Ellen Messmer

Senior Editor

 

emessmer@nww.com (941) 792-1061

Network World 9303 Ninth Ave. NW Bradenton, FL 34209

Recent articles by Messmer

IBM offers glimpse at future virtualization security products
09/26/08
IBM offered a glimpse at its next-generation Proventia security product line-up with offerings for an IPS "virtual appliance," a network security controller, plus the next edition of SiteProtector 7.0 and a tool for measuring corporate security posture.

Biometrics help U.S. soldiers fight terrorism
09/25/08
Biometrics has become a favored security technology by the federal government, which is using it in Iraq to catch bomb makers, safeguard U.S. borders and as a government ID card.

Intrusion-prevention systems still not used full throttle: survey
09/23/08
Intrusion-prevention systems often aren't used to actually block attack traffic, but instead act more like intrusion-detection systems, according to an Infonetics Research survey of 169 information professionals who offered a detailed look at how IPS equipment really gets used.

McAfee to acquire Secure Computing for $465M
09/22/08
McAfee Monday announced an agreement to acquire Secure Computing in a transaction valued at $465 million in a deal both companies say will help in winning customers in an era where broad product portfolios have an advantage.

Cybercrime toll mounts for businesses
09/22/08
Cybercrime remains a top concern, say 1,387 IT professionals surveyed by security firm Finjan.

Financial crisis signals end of an era in Wall Street IT world
09/18/08
The financial crisis wrought by the credit crunch pushed Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy, with London-based Barclays Bank stepping in to scoop up some assets, including its New Jersey data centers and New York headquarters building, at a bargain price. Facing its own troubles, Merrill Lynch agreed to be acquired by Bank of America, a move that analysts say appears to end the era of the reign of the Wall Street securities titans, as the world wonders what might happen to the two left standing, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Brad Pitt, Beyonce and Justin Timberlake top list of celebrity names most abused by malware writers
09/17/08
Brad Pitt, Mariah Carey and George Clooney are among the stars whose names are being most exploited across the Web to lure unwary fans into downloading wallpaper and screensaver software that's really malware in disguise.

Symantec pushing service for remote control of a PC
09/16/08
Symantec ramps up beta of Symantec Online Access, a service that lets small-to-midsiize businesses, as well as individual PC users, remotely control and transfer files and print to a targeted device from any Web-based machine.

Lehman failure, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch buyout shake Wall Street again
09/15/08
Wall Street shook once again as Lehman Brothers announced it’s headed into bankruptcy and Bank of America said it’s buying Merrill Lynch for about $50 billion in a stock-swap deal. There’s fallout for employees and implication for IT investment on Wall Street.

McAfee targets VMware server virtualization security
09/15/08
In virtualization push, McAfee promises pricing advantages.

Sourcefire embraces VMware
09/15/08
Sourcefire Monday said its intrusion-prevention technology now can help safeguard virtualized servers running VMware software

Hackers deface Large Hadron Collider Web site
09/12/08
Hackers have broken into the network of the Swiss particle-physics laboratory operating the Large Hadron Collider experiment that has just begun smashing atoms in the hope of finding the theorized Higgs particle, an elementary particle of mass.

Data leaks a people problem not a technical one
09/11/08
Data-leak prevention is more of a people and policy problem, not a technical one, according to some information-technology professionals who have gotten their feet wet with deploying DLP.

Software watchdog working on enterprise security metrics
09/08/08
The Center for Information Security is working to come up with metrics that companies can use to evaluate their information security status.

McAfee touts "cloud-based" malware defense system
09/08/08
McAfee Monday is announcing a change in how it delivers malware-signature software updates that it says should result in much speedier fixes.

Is Rock Phish cybergang set for a comeback?
09/05/08
RSA warns that the Rock Phish cybergang is upgrading its botnet for nefarious purposes.

Obama alma mater gets an education in 'net security
09/03/08
Punahou School in Honolulu has moved into the networking vanguard since presidential candidate Barack Obama graduated from the K-12 school in 1979. The private school’s 45 buildings are now connected via a fiber backbone and point-to-point laser system for short-range wireless communications, with Cisco switches and a voice-over-IP system for 500 phones.

Novell unites identity management, security-event management
09/02/08
Novell Tuesday is launching its Compliance Management Platform, a combination of existing identity management and security-event management products with additional reporting and analysis tools.

Procter & Gamble outsources security to IBM, but keeping security staff
08/29/08
Procter & Gamble has selected IBM ISS to provide managed security services worldwide under a 5-year contract in which IBM ISS will manage internal- and perimeter-based security and host defenses.

New security rules on tap for credit-card handlers
08/28/08
The PCI Security Standards Council is set to release a revised version of its 12-part Payment Card Industry standard, which tackles systems related to storage and processing of credit and debit cards by merchants and service providers.

Mt. Sinai Medical Center looks to open standards for patient smartcards
08/27/08
New York City's Mt. Sinai Medical Center, which a few years ago began a project to give patients a smartcard storing identity and health records, is realigning its focus with an eye toward using format standards that could help spur many hospitals to back the idea of a single, shared patient card.

Best Western downplays data breach
08/26/08
Best Western International has acknowledged it suffered a data breach but says the number of customers affected is a dozen or less, not 8 million.

Mozilla Firefox browser gets security boost
08/25/08
Carnegie-Mellon University announces "Perspectives" security add-on for Mozilla Firefox to boost browser security.

Open source still looking to shake off concerns
08/25/08
Although open source software has gained a place in enterprise networks alongside proprietary software, it can't seem to shake doubts about security and intellectual-property issues that have long dogged the movement.

Torvalds: Fed up with the 'security circus'
08/14/08
Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, says he's fed up with what he sees as a "security circus" surrounding software vulnerabilities and how they're hyped by security people.

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