Category: Uncategorized

Malicious code hits record-high in Jan

The volume of different malware has increased to over 9,000 last month, more than twice higher than in December, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., collects data from devices FortiGate network security and information located worldwide, and produces monthly statistics from data threats.

The top of the charts were variants of Bredolab a share of over 40 per cent of all malicious activity. The program Downloader Bredolab which took the No. 1 position since November 2009, was caused by attacks Gumblar said Fortinet.

Has also been highlighted in the report, was the wave of attacks known as Operation Aurora – a major issue number following the threat of Google last month to learn from China. Fortinet said that the attacks, which was used a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers, 10 in January attack ranked No. 4 in the top list.

Continue reading “Malicious code hits record-high in Jan”

HP Heats Up Cisco Rivalry with 3Com Purchase

The gloves are off now in the fight for the data center. Cisco has operated largely unchallenged in providing routing and networking equipment for data centers, but with the purchase of 3Com, HP is poised to go head-to-head with Cisco.

The nearly $3 billion acquisition allows HP to incorporate a diverse portfolio of network switching and routing equipment, as well as 3Com’s TippingPoint intrusion prevention products into its inventory. Combined with the growing success of HP’s existing ProCurve network devices, purchasing 3Com intensifies the rivalry between Cisco and HP.

The purchase also signals a new direction for HP which has a history of expanding the scope of its products and services through acquisitions. HP bought Compaq in 2001 to extend its market share of server and desktop computers. In 2008, HP purchased rival IT services provider EDS to buy its way into 2nd place in that industry behind IBM. Acquiring 3Com takes HP into data center networking hardware territory and gives it the ability to deliver comprehensive, end-to-end solutions for customers.

HP isn’t the only company blurring the lines between traditionally separate markets. The entire industry is going through a convergence driven by unified communications and virtualization. The technologies and how they are being applied have evolved and companies like HP and Cisco have to adapt to those market trends to meet their customer’s needs.

Cisco has been stepping on toes for some time now. Cisco essentially drew first blood in this battle when it recently began marketing its own line of server hardware. Cisco has also been engaged against Microsoft, fighting to shape the future of unified communications. Last week Cisco announced the addition of 61 new products to its unified communications and collaboration portfolio.

Cisco has built its reputation in networking and has a solid share of that market, but it has been working diligently to break out of that mold and expand its products and services. Cisco is learning though that competitors are not going to sit idly by. Logitech took a bold step from the consumer side of technology to square off against Cisco for enterprise video-conferencing with the purchase of LifeSize.

Google’s Unified Tools Pose a Threat to Cisco

Officials at Cisco Systems Inc. say they are closely watching Google Inc.’s aggressive foray onto their unified communications turf and plan to respond quickly by boosting the capabilities of Cisco’s offerings.

In fact, analysts said Cisco’s announcement late last month that it plans to offer at least some pieces of its IP voice technology as a hosted service could be viewed as a direct response to Google’s recent move to start limited release of its Web-based Google Voice and Google Wave communications tools.

During a press briefing at the Cisco Live user conference in San Francisco late last month, Doug Dennerline, Cisco’s senior vice president of collaboration software, acknowledged the challenge from Google and said his company is set to “invent and reinvent” its unified communications offerings.

Analysts said that the Google Voice Internet telephony service, now available to early users by invitation, and Google Wave, a hosted collaboration and communications service released to developers early this month, may pose long-term problems for companies like Cisco and Microsoft Corp.

The Google products could provide users with a less expensive common platform for delivering messaging, voice and video services to consumers and office workers, they said.

The Google Voice service was launched in March for a limited customer base: users of its predecessor, Grand Central, a service the search vendor had acquired almost two years earlier. Late last month, Google began inviting selected new users to the service, which has attracted widespread attention for its call-screening capabilities and its ability to provide a single phone number for multiple devices.

The company did not say when the free service will be generally available.

Google Wave, which has been in development for about two years, promises to give users a single platform for accessing e-mail, instant messaging, blog, wiki, multimedia management and document-sharing tools. Google also hasn’t said when Google Wave will be widely available.

Though the Google offerings appear to be aimed primarily at consumers, they could quickly become attractive to small businesses, and eventually to large companies, if the products can overcome the privacy concerns raised by storing phone messages and other confidential data on third-party systems, analysts said.

Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group Research Inc., said it could take some time for Google’s product features to match those of Cisco, Microsoft and voice-switching vendors like Avaya Inc. or Siemens AG. But he predicted that over the “long term, Google will have a significant role” in the business.

Some observers said that Google’s maneuverings could hurt Cisco in particular as it tries to expand into the consumer market, long a Google stronghold.

For example, Cisco in March announced plans to buy Pure Digital Technologies Inc., maker of the Flip handheld camera used mostly by consumers. Cisco officials have also disclosed that the company is developing a consumer version of its TelePresence videoconferencing system.

“We think video is going to be very key in driving the next level of collaboration — Internet video, desktop video and consumer TelePresence,” said Padmasree Warrior, Cisco’s chief technology officer.

Cisco officials released few details of the company’s plan to offer some virtual voice services, though Warrior said they will probably be offered through its service provider customers.

Mozilla discloses more Firefox flaws

Apple’s Safari browser, you have once Snow Leopard and the iPhone hacked during the first days of the annual competition Pwn2Own where security experts of the material they were able to gain the offensive. The CNet reports, security analyst Charlie Miller won $ 10,000 after it remotely Safari on a MacBook Pro.

The victory was both sweet and familiar to Miller, senior analyst of security used for Independent Security Evaluators, because he had managed to Safari to contest the 2009 and 2008 iterations. He holds the exact technique of the attack this year under wraps for now, but have simply pointed out that the target computer was to visit a specially crafted Web site enough to use the trigger, by providing access to online orders for the Mac. The promoter Pwn2Own, Tipping Point’s Zero Day Initiative, the exchange of information on exploits with participating manufacturers to provide them the opportunity to patch vulnerabilities.

The iPhone had been shot by Vincenzo Iozzo of Zynamics and Ralf Philipp Weinmann at the University of Luxembourg, which the prize money of $ 15,000 for the penetration divided into the unit. (Everyone must also be an award for unique names are difficult.)

The iPhone hack is started with a website with malicious code, before the attack inside “the database of the local SMS phone for the server we have control,” says Weinmann CNet.

China’s Great Firewall spreads overseas

An error of networking computers caused in Chile and the United States under the control of the Great Wall of China to come, rerouting of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube users the Chinese servers.

Security experts do not know exactly how it happened, but it seems that at least one supplier has recently started doing high-level DNS (Domain Name Server) information, which as known root DNS server China. This server, operated by China by the Swedish NETNOD returned DNS information for Chinese users are intended to spread efficiently in the network censors in China and abroad. China firmly control access to a number of sites, using technology, popularly known as the Great Wall of China.

The matter was reported Wednesday by Mauricio Erec, a DNS administrator with NIC Chile, which found that ISP unnamed local reported that queries DNS for sites such as Facebook.com, Twitter.com and YouTube. com – all of which have been blocked in China – have been diverted to bogus addresses.

It is unknown how extensive the problem. Erech always false information reported by three access points to the network in Chile and California, but on Thursday he said that the problem does not occur again. “The evidence shows that we have not hit the server in China,” he said to send in a group discussion.

This problem occurs because, for whatever reason, at least one Internet service provider outside the DNS queries sent to a root server located in China, such as network experts. This is something that should make the service outside China, because it allows network censored in China “leakage” outside the country.

Researchers have long known that China has censored DNS routing information has changed for the users of government services functioning of the server instead of redirect sites like Facebook and Twitter. But this is the first version, leaked to these routes outside China, according to Rodney Joffe, a senior technician, DNS services company NeuStar. “Suddenly, the consequences are that people can be defeated outside China or redirected to servers in China,” he said.

From the use of a China-based root servers, ISPs are primarily controlled China, a way to get all the traffic of its users on the network. The serious security problems mean for people, said the network accepts the well-trodden routes could Joffe.

The ISP uses the roads bad probably wrong its BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) system is used to provide information based on the Internet, according to Danny McPherson, chief of security at Arbor Networks. “I do not think it is deliberately,” he said. “This is an example of how easy it is these details are contaminated or are damaged or have fled beyond the borders of what is supposed to be. “