Sean Michael Kerner

In 2012 ZDI published 203 advisories on a long list of vulnerabilities. ZDI identified Microsoft as being the top vendor target for researchers, with over 100 submissions. While 2012 was a busy year for new ZDI vulnerability disclosures, the actual attacks weren’t entirely new. Brian Gorenc, manager of the Zero Day Initiative, told eSecurity Planet […]

The first Firefox release of 2013 is now out and it’s a big one. On the security front there are some 20 security advisories associated with the release, of which 12 are rated as being critical. Among the critical updates is one for an issue that Google and Microsoft addressed last week. SSL Certificate Authority […]

Microsoft’s January Patch Tuesday delivers fixes for 12 security vulnerabilities, though it is perhaps most noteworthy for what it is missing. Security firm FireEye on Dec. 28 reported on its discovery of a new Internet Explorer (IE) zero-day flaw that is being actively exploited. Microsoft responded with a Fix it update, though a full patch […]

From the ‘Publishers’ Blogging Platform’ files: The open source WordPress 3.5 was released in December and so its now time for WordPress developers to turn their attention to WordPress 3.6. While it’s still early in the development process, one new feature that is likely to land in WordPress 3.6 is Edit Flow. With EditFlow, the […]

From the ‘What else would they use?’ files: Move over RaspberryPi and Arduino, there is a new maker on the ‘block’. I’ve been lusting after Arduino and RaspberryPi based maker initiatives since I first heard about them. Plug and play build your own electronics with Linux and open source goodness – it’s just like LEGO […]

From the ‘Teaching an old dog new tricks’ files: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 (RHEL) became generally available today. The RHEL 5.9 release first landed in beta in late September and is mostly about new hardware enablement. It’s also an important release in that RHEL 5.9 is the last minor release in the first Production […]

From the ‘Adobe Open Source Flash’ files: It has been some time since I last wrote about Adobe Flex, which now has gained new status at the Apache Software Foundation. Flex first came to my full attention back in 2007 when Adobe decided to open source the Rich Application Framework. Adobe had been building flex […]

The 802.11ac standard provides 1Gbps or more of wireless bandwidth. Qualcomm Atheros’ new StreamBoost technology leverages the Qualcomm VIVE 802.11ac silicon and will be demonstrated in consumer devices at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show. According to Qualcomm, VIVE on its own can deliver up to 1.3 Gbps of bandwidth operating in the 5GHz spectrum. StreamBoost […]

According to Mozilla, Microsoft and Google, TURKTRUST issued a pair of incorrect subsidiary certificate authorities. The subsidiary CAs then issued illegitimate SSL certificates for *.google.com Google updated its SSL certificate revocation list on Dec. 26, blocking the two fraudulent certificates. Microsoft issued an advisory on Jan. 3, disclosing that it was aware of active attacks […]

“It’s been almost 40 years since Bob and I wrote our paper, and I can assure you while we had high hopes, we did not dare to assume that the Internet would turn into the worldwide platform it’s become.” Vint Cerf commenting on the 30th anniversary of the switchover from NCP to TCP/IP (Google)   […]

Imation Corporation this week announced the acquisition of privately held Nexsan Corporation in a deal valued at $120 million. The deal includes a cash payment of $105 million and $15 million worth of Imation common shares. As part of the deal, approximately 200 Nexsan employees in the U.S., U.K. and Canada are joining Imation. The […]

IDC reported its third quarter 2012 Worldwide Security Appliance Tracker results this week showing both revenue and unit shipment growth. Revenue during the third quarter hit $2.0 billion, which a is a 5.7 percent year-over-year gain. Some 499,022 units were shipped during the quarter for a 1 percent yearly gain. Security appliance growth varied on […]