Stories by Cara Garretson

Barracuda attracts US$40 million in venture investment

Who says the e-mail security market is overfunded? Certainly not Sequoia Capital, which led a whopping US$40 million investment in messaging appliance maker Barracuda Networks in a deal that was announced on Monday.

IBM offers patents to start ups at bargain prices

In the spirit of making intellectual property more accessible to technology start ups, IBM announced Tuesday a program that provides all of the computer giant's 40,000 patents to young companies in its venture capital program for a dramatically reduced rate.

Security company touts new approach on insider threat

Oakley Networks, which has been selling its technology for information-leakage detection and prevention to government agencies for five years, plans to release this week a product that also can be used by non-government entities.

Columnist goes public about privacy

Quoting Federal Trade Commission stats that point to identity theft as a top consumer issue, New York Times language columnist William Safire told an audience in Washington at the CSI Security Conference that it's up to individuals to take responsibility for the protecting their own information.

Vulnerable security algorithms raise concerns

Industry experts agree that the future of two widely used security algorithms is fated, but with no clear alternatives in sight products that rely on them may have to remain "good enough" for some time.

Wireless startups attract record VC money

Venture-capital investments in companies with products or services related to wireless technology reached a four-year high of US$455 million during the third quarter, according to a report released Tuesday.

Postini to sell threat-identification technology

E-mail security service provider Postini Monday made commercially available the Postini Threat Identification Network service, which the company has been using internally to pinpoint senders of spam and malicious e-mail.

Compliance software adds privacy keyword filtering

Workshare has released the latest version of its document compliance software that for the first time includes the company's Document Hygiene technology designed to guard against privacy breaches and the disclosure of sensitive information.

Antispam vendors spread their wings

During the past few years, enterprise e-mail security needs have expanded beyond simply fighting spam. As a result, vendors in this space are left having to continuously enhance their products with related features in order to keep up.

Sigaba upgrades e-mail security app

Messaging security vendor Sigaba has announced an upgrade to its SigabaNet gateway software offering companies control over the e-mail messages that leave their organizations.

IBM takes startups under wing

When it comes to selling products to big companies, young software companies face a Catch-22: Most corporations aren't willing to bet on a business application that doesn't have at least a few large customer references, yet those references will never materialize without some brave soul believing enough in a start-up to take a risk on its unproven software.

Networking startups' comeback continues

Three of the ten largest venture-capital investments made during the second quarter were in networking or telecommunications companies, continuing the renewed interest among VCs in funding a sector that has lagged dramatically in the last few years.

[]