When chief information officers and other technology managers talk about their priorities, security is always high on the list.
It's not just age-old concerns such as corporate espionage and disruption to the business that CIOs worry about. Those issues have been around as long as corporations and governments — the use of information and communications technology has just made everything faster.
Discovering that corporate PCs are part of a botnet not only means the company's system resources are being stolen, it is also likely that the infected computers are being used by criminals for activities such as sending spam, hosting phishing websites or launching DDoS attacks.
It's commonly agreed that there is no way to guarantee the security of any large organisation's systems. Instead, the debate generally revolves around balancing risks, costs and flexibility so the business can continue to function effectively.
Keeping operating systems and applications up to date and working around potentially damaging vulnerabilities — such as the domain name system hole discovered by researcher Dan Kaminsky — ensure those tasked with security need to be up-to-date with new threats.
Then there's the need to protect every end-point device; the advent of data-rich handsets such as Research in Motion's BlackBerry and Apple's iPhone are making the job even more difficult.
ZDNet.com.au's dynamic guide to security will keep you up to date with all the current issues, debates, opinions and products in the security field.
Features and Case Studies
Antivirus software manufacturers all claim to protect us against threats, but how well do they actually perform? We put six popular business internet security packages to the test.
McAfee Total Protection 2010 is the latest in McAfee's security stable to offer all the bells, whistles and options that the company can squeeze into one security suite. This program is nothing if not extensive, as the following screenshots show.
Microsoft has launched a new free security package today dubbed Microsoft Security Essentials.
With apologies to John Clarke and Bryan Dawe, ZDNet.com.au's Ratbags team has put together its own interpretation of the Federal Government's internet filtering initiative.
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The apache.org website suffered an intrusion over the weekend that resulted in the site being taken down.
The footage Four Corners displayed of a suspected Melbourne fraudster's house and technology during a police raid last week hardly fits the profile of a master fraudster.
The ongoing saga of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) has taken another turn with reports today that hackers instigated a denial of service attack on the Festival's website shopping cart.
This week Symantec made beta versions of its flagship Norton Internet Security 2010 and Antivirus 2010 products available for testing. We put NIS 2010 through its paces to see how it stacks up.
Firewalls have come a long way since we last looked at them in 2005, and have now become full-blown Unified Threat Management devices. We take a look at the top players.
Australia's largest annual security conference, AusCERT, is underway for another year, and continues the tradition of bringing security gurus, vendors and members of government under one roof.
In the past week, the security environment around Adobe's Reader and Acrobat products has imploded, with yet more JavaScript vulnerabilities appearing. Adobe needs to look no further than Microsoft for a lesson in how to deal with these situations.
Mac users should heed the call and realise that root user stupidity can always subvert any security in place.
Renowned security researcher Mikko Hypponen talks to ZDNet.com.au about the pros and cons of law enforcement using hacking techniques to fight crime.
Sceptical that Australians are targeted by cybercrime? Late last year the Australian Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCERT) was asked to repatriate hundreds of Commonwealth Bank customer credentials which had been stolen via the ZeuS trojan.
I was waiting for the UAC-based security problems to occur after Windows 7's release but alas that was not to be, for problems have occurred in the beta version of Windows 7.
Scared of being swept out in a round of redundancies? Then join a security company, where your misery is the industry's opportunity to protect intellectual property.
It's always funny watching an event force a company to break old habits and this IE zero day was enough for Microsoft to do it. As Microsoft Australia's strategic security advisor Stuart Strathdee said "we pulled all stops to get this patch out".
Virtualised desktop environments, in some cases using Linux, are gaining in popularity as IT administrators realise they can deliver security advantages. We tell the story of one Australian government department and take you through the landscape.
Norton Internet Security 2009 hits all the right security notes and its superior protection technologies might even win back some jaded anti-Symantec folks. We take you on a tour.
Does anyone seriously believe that Australian businesses and government agencies manage security any better than the US or UK?
Related News
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has commenced a final roll-out of two-factor authentication (2FA) systems that will see 400,000 customers of its NetBank internet banking service upgraded to the secure log-in technology.
An Australian has released a virus for the Apple iPhone, ikee, which replaces the infected device's background picture with an image of Rick Astley.
An international expert on ATM card skimming gangs has warned Australia is seen as a soft target because of large withdrawal limits and old ATM technology.
National Australia Bank is confident that it has the tools it needs to leapfrog rivals by adopting three-factor authentication, adding an extra means of security to the normal two factors most Australian banks offer customers to secure their transactions.
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The South Australian Government has locked in Dimension Data for a further three years under a managed network and security deal worth $36 million, with the government shaving off over $1 million a year from the value of the past contract.
Security experts from Defence have been called in to assist agencies that were targeted by last night's attack on the Prime Minister's and other agency websites. More attacks are expected, according to sources.
Fewer than half of all home computer users protect their systems from viruses, cyber-crime and other hacking, Australian Federal Police e-crime chief Neil Gaughan told federal parliament this week in a wide-ranging testimony.
Huawei has issued a furious denial of newspaper reports that claimed the Chinese networking vendor was being investigated by the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) for links to Chinese political interests.
The Federal Government is planning a radical overhaul of telecommunications interception rules, which has some concerned it may be used to force internet service providers (ISP) to inspect customers' online activities.
The Australian Federal Police today confirmed it had not yet made any arrests from a highly publicised raid on an alleged internet fraudster in Melbourne, despite holding evidence for around a week.
Australian researchers have demonstrated a way to prove core software for mission-critical systems is safe.
Queensland Rail has gone to market for a supplier to provide a Wi-Fi service on the state's suburban trains that would offer wireless internet, security and other services.
Australian security company Internet Sheriff Technology (iSheriff) has been put up for sale following what appears to be financial problems.
The Royal Australian Air Force has confirmed that a hacker defaced its website on 13-14 July, in an attack the perpetrator described as a warning message to stop racism against Indian students in Australia.
Sydney's Macquarie University has contracted Avaya to provide it with a 6000-handset IP telephony roll-out, in what appeared to be a snub to its existing networking partner Nortel, which maintains its Australian head office on the university's campus.
Tough new laws aimed at clamping down on identity fraud are being drafted by the NSW government.
Symantec Australia's former chief David Sykes has re-emerged in the security industry at the company's arch rival McAfee.
Do Mac OS X users really need antivirus? ZDNet.com.au recently posed the question to security professionals at the AusCERT 2009 IT security conference on the Gold Coast.
An Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) executive has told a Senate Estimates hearing that the alleged leak of its blacklist in March was the result of a hacker reverse-engineering a Family Friendly filter.
Hackers have started to target specific government personnel, as opposed to simply using broad scattergun approaches, the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service warned this week.
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