s model.  Only about a third of revenues are now made in the US.  Half of sales come from services that produce reliable income year in, year out: such as outsourcing, or maintenance of the massive mainframe computers that the group still builds.  Yet the performance – second-quarter sales growth of 13% year-on-year – should be seen in the context of five years of re-engineering at IBM.  The move towards offering an integrated mix of IT services, hardware and software did not start well.  IBM’s purchase of the consulting arm of PwC in 2002 serves as an excellent example of how extremely difficult it is to integrate people-based businesses: as cultures clashed, the intellectual capital walked straight out of the door.  At the same time, offshoring exploded, and aggressive pricing from domestic rivals such as EDS and Indian competitors killed margins.  Since then, however, IBM appears to have slowly mastered the model of an integrated hardware, software and services supplier.  Commodity businesses such as PCs and printers have been sold, while the group has spent money expanding in software. It has shifted closer to customers in emerging markets, while concentrating on higher value areas such as security, instead of just simple labour outsourcing.  The plan, laid out in 2007, to grow earnings at an annual rate of 15% out to 2010 through a mixture of cost cutting, acquisitions and organic sales growth is very much on track.  For an octogenarian, the world’s largest IT services company has a remarkable spring in its step.

Reference : http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/2be8f57c-568a-11dd-8686-000077b07658.html

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Security applications delivered as cloud-based services will have a dramatic impact on the industry, as many cloud-based services will more than triple in many security segments, according to Gartner, Inc.  In messaging security controls, such as malware and spam detection/exclusion for e-mail and instant messaging, cloud-based services account for 20% of revenue in 2008, and by 2013 cloud-based services in messaging security controls will account for 60% of revenue.  Cloud computing will enable security controls and functions to be delivered in new ways and by new types of service providers.  It will also enable enterprises to use security technologies and techniques that are not otherwise cost-effective.  Gartner defines cloud computing as a style of computing where massively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided “as a service” using Internet technologies to multiple external customers.  “The ability to provide massively scalable processing, storage and bandwidth inherent in cloud computing will require security controls and functions to be delivered to customers in new ways and by new service providers,” said Kelly Kavanagh, principal analyst at Gartner.  “It also will allow security technologies and techniques that are cost-effective to be used only with cloud-style computing.  The massively scalable resources provided through the cloud also will be available to people who develop attacks that require intense processing, pursue cloud providers, or both.”

Reference : http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=158994