Laptops used to be the only devices on the company's wireless network. But Wi-Fi has become a ubiquitous standard used by a host of devices -- including desktop PCs, laptops, netbooks, tablets, smartphones, printers, storage devices, and projectors.
There are more than a few critics of cloud computing, even at PCWorld; I'm probably one of them. But I've been turning over in my mind different perspectives on the cloud. I've tried to set aside the views of the IT executive, who seems to dominate the debate.
Yet another survey is indicating that security is a big issue for those intending to take up cloud computing.
Data security is always top of mind for CIOs and CSOs, and there is no shortage of challenges when it comes to picking the right tool for the job. With network and software vulnerabilities growing at a perpetual rate, good security software can help defend against many of the large-scale threats that occur locally and from all over the Internet. In this edition of 5 open source things to watch, we take a look at security products that will guard against threats without robbing your kitty.
In recent weeks WikiLeaks has been targeted by denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, had its hosting service shutdown, been bounced off of Amazon hosting, had its funding through PayPal, MasterCard and other sources shut down, and its leader arrested on sexual assault-related charges. The fact that WikiLeaks remains stubbornly and defiantly online holds some lessons for other sites when it comes to resilience and survivability.
Firewall audit tools automate the otherwise all-but-impossible task of analyzing complex and bloated rule sets to verify and demonstrate enterprise access controls and configuration change-management processes.
The security community has grown to depend on some basic technologies in the fight against cyber thieves, such as antivirus software and firewalls. But are practitioners clinging to tools that outlived their usefulness long ago? Were those tools ever really useful to begin with?
Firewalls are a mature technology, right? Most companies have at least one, if not several. And since an established knowledge base exists to tap for issues and PCI DSS 1.1 and 1.2 are pretty clear cut, firewall management shouldn't be much of an issue, right? No one is going to suffer the brunt of managing the significant infrastructure change these regulations are bound to bring more than the security operations team, correct?