Stories by Cara Garretson

Why spammers are like dogs

In January, Cisco announced plans to acquire IronPort Systems, maker of communications security appliances, citing synergies between Cisco's threat mitigation, communications, policy control, and management products and IronPort's messaging and Web protection products. This acquisition won't be like most of the ones Cisco makes, says Scott Weiss, the founder and CEO of IronPort, because IronPort won't be integrated into the networking giant but operated instead as a separate unit.

InBoxer unveils virtualized compliance appliance

<a href="http://www.inboxer.com/" target="_blank">InBoxer</a> on Wednesday announced a virtualized version of its appliance for archiving e-mail, detecting data leaks, and meeting electronic discovery requirements.

Security: Thumb sucking, slurping, snarfing...

Remember when thumb sucking was considered an innocent activity, except that if you did it as a young child you might need braces as a teen? Today you'd need a lot more than a mouthful of metal to protect from thumb sucking.

Network startup funding stuck in neutral

While venture funding across industries broke out of its long-held range to top $US7 billion during the first quarter, investments in network-related companies are holding steady at the quarterly rate of roughly $US2 billion to $US3 billion.

Survey: Removable storage devices popular in business

About 73 percent of 308 respondents to a survey taken at two recent conferences said they store corporate data on removable media, but 46 percent answered they did not have -- or were unaware of -- a corporate security policy in place to protect that information.

Should Apple secure its iPods?

Few corporations are likely to ban iPods in the workplace, but whether Apple and other manufacturers of MP3 players shoulder some responsibility to add security to their devices -- and how effective that security would be -- is a growing debate.

Can an iPod bring down your company?

The recent buzz about security threats posed by iPods to corporations has reinforced the need for IT managers to treat these devices like any other removable media that employees with malicious intent can use to extract sensitive data.

McAfee CEO ponders consolidation, Cisco threat

On Monday at 6 a.m., Dave DeWalt stood in front of McAfee's Plano, Texas, offices to greet employees with coffee, doughnuts and a handshake. "They were wondering, 'Who's the guy in the suit?'" says the former EMC vice president who became McAfee's CEO on April 2.

Postini upgrades hosted security services

Postini on Monday announced new features for its hosted messaging security and compliance services that add investigation management, encryption features, and better protection against Internet threats.

How to fix e-mail authentication spec

Sender Policy Framework, a specification designed to authenticate e-mail senders and therefore cut down on spam, has one significant flaw -- which a technologist presenting at the MIT Spam Conference 2007 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, last Friday aims to fix.

RFID threats: Don't be alarmed, but be aware

The recurring topic of RFID security flaws has been making headlines again lately. But unlike new e-mail viruses or Internet worms that demand the immediate attention of the IT department, this threat isn't a front-burner security issue...at least not yet.

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