Sean Michael Kerner

Members of the open-source Fedora Linux Project gathered at the new Flock conference in Charleston, S.C., from Aug. 9 to 12 to discuss the future of their Linux distribution. It’s a future that could see Fedora take a new path forward that will see the distribution evolve from a general-purpose open-source operating system to a […]

The critical MS13-059 bulletin is a cumulative update for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser and includes 11 privately reported vulnerabilities. Six of the eleven vulnerabilities were reported to Microsoft by way of the HP ZDI effort. ZDI pays researchers for their security vulnerability research and then responsibly discloses the information to affected vendors. ZDI also operates […]

New research rings the alarm bell on the risks of Remote File Inclusions, which could be a more pervasive threat to Web server security than even SQL injection. A common capability on many Web server and content management platforms is the ability to perform Remote File Inclusions (RFIs), which allow users to simply upload an […]

Over the last three years, Google has paid out over $2 million as part of its Chromium and Google Web Vulnerability Programs. In my opinion, those programs have done much more than just secure Google and its direct users—it has helped improve the security of the Web for us all. Read the full story at […]

The PirateBrowser is very similar in many respects to the Tor Browser Bundle (which was recently exploited). As is the case with the Tor Browser Bundle, the open-source Firefox browser is at the core, though it’s not the same version or release branch. The Tor Browser Bundle is based on the Firefox Extended Support Release […]

Internet research and security services firm Netcraft is now reporting that across the nearly 717 million Websites it has surveyed this month, Apache serves 46.96 percent of them. That is the first time that Apache’s share has fallen below 50 percent since December of 2009. At its height—in November of 2005—Apache held a 71 percent […]

Mozilla has delivered the beta version of its open-source Firefox 24 browser to provide developers and early adopters with a preview of technologies that will be generally available for consumers next month. The Firefox 24 Beta release follows hot on the heels of last week’s release of the Firefox 23 browser, which includes new security […]

The basic idea behind BrowserID/Persona is that your email address, as stored and authenticated inside your Firefox browser, is your identity. So whenever you visit a site that has Persona support, you get a log-in window pop-up, and all you need to do is click OK and away you go. Yes, it’s much like what […]

The chill that Americans continue to feel from the fallout over revelations related to National Security Agency surveillance of online activities is extending down the spine as not one, but two encrypted email services are shutting down. Lavabit, an encrypted email service that allegedly counted NSA leaker Ed Snowden among its userbase, is suspending its […]

The HP TippingPoint Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) sits at a very opportune place in the modern IT security threat ecosystem. Instead of just waiting to discover threats, ZDI buys security vulnerabilities from researchers in an effort to help secure both HP customers and the broader industry. Sitting at the top of ZDI for the last […]

Of those three bulletins rated critical in the upcoming August 2013 Patch Tuesday update, one in particular has my interest. Once again, Microsoft is patching its often attacked Internet Explorer Web browser. I got a great email comment from Lamar Bailey, director of security research and development at Tripwire, about the recent spate of IE […]

Microsoft acquired Yammer in July 2012 for $1.2 billion and has spent the last year building out a solid road map. Aside from growing the user and features base, Microsoft has also helped secure Yammer. A security report from researchers at Vulnerability Laboratory this week, details a remote authorization bypass vulnerability in Yammer. The vulnerability […]