Alex Goldman

The professionals just don’t do it on YouTube. They have more exclusive hangouts, IRC chat rooms where malware, personal data, and other valuable items are traded in criminal markets for cash or in barter transactions, according to Symantec’s recent Internet Security Threat Report. MSNBC reports that one dumpster diver did not know this protocol and […]

Don’t count VMware as among those companies cutting back in a down economy. The virtualization kingpin will respond to challenges, from the competition and from the economy, by releasing new products, said executives on VMware’s earnings call earlier this week. VMware will be betting heavily on its new vSphere 4.0 product to give it the […]

When workers lose their laptops at conferences and airports or in taxis, rental cars or hotels, the cost to their employer can be steep. How steep? Think almost $50,000. That’s according to a new report by the Ponemon Institute, which looked at the costs to companies not just in terms of hardware, but also in […]

Virtualization is important to everyone in the enterprise software business. VMware may be credited with popularizing the concept, but others are eager to cash in on the idea. Case in point: Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), which introduced its Virtual Network Link (VN-Link) technology designed to help enterprises manage their virtual hardware as easily as they manage […]

High-flying virtualization company VMware showed that it’s not immune to the current malaise gripping the IT industry, reporting lower-than-expected revenue on weakness in sales. The company reported net earnings of $69.9 million, or $0.18 per share. Before one-time charges, earnings rose to $0.25 per share, above analyst expectations of $0.20. More concerning for investors were […]

I wrote two stories (Security Lapses Aplenty Despite Growing Threats and Report: Credit Cards Plentiful in Crime Networks) about Verizon’s 2009 Data Breach Incident Report (.pdf) before I learned that it contained a secret code. Ryan Naraine, a former colleague who is now a Kaspersky rep and security commentator, noted in his twitter feed that […]

Where can you find a conference that’s still running seven tracks? The ISACA CACS conference in Orlando, May 3-7, will cover IT best practices. That stands for the North America Computer Audit, Control and Security (CACS) Conference. Speakers come from security and consulting companies and cover such topics as “The Secret Life of Application Controls” […]

SILVER SPRING, MD — In recent years, said experts at the Freedom to Connect conference, regulators have chosen not to intervene in the markets, but that era of inaction is over. Three influential panelists at the Freedom To Connect conference said that the excuses that allowed regulators to do nothing in the past have gone, […]

NEW YORK — With Time Warner Cable’s fumbled efforts to test demand-based broadband pricing still fresh, it might not have been a surprise that network carriers are shy about discussing the need to raise prices. Instead, panelists here yesterday at Capacity USA 2009, Capacity magazine’s 9th annual U.S. wholesale telecommunications congress, were more eager to […]

Are businesses adopting new technologies too quickly for their own good? When it comes to locking down their systems, they might be, according to IBM, which today at the RSA Conference unveiled a slew of new products that secure cloud computing, Web applications, virtual environments and data. There is a need for these products to […]

As small companies strive to perfect one trick, the big security vendors want to own the whole process, and they have strong arguments in favor of the total control suites they offer. That was the story with the opening of the RSA security conference yesterday, and it’s the story in today’s announcements from Symantec. The […]

Symantec, the company that discovered the first Macintosh worm in 1998, announced the discovery of the first Macintosh botnet. If you have not pirated software, you’re likely fine, the company said. That’s because the bot spreads through a software package that purports to be a pirated version of Apple’s iWork application, a productivity software collection […]